“Why are you laughing?”
“Because you’re beautiful.”
Monique sighed. There was no point in talking to him. He was insane. She didn’t want his crazy to rub off on her.
“Let me go.” She tried to jerk away from him. Her arm didn’t budge.
“You’re beautiful and I want you,” he told her, smile fading. “But we will have rules. This shit you just pulled, while adorable, cannot happen again. Especially not in front of my security.”
“Don’t want to be embarrassed in front of your men, huh?” she taunted, mainly because she couldn’t hurt him any other way. She couldn’t even free her wrist from his grasp.
“No. Because I don’t wantthemto hurtyou.”
“Oh.”
“Rosa, I’m not trying to...”
“Don’t call me that,” she interrupted him. “It doesn’t sound right anymore.”
The tick in his jaw pleased her. Did that make her as toxic as him? Still gripping her wrist, he stood, bringing her with him. Her free hand fell to her side. For a fleeting moment, she considered fighting him. She decided against it. She had to pick her battles strategically. Another failure was not an option. Monique didn’t struggle against him as he led her over to her chair.
“Sit,” he ordered.
Monique eased into the chair. “I’m not signing this,” she said, shoving the papers away.
“Look at the last page.”
“Why?”
“Will you always question everything I tell you to do?” he asked.
“Hopefully, we won’t have to see each other much longer, so that won’t be a problem.”
Her words struck a nerve. He snatched the papers up, flipped to the last page, then sat them in front of her again. Unable to help herself, she stared down at the last page. It was just an overview of what the other pages had said.
“Different page, same bullshit,” she commented.
“The last line,” he told her.
Her gaze dropped to the last line. That’s when she saw it. Scrawled across the page in her own handwriting was her name.What the absolute fuck!Monique snatched the papers up to get a closer look as if that would change what she was seeing.
“I never signed this,” she whispered, staring at her name, mind reeling.
“You did, Rosa.”
“Don’t...” She paused, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then released it slowly. Opening her eyes, she said, “Don’t call me that. And I’d know if I’d signed some stupid shit like this. I didn’t. I wouldn’t.”
“You would, and you did, on the last anniversary you shared with your bastard of an ex. Which was here, in my casino, right?”
A strange sensation crept over her as she recalled her last anniversary dinner with her ex. She didn’t like where this was going.
“You shouldn’t know that we came here for our anniversary,” she told him. “But, yes, we did.”
“Before you left, the chef presented you with a prize. A free date night at the restaurant. Right?”
That rang a bell.Oh, right!The chef had come to their table to greet them and wish them a happy anniversary. Then he’d told them that he loved seeing happy couples together. So, he wanted to gift them a free night at the restaurant.
The restaurant would be closed to everyone else for two hours while she and her ex dined alone. She’d been so excited because she’d known restaurants didn’t normally do things like that. She’d convinced herself that Trevor had planned it all. She’d thought he was trying to change, to make their marriage work.