Page 91 of Captivated By You

“I’m not going to the police.”

My jaw slackened, my mouth dropping open. “What the fuck do you mean? You arenotgoing to let him get away with this.”

She grasped clumps of her hair. “Ash, please. Stop badgering me.”

“Kiana.” I clasped her wrists, pulling her arms apart. “Listen to me. The man should be in jail. He has committed a felony.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. Ash, I can’t. All the questions, and the police watching me. Watching me and him. And the publicity. Jesus, no. It’ll wreck me, and it’ll ruin you. Ruin your reputation. Your family’s reputation.” She clamped her lips into a thin line. “I won’t do it.”

My hands fisted out of pure rage that powered through me, eating me from the inside out. Whatever culpability I had in this, Barlow had fired an unforgivable shot at an innocent woman. Revenge porn. The cruelest of betrayals. One that I would see that he paid for.

“Then I will go to the police for you.”

“No!” Her fingers threaded into her hair again, tugging on the roots. “I forbid it. I will never forgive you if you go to the police without my consent.”

“Kiana—”

“I said no, Ash. You can’t fix this. The police can’t fix it. No one can fix it. That video is out there. Forever.”

She looked so bleak and forlorn that my heart cracked. “Please let me hold you.”

“No.” She inched away, sending shooting pains through my chest, a physical reaction to emotional distress. The idea of the woman I loved rejecting me at the very time she needed me the most cut me through to the bone. To the soul.

“I called my mom.” Her watery gaze flickered to mine. “She got the video, too. And my brothers, my dad, my best friend. Everyone knows. Everyone hasseen.” She flexed her fingers, stretching them out wide. “We’re always told ‘Don’t click on links,’ yet still we do it. The curiosity to see what someone has sent to us, even when it’s from a stranger. It’s like a gift we can’t help unwrapping. And he knew that. He knew exactly what he was doing.”

“You’re killing me,” I whispered through a raw throat.

“I want you to go,” she murmured, so quietly that I thought I’d misheard at first.

“What? No. I’m not leaving.”

“We can’t be together now. Not now.”

My eyebrows flew up, eyes widening. “What the hell are you talking about? This changes nothing between us.”

“That’s just it,” she croaked. “It’s changed everything.”

“I-I don’t understand.”

She canted her head, and a flash of… pity crossed her face. Not self-pity. That wasn’t Kiana’s style. It was more like compassion. For me.

“Ash, your family is known the world over. There’s no way I can allow your reputation to be sullied by your association with me.”

“Kiana, don’t be ridiculous. In a few weeks, no one will remember this. It will blow over soon. I promise you.”

“No. It won’t.”

She unsteadily got to her feet, and only then did I notice the suitcase standing just inside the door to her apartment.

“What’s going on?”

“I’m going home. To Chicago.”

I shot upright. “No. You can’t.”

“I can, and I am. I’ve already booked my flight. Dad is picking me up at the airport.”

“I won’t let you.”

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