Page 42 of The Billionaire and His Forever

The urge to tackle him hits me hard. I try to banish it with a tight smile. “It’s not too late to do the right thing. Do you really want to end up in prison? Natasha isn’t going to save you.”

He laughs. “Don’t you get it? You’ve already lost. We’ve got that shit in the bag—and I’m on the winning side! I haveNatasha. With her comes all the legal help I need. And all the money, status, and comfort I’ll ever need, too. And a sweet pussy, am I right? I don’t know how you can get your rocks off fucking some naïve teenager with no experience when you’ve tasted the heaven that is Natasha Ratliff. My God, what that woman can do with her mouth.”

I ignore his insult—to be fair, Abbie’s lack of “experience” is something I’ve enjoyed immensely—and focus on staying as calm as possible. This hospital has eyes and ears everywhere, and the last thing I want is to send them running to call the police. Or the tabloids.

Speaking of which, I’d bet anything it was Natasha’s bitchy nurse who sent the paparazzi to my house this morning just in time to witness (and document) Abbie’s arrest.

“If you think I actually care what my ex-wife is doing with you or anyone else in the bedroom, you’re very much mistaken,” I tell him dryly. “I’ll say it one last time. This isn’t going to end the way you think. She’s using you.”

It’s clear I’m not getting through to him. Quinn looks like nothing so much as a rooster, puffed up and cocky as he struts in front of me.

“She told me you’d say something like that. Try to sway me to your side. It won’t work.”

“You forget Natasha is the one who left our marriage to fuck her way around the globe. In fact, I’m not sure there was a time in our relationship where shewasn’tmessing around on the side. You think you can corral a woman like that with that limp noodle between your legs and the three brain cells you repeatedly rub together?”

Quinn’s grin grows wider. “I wouldn’t worry about what’s between my legs. She likes it better than whatever you’re working with, anyway. Maybe that’s why your nanny likes it so much—because she doesn’t know any better.”

His jabs are puerile at best, but I’m still struggling to bite my tongue. I’ve been losing control of everything lately—my life, my house, my respectability, my temper. I need to regain control. I need a win.

Unfortunately, Quinn takes my silence as an invitation to gloat.

“You’re done, Ratliff. Natasha’s about to get your house, your fortune, and full custody of your kid, thanks to the fact that you and that gold digger are both suspects in an attempted murder case. Soon enough, I’ll have not only your wife and your money, but your daughter, too.”

At the mention of Jude, I rear back in a fit of near-blind rage and punch Quinn square in the nose. Blood gushes between his fingers and he blinks back at me, first in terror, and then starts laughing. Laughing like a fucking maniac. That’s when I realize he baited me. He did this on purpose.

“Looking forward to pressing charges of my own, old man. Did you know I have a contact atTMZon speed dial? ‘Bout to go give him a call. They are going to eat this up.”

He salutes me with two bloody fingers and then heads off down the hall, toward Natasha’s room, still laughing the whole way.

Fuck.

Chapter Eighteen

Abbie

The room is freezing.Icy cold drafts blow from the vent in the ceiling, wafting across my bare shoulders and giving me goosebumps. Through the satin fabric of my dress, my thighs freeze against the metal chair and I try not to shudder because it’ll just make me look pathetic.

These two detectives, the same two from my last visit to this interrogation room, stare at me from across the table. Gone is Krohl’s awkward kindness from before, or what little of it he tried to offer me, replaced by a detached hardness that matches Hernandez’s. Their cold looks hit me harder than the frigid room.

This was not how my day was supposed to turn out.

“Nice to see you again,” I say, swallowing hard.

“Is it?” Detective Krohl asks, leaning forward on his elbows. “Do you think you’re here for a pleasant little social visit, Miss Montgomery?”

“N-no. I was just trying to be…” Words fail me, so I shut my mouth and take a deep breath.

Dear God, don’t let me cry. I saved up all my tears the entire way here and I won’t release them now, or I’ll fall apart. I don’t understand what’s happening. Why am I here?

“Let’s get started. Talk to us about your relationship with Natasha Ratliff,” Detective Hernandez says, tapping a pen on a yellow legal pad.

The affronted part of me is already formulating various sarcastic responses, about how we already covered this topic thelasttime I was here, but the terrified part of me wins out. Terrified of what happens when you sass two officers with guns who think you’ve impossibly tried to kill a woman who almost succeeded in killing herself.

“I don’t know what else there is to tell?” Beneath my frozen fingers, my knees begin to tremble. “As I’ve said, I was hired on as a nanny for Graham Ratliff at the beginning of the summer. He’s who I work for. Not Natasha. She moved back in briefly, but I always worked for Graham. I take care of their kid. That’s all.”

“Is it? Because it seems the situation is a bit more complicated than you’ve been pretending, isn’t it?” Detective Hernandez cracks a sour grin at me and it turns my stomach. “In fact, the media seems to think it’s alotmore complicated. What kind of dress would you say that is, Detective Krohl?”

The media. The tabloids, she means. Rancid rags posing as journalism aiming at nothing more than to exploit anyone and anything that can make them a red cent. And a police officer is seriously waving this in my face? This is why I’m suddenly a person of interest again? I bite my lip hard, squeezing until the tears that prick my eyes are there for different reasons entirely.

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