Page 13 of Lethal Vows

“Protect me?” I respond, confused. I moved to New York because no one would know who I was, and I wouldn’t need protection there. “I haven’t known Monica the whole time I’ve been here.”

“I know. There was someone else before her. I knew you were getting suspicious, so I went the safest route…” He pauses. “A friend.”

Fury overtakes me like a volcano about to erupt. All this time, I thought I’d been free. Instead, I’d been so, what? Naïve?“Idon’tneedprotecting!” I scream into the phone.

“You do if he’s there,” he whispers.

I hear my stepmother say something in the background, but I don’t wait to hear what else this man has to say. I hang up and grip my phone a little harder than necessary before I walk to the end of the street, where there’s more light.

“I can’t work out if you’re dumb or you think you’re lucky.”

I jump at the voice coming from behind me. Spinning around, I find Crue stalking toward me. What I assume to be his car waits at the other end of the road. He steps closer, and I step back.

“Walking by yourself at night seems like a gamble.” Another step closer and then another, his boots clicking against the pavement. Goose bumps tickle my skin. He stops, but only briefly, to look me up and down. “Do you think yourself better than everyone else?” he asks.

“What the fuck?”

He’s directly in front of me now, and I take another step back, my body hitting the cold brick wall behind me. “If you don’t shift back, I’ll knee you in the balls again. Get the fuck away from me.”

“So fiery. I like it.”

“Get. Away. From. Me,” I repeat with more spirit, punctuating each word before I lift my knee, but he dodges it. I raise my hand to slap him, but he’s ready for me and catches it. Then, just as quickly, he snatches the other one and pins them against the wall behind me. Crue moves in until our bodies touch, and I can no longer get my knee up between us to do any damage.

The asshole has me trapped.

“I told you when you were sixteen, I would marry you.”

“We were kids. Grow up,” I spit back.

“My words hold meaning and truth. From then and until now, I meant it.”

“Who would want to marry someone who hates them?” I seethe.

He chuckles and leans in, his lips near my neck. My body shivers, and I know he notices it.

“You don’t hate me, not yet anyway.”

“That’s because I don’t know you.”

“ButIknowyou.”

“You know facts about me, not who I actually am.” I try to push him off, which only makes our bodies press closer together.

That was a mistake.

“Tell me who you are.”

“I am a woman whohatesto be manhandled. Now, get the fuck off of me.” From the conversation with my father to now, my blood is lava, rage coming to the forefront.

“No,” he says, not moving an inch. “Tell me you’ll marry me.”

“No,” I throw back at him.

When he doesn’t move, I can feel myself becoming angrier and angrier, not just because he has me trapped, and I absolutely hate to be trapped, but because I kind of like it.

My body betrays any rational thought.

Not that I would ever admit that to him.

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