Page 65 of The Bad Wedding Date

“Why?”

“Why do most women stay? Because they’re scared no one will believe them. They’re scared to quit a job they can’t afford to lose. They’re scared the authorities will say they brought it on themselves. They’re scared to believe that’s their reality. They’re scared they might not be able to feed their kids. Deep down, I think I was the sole reason she stayed. I was to blame.”

“No, Fraser.” Charlotte shook her head, the empathy in her eyes making the muscles in my jaw tick. I didn’t want her to think of me as weak. I hadn’t been weak for almost two decades. I’d never be weak again.

“I’m sorry. This isn’t something I talk about often.”

“Then, don’t…”

“I’ve spent twenty years wanting to kill Matteo Vega, thinking about not much else but that. I’ve imagined the ways I could steal his life from him, the way he stole my mother’s. Keeping him alive but making him suffer at my hands for the rest of his days. Until you. Those few hours before I saw him at the wedding… I can’t tell you what a welcomed reprieve from the constant ache for revenge they were, Charlotte. If there’s one thing I need you to know from all of this, it’s that. Your time was a gift.”

One simple look from this woman, and I was ready to say more than I had to my men in years. She didn’t know what to say, so she didn’t say anything, and there was so much fucking beauty in that. I couldn’t stop myself from telling her more.

“When you went to sleep last night, one of my men, Wade, text me to tell me that Matteo had taken a room at the hotel. Knowing he was so close, I couldn’t help it… I made a mistake.”

She took a step closer to me, her hand coming up to rest against my bicep. My eyes immediately dropped to it, and I stared at her tender touch. Something so simple. Something so insignificant, yet I couldn’t remember the last time a woman had done that without expecting my dick inside them at the end of it.

My nostrils flared, and I knew this would be the beginning of something I could never end. It would be up to her to walk away now, and I only hoped she did that before I put her in the path of danger even more than I already had.

“Then what happened?” she asked.

“Wade told me the number of Matteo’s room. Dean and Joey acted like drunk wedding guests, staggering onto the floor it was on to draw his security away.”

“He had security outside his doors?”

“Guilty people’s paranoia has them guarding every aspect of their lives. The lies they tell, the webs they weave… it all catches up with them in the end until they think everyone is out to get them.”

“Good. He deserves it. What happened once Dean and Joey had distracted him?”

“Wade tapped into the hotel’s security and temporarily knocked out all the cameras the way only he knows how. That left me to get into Matteo’s room with a master key we have for the place. The room was dark when I slipped in, filled with his arrogant snores. Part of me wished he’d been awake. I wanted to see that instant fear in his eyes when he saw me towering over him.” I ran my hand over my mouth, dragging it down over my jaw and blowing out a breath. “The moment I saw him lying there, all that anger rose up, Charlotte, and the next thing I knew, I just wanted it over with. I wanted the job done.”So I could get back to you,I thought. “I knelt over him, literally struggling like hell not to smash my fist into his face and throw him around the room until I redecorated it with his blood.”

Charlotte winced.

“Before I could give it too much thought, I wrapped my hands around his neck, and I just began to squeeze. It felt good to feel his pathetic attempts to rip my hands away. It felt good to watch him search my eyes, to see the fear pouring out of him as he turned red. I didn’t even break a sweat, Charlotte. I didn’t even try. If it had gone on for another thirty seconds, he’d have been dead.”

“What stopped you?”

“I guess I went so blind to the rage, I didn’t hear the door click open and one of his men enter the room.”

“Shit,” she gasped.

“The guy swung at me, knocked me off. It took me a minute to get my head back in the game and get back to my feet, but when I heard him radioing to the others, it didn’t take long to put him on the floor. It left me enough time to get out of there.”

“That’s when you came back for me…”

“I went back for you.” I nodded. “Matteo had seen me. He knew who I was, and he’d remember who he saw me with at the wedding. I couldn’t risk him doing anything to you in my absence.”

She ran a hand over her forehead and leaned over the railing to rest her elbows on it as she looked out over the ocean. “So, that’s it now? I’m in danger?”

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

She glanced at me carefully. “You have the ability to promise that?”

“On my life.”

“And what about his life?”

“I plan on destroying it as soon as I can.”

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