Page 93 of Secret Baby for my Off-Limits Fiancé

In the blink of an eye, I close the distance between us, my face dangerously close to hers.

Eva gasps, her confidence flickering for the first time.

“You have no right to speak about my mother.” My voice is low, venomous, vibrating with a rage I haven’t let myself feel in years. “You want to throw your tantrums? Fine. You want to slander me? Go ahead. But don’t you dare speak about my mother. You are not worthy of even saying her name.”

Eva stares at me, her breath hitching, but there’s no regret in her expression. Only defiance.

The heat of my own fury pulses through my veins, my vision blurring around the edges.

Somewhere behind me, someone gasps. Murmurs. A sharp intake of breath from Layla. But I don’t care.

Eva tilts her chin up, her lips twisting into a sickly-sweet mockery of a smile.

“Wow. Touchy subject, huh?”

My muscles coil, every instinct screaming at me to end this, to throw her out myself.

A firm hand clamps down on my shoulder.

Dante.

“Enough!” His voice cuts through the fog of my fury, snapping me back.

I realize my fingers are digging into Eva’s arm, her skin turning red beneath my grip.

Slowly, painfully, I release her, my hands trembling with restraint.

“Time to go, Eva.” Dante steps between us. His voice is lethal in its calmness.

Eva straightens her dress, her face carefully schooled back into indifference, but I see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the slight shake of her fingers.

She felt my anger. She knows she went too far. But instead of backing down, she throws me one last smirk. “Your fiancée is more like your mother than you think. A gold-digger.”

Dante moves to block me before I can react.

“Leave. Now.” His voice is all steel and authority.

Eva glances between us, then exhales through her nose, rolling her shoulders back. “Fine. I was just leaving anyway.”

She turns on her heel, but not before I catch the flash of something in her eyes.

Not defeat.

Satisfaction.

She wanted this reaction. She wanted me to snap, to lose control, to show everyone the monster she thinks I am.

Dante follows her to make sure she actually leaves this time.

The air still crackles with the lingering tension from Eva’s outburst. Even though she’s gone, I can still hear her venomous words echoing in my head, my mother’s name laced with disdain as if she had any right to speak it.

Exhaling sharply, I try to force the anger out of my body, but it clings to me like smoke from a fire I can’t put out.

I turn back to the guests, catching Layla from the corner of my eye.

She’s surrounded by Quinn and a few others. But something’s off.

I can see it in the way she tucks her hands close to her body, her fingers fidgeting like she doesn’t know what to do with them. In the way her smile is thin and forced, in the way her eyes dart around the room like she’s searching for an escape.

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