Page 54 of The Vow

Pat’s eye twitched. “You say that like you didn’t continue their torture after we left.”

Pat knew me before I’d becomehim.We’d met back when Damon Remington was little more than a caricature in Sinclair’s operation. And if it wasn’t for a terse but ruthless Irishman, that caricature would’ve rotted in a Japanese prison rather than becoming…me.

Those were the early days of my infamy. The days when I was desperately swindling and scrounging money together while building a reputation for the cover I’d assumed: Damon Remington. In fact, I’d wound up in that prison because I’d taken a high-ranking member of the Yakuza for a very large sum of money in an illegal casino one night. He wasn’t happy, and that was the last thing I remember him telling me before everything went dark.

When I woke, I was on a ship being raided by the authorities; the cargo, a shipment of methamphetamines. I’d had nothing to do with the meth or the smuggling operation, but prison was simply my punishment for being better at poker than a Yakuza gangster.

Pat was in the same prison for other crimes. Far more violent ones. But apparently the tale of my hunt to find mywife was one that struck a chord, and so he’d taken me with him on his escape.

“Not afraid of a little pain, Pat,” I told him, checking my watch again. “A wise person once told me, ‘There’s nothing quite as frightening as the power of the unknown.’”

I chuckled at his untampered curse because it was his advice I quoted. When he’d first said it, it had been in reference to Robyn’s disappearance. But from the jagged cracks of my broken heart, it seeped into my soul and formed the bedrock upon which I’d built an empire, one any criminal would be proud of. The irony was I’d never wanted to be a criminal. I was just a man who’d turned himself into a monster to protect the woman he loved.

My bodyguard’s attention shifted to the buzzing on the console. Pat looked at his phone, frowned, and then resumed his stare of displeasure.

“What is it?” I turned my wrist. Seven minutes until my meeting with Belmont.

“She’s not happy.”

Now, it was my turn to frown. “Safe is better than happy,” I returned, not liking the shade of scrutiny infecting his stare. Safe was better than content. Safe was better thanmine.

“You could just tell her the truth, Damon.”

My hand stilled on the rim of my hat, my heartbeat along with it. “Did she ask you?”

“No,” he said, giving his head a small shake. “But she’s your wife. She should know?—”

“She’s my wife.Mine.” Even if she loathed me.Currently, I told myself.

“She would understand. She would forgive you,” he said, his voice gentling.

Hedidn’t understand. There was no forcing my forgiveness or my innocence on my wife. The hurt I’d caused her was toodeep. Too great. And after crying wolf for almost two decades, what person in their right mind would believe me at the first instance that I meant no harm?That I’d done no harm?

No, I had to prove certain things to Robyn first. That my feelings had never wavered. That I would do anything for her. That I wouldn’t use the truth against her.That I wouldn’t leave her again.

I had to prove it was my life—my heart that hung suspended from her beautiful neck, not an albatross. I’d never strayed. Never wavered. And I could tell her. Hell, I could even prove it. Not many men came with evidence of their abstinence embedded in their cocks.

But to simply force her to hear my truth would be like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. It wouldn’t remove the betrayal or cauterize the pain. It wouldn’t stave off the potential for fear and distrust to infect everything moving forward.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion on this, Pat.”

Truth was like a sword. Only a fool would use it as a weapon against the woman I loved rather than an offering of loyalty once I’d earned back her trust. Only a fool, who cared more about exonerating himself, would choose the easy path to cut the veil from her eyes and force her to see our past clearly.

The Irishman went unbothered by my tone. “You never ask for my opinion, but I’m still going to give it to you.”

My finger twitched with frustration, but I said nothing. Maybe that would get him to shut up.

“You need to stop punishing yourself, Damon.”

My jacket started to feel tighter than normal around my chest. I looked at my watch again, the seconds not moving fast enough. I was going to be right on time for my meeting with Belmont, a sign that I had no interest in playing any games for power.

“All this time. Everything you went through?—”

“Enough,” I clipped, rancor texturing my voice with razor blades. An uncharacteristic anger rolled through me, forcing me to shift in my seat. “You can have opinions on everything else—anything else—but not my wife.”

“Fine. Stubborn bastard. Should’ve left you to the Yakuza.” He huffed under his breath, and that made me smile.

“Well, they certainly prepared me for this.” I settled my hat on my head and reached for the door. “Plus, it sounds like you have your hands full out here.”

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