Page 42 of Portrait of a Protective Billionaire

Where is my phone? Oh…Leaving it on the couch was my mistake. Now, I find myself cornered. The best I can do now is pretend, as always.

“We should name her Carmen,” he pronounces. “I think it’d be beautiful for her to have her mother’s true name.”

“I–um…was thinking of Adeline,” I choke out. He ponders over it for a moment.

“It’s pleasant but has no meaning,” he comments.

I nod.

A knowing smile spreads on his face, “I forgive you.”

“What?”

“I forgive you for everything you did to me during our last encounter.”

Everything I did to him?

The urge to scoff is hard to resist. I desire to hit him, scratch him, scream at him for being a delusional prick, and do everything in my power to try and make him see how terrible of a person he is. He’ll never understand.

I take in a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I whisper meekly. His hand combs through my hair.

“I know, baby,” he replies. “Don’t do that ever again. I’m here to save you, and now we can live happily ever after together in our own little house and raise our daughter.” He cups my face to stare into my shaking pupils. “Ourdaughter.” He bares his teeth subtly. He closes his eyes and breathes deeply.

“You also lied to me about Mr. Evan Blackburn.‘Only a client,’you said.” He raises an eyebrow.

“I-it wasn’t a lie…not then it wasn’t,” I try to explain.

“Please, you may not have been dating, but I could tell you liked him before you even knew, and something tells me you already knew about your feelings,” he states sternly. “I’ll let it go. Come back to me and forget about this asshole, we can be happy together.” I can’t understand how priceless I am to him. Irreplaceable.

I thought he’d get bored of me, hate me, and find someone else who actually wants his obsessive attention. Nope. He is too deep into it now. He's convinced that I’ll change my mind and agree to be his final puzzle piece to happiness. If he had the capacity to listen, I could’ve assured him that I wasn’t.

“It’s gonna…it’s gonna take a lot of healing,” I communicate.

“Of course it is, but whose fault was that?” he grins like it's a joke. “It’s taken this long. A couple more years, and we’ll be back to normal. A perfectly normal, happy family,” he articulates. The more he says it, the further he cements the idea in his brain. I canseeit happening.

“I don’t know,” I express. “My feet hurt.”

“Oh! Goodness, right; we can’t have you up on your feet,” he leads me to the couch.

My phone’s around here somewhere.

It's probably tangled in the blanket, but I’ll search for it when he isn’t a couple of inches from my face, stroking my cheek.

“Are you comfortable? Need anything else?” he asks. He peeks up and notices Evan on the screen, making his face go sour. He changes the channel.

“Well, I was just going to get a sweet bun from…the kitchen,” I pretend to struggle to get up from the couch.

“No, no, no, sit down; your feet hurt. I’ll get it for you, baby.” He shoots up from the seat and walks into the kitchen. I instantly search the fluffy cover, and soon I feel a hard, rectangular item wrapped within.

“Come on,” I mutter.

“Darling, where are they?” he calls out.

“In the pantry all the way to the left,” I reply, becoming desperate. He’ll be back in less than a minute, no doubt. I stand up and shake my phone free from the covers, causing it to land on the ground with a loud thud.

“What was that?” he asks.

I swipe my phone off the floor. My chat with Evan is already open, so I send a message as quickly as possible.

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