Chapter 24 #3
Melody felt Victor’s stare on her. Melody focused on the open doorway. Olivia still held the door open. Through that open door, Calista and Luis peered back at her.
“Is everything all right?” Calista asked, a frown pulling at her pretty features.
“No, no, it’s not all right,” Olivia snapped at her. “My best friend just found out that your jerk of a boss has been lying to her and using her for ages. We’re getting her out of here.” A determined nod. “Come on, Melody. You’ll be safe with us. Let’s go.”
She stumbled forward, with Dario’s grip tight on her. She was almost at the threshold.
“I’m not letting you leave.” Victor’s voice. A harsh growl. He’d moved into her path.
Dario laughed. Bitter. Mocking. “See what I mean? He can’t lose control.
He’s a possessive, predatory jackass.” He let go of Melody and took an aggressive step toward Victor.
“What are you gonna do? Have your goons attack us? You gonna kidnap Melody? Or, wait, have you already been there and done that shit?”
Melody forced herself to look at Victor. She expected absolute rage to be on his face. But instead…
Sorrow.
“I’m not letting you leave alone, baby,” Victor gritted from between clenched teeth.
His hands were clenched into powerful fists at his sides.
“You don’t want to be with me, fine, but I can’t have you in danger, Melody.
Calista and Luis are your guards. Where you go, they go, got it?
You need protection. You have to stay safe. ”
“She is safe with me,” Dario vowed. “As if we’d trust anyone you hired!”
“Well, that’s just insulting,” Calista muttered. “I am exceedingly trustworthy.”
“I do feel insulted,” Luis agreed.
Victor just stared at Melody. His dark eyes swirled with the thunderstorm of his emotions.
Footsteps thudded down the hallway. Not fast and storming. Hard and determined. Another guard, coming to join the mess in the boardroom? One of the uniformed security guards from Mage? Or maybe—maybe it was the detective. Detective Angus Clinton was supposed to be coming to the scene, wasn’t he?
“What in the hell is going on here?” Hunter McQueen’s fierce voice demanded.
Not the detective. The Ice Breaker that Victor had been using to find her.
Victor has guards to protect me. He keeps my hot chocolate in his house. He hired PIs to find me. Victor…
“My stepsister,” Dario emphasized, “has just found out what a total and utter liar your boss is. You’re not gonna be flying her off in some helicopter with him again.”
Dario had been watching them all from the estate as they left in the chopper. She’d felt the stares on her.
Victor…
Victor had taken a bullet for her. Well, a graze. One that he still basically refused to acknowledge but…
Her head tilted. The past surged up to choke her. “Victor sends his regards. Drive the fucking car.” The words seemed to be playing in her head on an endless loop. Only in her head. She didn’t voice them. Couldn’t.
“I didn’t tell you about my past,” Victor spoke flatly. “I didn’t tell you about my plans for Mage. I didn’t tell you because everything changed when I met you.”
“Bullshit.” A sneer from Dario. “We’ve wasted enough time. Come on. We’ll wait down in the lobby for the detective.”
The past pulled harder at her. That stupid, grating voice… “Victor sends his regards. Drive the fucking car.”
Her breath shuddered out. Her gaze darted around the boardroom.
So familiar. So different. “I’m done being your dirty little secret.
” Her words. Her past. Her stare shifted back to Victor.
She wet her lips. “I’m done being your dirty little secret.
” The words were out loud, not just in her mind. She’d spoken them deliberately.
His eyes widened. “Melody?” One of his hands reached for her.
“Uh, Vic?” Hunter cleared his throat. “What the hell is my role here? You the good guy or the villain?”
“Both,” Victor snapped. “And if Melody leaves this room, you stay with her every second, understand me? Every. Second. I’ll give you a million damn dollars to keep her within sight at all times.”
Melody barely heard his words. Her heart pounded too fast. Echoed too loudly in her ears. “You’re breaking my heart,” she whispered. Again, familiar words and, in response, he was going to say back…
Didn’t think you could break a heart that someone didn’t have.
But instead of saying those words—the words that she knew he’d said in the past—pain twisted his face. “You own my heart,” he told her. The hand he’d lifted toward her hovered in the air. As if he was afraid to touch her.
Dario pulled at her. “Enough. Melody, he stole the company. He wanted to destroy us all from the beginning. You can never trust him.”
And, yet…Melody jerked away from Dario’s grip. She took a step closer to Victor.
Victor, who stood as still as a statue even as his eyes blazed at her.
“You two are done.” Dario’s voice cracked on the last word. “Over. You might have taken the company—for the moment—but you and Melody are over. Hear me? Done. She knows the truth about you—”
“We’re not done.” Victor’s vow.
Those words—this room—she looked again, almost dizzy as her heart seemed ready to burst right out of her chest and as her temples throbbed. “Why not?” The words were an echo of the past. “You have everything you ever wanted.”
Victor’s head shook. One hard, negative swipe from left to right. “The hell I do.” Grim. An echo of the past that she could feel flooding through her. “But I will.” A vow.
Then he dropped to his knees right in front of her.