Page 16 of The Vow

Red spotted my vision. The more time I spent here, the greater the risk I took being around him.

“I’m leaving,” I said, fuming.

I rushed to exit the room, but he was faster.His legs were longer.It didn’t help that the space was completely open, giving him a straight shot to blockade the path in front of me.

My choices then were poor. Stop. Run into the wall of his chest. Or try to outmaneuver him, which risked putting me in an even closer, more compromising position against his body.

“If you leave, you’ll jeopardize my plan, and our deal is off,” he warned, frustration shadowing his expression.

I hated that I recognized this look. Hated that because I’d seen it before—even over a dozen years ago—I knew it was out of a concern for my safety that he wanted me here.

“Plus, why would you want to stay in your apartment over this?” He extended his arms like a god who’d welcomed me onto Mount Olympus, his confidence bordering on narcissism. “It didn’t seem all that comfortable… or guarded.”

I bristled, about to defend the need for guards when even he—who’d been watching me—hadn’t found where I was living.Probably because I had several safe houses in the city that I rotated through every other day.But then a better idea struck.

“Who said I stayed there alone?” I batted my eyelashes.

He stepped closer to me, his arms lower to his sides. “Who lives with you?”

“A friend.” I shrugged. “Boyfriend.”

“Robyn…” A sharp growl tore from deep in his chest, the word like a strike against the flint in his gaze, sparking fury.Good.Better he be the one unnerved than me.

“What? You think I went fifteen years without finding someone?” I lightly scoffed. “Especially when Iknow you didn’t.”

“You have no idea what I did or didn’t do,” he snarled, prowling toward me. “But you’re welcome to ask.”

I backpedaled, sauntering through the meticulously arranged furniture and thoroughly enjoying the sudden break in his charming calm.

“Why would I ask when I don’t care how many women you fucked?” The sweetness of my voice tasted terrible on my tongue. Almost as terrible as the thought of what his answer would be.

The rumors of Damon Remington’s romantic conquests werealmostas infamous as his criminal ones.

“Then don’t,” he said, his measured steps tracing the path of mine. “But I do care, and I want to know.”

“You have no right.”

“I’m your husband.”

“Who lied and cheated and left me.”

Pain crippled his fury, stealing the breath from my lungs with how deeply it wounded him. And then in a blink, it was gone. Swallowed whole by the jealous monster I’d released inside him.

“Who is he?” Damon demanded, his voice deadly in its softness. The temptation to protest died with his next words. “You can either tell me his name, and I’ll make it quick. Or I can find his name, and I will make him pay twice for the effort.”

Saliva pooled in my mouth, drawn to the bitterness of my self-loathing. I couldn’t keep up the lie. Not to this extent. While I hadn’t had a front-row seat to my husband’s rise to criminal infamy, I’d read enough of the reviews to think twice before inciting his lethalness.

“No one, all right? No boyfriend. I live alone. I lost the taste for living with a man a long time ago.”

My fists were balled, my back ramrod straight. I was preparedfor his response—for his gloat. Instead, he stood there, drawing in slow, deep breaths as though he needed a minute to defuse the bomb inside him.How dare he care? After everything he’d done…

And then, with an expression wiped clean of the sudden excess of emotion, he picked up his jacket, laid it over his arm like a butler rather than an obvious billionaire, and said, “I’ll show you to your room.”

I should be glad the subject was dropped with such severity, but instead, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been left hanging by the unmasked anger and then anguish on his face.How could it be possible for him to be hurt when he was the one who left?

When he was the one who left me for someone else?

From the main floor, an open stairwell descended to the lower level. It wasn’t underground; there were just as many windows framing the back wall as there were on the first floor. Instead of one main room comprising the living space, kitchen, and dining area, the lower floor was broken into smaller rooms, one of which was mine.

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