“I gave you your first expensive studio light. I gave you the stage. I built the woman they adore. I’m the one who encouraged you to always look your best.”
Which I had interpreted as encouragement from a supportive boyfriend. Not manipulation from an online stalker who’d been pulling my strings from day one.
“I became your fantasy ideal,” I realized.
“And you ruined it!” His voice cracked like a whip. “You ruined everything! You were perfect, Dakota. My perfect creation. And then you destroyed yourself on that live stream. You showed them the broken, pathetic girl underneath all the beauty I built.”
Looking at the pictures taped behind me again, I realized with growing horror that Mathew wasn’t just a jilted ex-boyfriend. He was an obsessed fan who’d lost his favorite toy.
“But you left me,” I said, grasping for logic in this nightmare. “Months ago, you left me for another job.”
I braced for him to catch my mistake, to deflect or punish me for nearly exposing his identity. After all, anyone close to me would knowwhohad left me for another job. But he was too far gone in his rage to even notice what he was revealing.
“You were supposed to come with me!” he snapped, and I could see his hands shaking with rage. He was hemorrhaging tells now, leaving breadcrumbs that would lead straight back to him. But he was spiraling too fast to realize it, lost in whatever twisted narrative he’d built in his head.
I replayed what happened with a new light. At the time, I had been so devastated at the obvious end of our relationship because there was no way I would move across the world from my family. I thought Mathew knew that. But looking back, that’s exactly what he expected. And by the time he realized I wasn’t going to do it, too many things had been set into motion. Hell, if I remembered correctly, the furniture had already been shipped overseas when he’d finally gotten the message.
And when he moved and I didn’t follow, that’s why he wouldn’t stop texting and calling me. Not because he loved me. Because he still thought he could manipulate me into following him. When that didn’t work, he came back.
“It wasn’t a coincidence that you showed up at the restaurant that night, was it?” I accused. The night Axel and I made our first public appearance together.
Axel and I were basically finished with dinner when Mathew had arrived with his brother and future sister-in-law. They’d just sat down to eat. He must’ve convinced them to come with him so it wouldn’t look so obvious.
“You were monitoring my social media posts. Following those influencers who were reposting real-time updates of my dinner with Axel. Including the location.”
“I moved halfway across the world for you.” The venom in his voice carried the promise of retribution. “And then there you were, in the arms of another man. After everything I sacrificed! After everything I built for you! You threw it all away for him.”
Something else niggled in the back of my mind. His jealousy, his possessiveness. “You’re the one behind the threats, aren’t you?”
Mathew stood up, satisfaction radiating from his posture.
“You’re the one who sent those flowers.” The memory hit me like ice water. Had he been following me too?
“You should have left Axel Pierce then.”
“You wanted me to be afraid to date him. Like we’d be in danger.”
“He hit on a woman whose family has ties to suspected organized crime. Heisa threat to you, Dakota.”
Jesus. Of course Mathew would’ve seen my accidental post that started the PR nightmare. With his level of obsession, he probably would’ve researched Axel Pierce immediately, figured out exactly who that woman was and what kind of people she was connected to.
“You’re behind my assault too,” I realized, the pieces clicking together with sickening clarity.
“All I did was hire a guy to hit you.Once. Didn’t it strike you as odd that he didn’t rob you or do anything else? I wasn’t going to let you get killed, Dakota.”
I was going to be sick. Actually throw up right here on live stream.
“You led a violent criminal right to me!”
“The flowers didn’t work, so you needed another push to leave him. I was trying to save you from yourself, Dakota. You were making all the wrong choices. First destroying your perfect image online, then choosing him over me. Me! The person who made you everything you are!”
Oh my God. “You’re deranged,” I said, staring at this stranger wearing my ex-boyfriend’s eyes. “You can’t claim to love someone and send a violent criminal to hurt them at the same time.”
I thought back to how Mathew acted that night I’d been hit. He’d been crouching by my side, almost as if … as if he expected I’d seek refuge in his arms?
“Love?” He laughed, a sound like broken glass. “This stopped being about love the moment you betrayed everything I built. You were supposed to be grateful. You were supposed to choose me. Instead, you spat in my face.”
That’s what set him over the edge,I realized. Coming to my apartment. Finally hearing me profess my love for Axel, seeing the evidence we’d just made love in the dew on my skin.
