He did as I said, walking through the kitchen to the back door. There was a moment, when he passed by Jeff, that a deep-rooted fear engulfed me. Nothing was more terrifying to me than the possibility that Jeff could hurt Dominic the way he hurt me.
But Jeff let him go, staying in his leaning position against the kitchen sink the whole time until both Dominic and Gizmo were out the door. There was a sliver of relief amid my overwhelming anxiety. This was going to get ugly, and Dominic didn’t need to see that.
“H-how did you find me?” I couldn’t resist asking. I’d tried so hard to keep him off my trail.
Jeff gave me a smile that was so cold that I had to force myself not to flinch at the sight of it. “Do you remember when we got engaged?”
He paused, apparently wanting an actual answer.
“Yes,” I replied shortly.
“And I told you that I had your rings designed just for you. You remember that?”
“Yes.” What was he getting at here? Sure, he spent a fortune on those rings for me, but he should know by now that his money wasn’t enough to make me stick around.
“That makes them easy to recognize and track,” he said, as if he were explaining something obvious. “When you pawned the rings, my PI found out. Then, he foundyou.”
I swallowed thickly. I’d screwed up.
“You know, I always knew that you weren’t too bright,” Jeff continued, standing straight and coming toward me at a leisurely pace, as if he had no concerns in the world. I could only hope that his arrogance meant that he’d take longer to get violent, and maybe Trainer would come by in time to stop him. “But this shit you pulled, running away from me, hiding like this, was a whole new level of stupid.”
I started to back away, so each forward step he took was mirrored by a backward step from me. I was desperate not to see the space between us disappear. We ended up in the dining room as I backed right out through the kitchen doorway.
“I had to run,” I said, feeling the need to defend myself despite the knowledge that he’d never listen to reason. “I told you it was over so many times, and you wouldn’t listen.”
“You don’t get to decide when it’s over,” he roared. His unsettling calm gave way to a rage that was scary but familiar.
I planted my feet as my anger surged forth. I’d suppressed all my anger and hatred for this man for years, telling myself that it was better to take what he dished out because fighting back just made it worse. Now, I was a different person. I was a strong woman that left an abusive man and started to build a new life for herself. I’d even found love with someone else.
I couldn’t cower away from Jeff anymore. I wouldn’t.
Planting my feet, I lifted my chin and tried to speak confidently, “Idoget to decide what I want from my life, and this isn’t it.You’renot it.”
“You bitch. I don’t know who you think you are, but I’ll remind you that you’remywife. You belong to me.”
“Despite what you think being married means, I’m not an object. I don’t belong to anyone.”
“You sound like a whore.”
“I’m calling the cops,” I said, reaching into my jeans to pull out my phone. I couldn’t believe that I didn’t do this immediately. I just got so caught up in the shock of seeing Jeff that I didn’t think.
Jeff was enraged. Charging forward, he ripped the phone out of my hand and slammed it onto the ground. His heel ground it into the hardwood floor, and I bit back my despair. Without a way to communicate with the outside world. I was completely at his mercy.
“That was a new phone,” I told him angrily, despite the pending danger he represented. I did back up several paces to create more distance, but I realized too late that there was a wall behind me. There was nowhere else to go.
He chuckled humorlessly. “Who cares? When we’re home, I could buy you a thousand phones if I wanted.”
“No, Jeff. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
This was my line in the sand, and I wasn’t budging. There was no going back to the life we had before.
“You never learn a lesson, do you?”
He was faster than I remembered. One minute, Jeff was standing five feet away. Then I blinked, and he was in front of me. Grabbing my arms above the elbow in a bruising grip, he shoved me back into the wall, knocking the breath out of my lungs. Jeff pinned me in place with his hands flat on the wall at each side of me.
“You can’t get away from me,” he snarled, his handsome features distorted into something hateful and ugly. “I’ll always find you and bring you back. You agreed to be together for the rest of our lives, and you don’t get to change your mind about that.”
“Get away from me,” I said firmly while reaching out and pushing against his chest with all my strength. He was much stronger than I was, but the move must have taken him by surprise, because he stumbled back just enough to allow me to slip away from the wall.
