Page 169 of I Was Always Yours (RCA: Royal Crown Academy)

I watch with dispassionate interest as Lev falls to his knees with a choked breath, clutching his stomach as he fights to suck air into his lungs.

“I can do this all night,” Phoenix says, pulling my gaze back up to his. “But I don’t want to. Tell your men to leave so we can discuss.”

“Or I could just shoot you.” I say, pulling out the Glock I always keep hidden on me and pointing it at him.

He crosses his arms and looks at me with levels of arrogance I’d previously never seen before outside of myself.

The fucker makes me think of a younger version of myself.

“You won’t do that.” He says, quiet confidence echoing freely in his voice.

“And why’s that?”

“Because your daughter loves me.” He answers, dropping into a chair in front of me as he stares down the barrel of the gun with ease.

It’s always tough to intimidate a psychopath. They don’t react the way a normal person would so it’s impossible to anticipate. I knew the moment I set eyes on him when he was a kid that he was one to watch. Clearly, my instincts had been correct.

I stare at him a second longer.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” I say, putting the gun down on the table. I nod at a couple of guards to come and help Lev.

“She does.” He deadpans. “Your daughter is mine, Callum. She’s going to marry me.” He guarantees and the steel is back in his voice. He grabs my phone off the table and places it down firmly in front of me. “Call whichever fucker you engaged her to to replace me and tell him the deal is off. Tell him she already belongs to someone else.”

I remain straight-faced, not revealing my surprise at the mention of another fiancé.

Clearly my daughter is trying to make him suffer and judging by the distraught look that’s barely concealed under the anger as well as the deep circles lining his eyes, it’s working.

“Why should I do that?”

He steeples his hands over his stomach as he stares at me. “You need my father’s support. You need the contract.”

I openly laugh at the comedy of his words. When I’m done, I spread my hands around me.

“I run the largest weapons company in the world. Our smallest contract starts at a billion dollars.” I say, my smile slipping as I meet his gaze again. “And you think I need your father? I never needed him, this whole engagement was my wife’s idea. She was convinced you guys were destined for each other.”Like we were, I think. I don’t say it out loud.

“Your father might be important in the UK, but there’s no country in the world I set foot in where the heads of state don’t personally welcome me at the airport.” My gaze falls on a smiling photo of Six I have framed on my desk. My only child, the second love of my life. “The only reason you were picked, is because of her. Theonlything that was asked of you in this arrangement was to make Six happy. Clearly, you can’t do that so we no longer have any use for you.”

If I expected that to deter him, I’m proven wrong when he grins.

“I don’t think you understand,” he says, standing again and leaning over my desk. “I’m not asking. Your daughter is mine, she’s been mine since the day I met her. If you won’t break off this engagement, then I’ll take her and marry her at the courthouse tomorrow. Or I’ll kidnap her and keep her far away, somewhere no one will be able to find her, not even you.”

I raise to my feet, my temper fraying dangerously at the hands of this fucker’s audacity.

“Careful, Phoenix. You don’t want to talk about taking my daughter away from me. You won’t survive it.”

“That’s exactly why she’s mine. Because Iwillsay it and if it comes to it, Iwilldo it. I wouldn’t hesitate to kill you if it guaranteed I’d get to keep her, not for a second.” He snarls.He pauses a moment before straightening. “Isn’t that the type of man you want marrying your daughter?”

Phoenix probably thinks it’s his words that get to me, but it’s actually his desperation. It’s the torment and agony etched clear as day in his features, in the coil of his shoulders, in the haunted shadows of his eyes.

It’s the look of a man who’s lost the love of his life and is fighting to get her back. I know that look well for having worn it myself.

“Why did you do it?” I question.

“I was an idiot; I have no other excuse. I’m going to make it up to her, but I need the runway to be able to do so. I’m not asking you to betroth her back to me, I just need her not to be engaged to this other man and for the press not to learn that our engagement is over. Even temporarily.”

I cup my jaw thoughtfully, assessing him.

“You love her?”

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