Page 128 of Knocked Up by My Fake Fiancé
He doesn't answer. I don't hear his footsteps coming closer either. He has a very distinctive walk—a slow, measured, but heavy one that always makes my heart race.
Instead, what I hear is the light click-clack of… heels?
I frown and straighten. "Grayson?" I call out.
A feminine voice responds from the doorway behind me. "It's not Grayson."
I whip around in shock to find Marina in the doorway.
And she's pointing a gun at me.
My mind blanks for a second, unable to process what's happening. The pieces come together slowly, absurdly. I almost laugh—whether from hysteria or the sheer strangeness of it all. This sort of thing doesn't really happen. Not in real life. Only in the movies.
I blink. Marina is still there.
She's still holding a gun.
It's pointed at me, and she's staring at me very much like she wants to kill me.
"He's mine," she spits.
"What?" I manage, my voice quiet and stunned.
"Grayson," she continues. "He's mine. He's always been mine, and he's always going to be mine."
My mouth gapes open, but nothing comes out. What could I possibly say? I probably should be using hostage-negotiation tactics or saying something to calm the situation, but for some reason a ridiculous laugh is building in my chest, and I know the last thing I should do is laugh in her face.
As the danger in the air sharpens, I scramble through my mind for how to bring things down again.
"Listen… Marina…"
"Do you have any idea how hard I worked to get him?" she goes on, as if I haven't spoken—her quiet, trembling voice loaded with rage. "How hard I worked to get him to love me? He didn't see me at first. No, I was only a contractor. But I studied him, turned myself into everything he wanted in a woman, and charmed him. Yet I still came second fiddle to his work, and that stupid idiot George swooped in during a moment of weakness. He…" Her face twists. "He distracted me. But he's not the one for me. Grayson is."
She's unhinged. She must be.
I wonder why I never noticed it before—how she was able to lie without flinching in that bathroom the first time she approached me, then again when she pretended I made her fall.
It wasn't like she was lying. It was like she truly believed it.
And she's got a gun.
"He dropped me the second I made… the mistake," she keeps talking, almost to herself. "Even though I never complained once about how his family treated me and was always nice and accommodating, he couldn't forgive that one mistake. But with you… with you he gave up everything."
Her hand trembles, her index finger curled tight around the trigger. Sweat breaks out on my forehead, the salt stinging my eyes as it trickles down.
"Why? Why you? Why couldn't you have just listened to me and stayed away from him?"
"How…" I shake my head. "How did you even get in here?" It's the only thing I can think to say.
"Alvaro wouldn't let me in, but I remembered the code to the emergency back door."
"Of course." That's a stupid question to ask, but my brain isn't working. Time to jump-start it.
"Marina, please," I say, holding my hands up in surrender. "Don't do this. Look, you can have Grayson. I'll stay away from him from now on, I promise."
Her eyes narrow. "You're lying."
Shit. How could she tell?
