“You’re mine.”
“I’m not property.”
“You are. On that, your beast and I agree.”
Fuck. Him. “So what? Buying a wife wasn’t enough? Now you’re sneaking onto closed sets like some obsessed stalker? Making a fool of yourself on television? Begging?”
His gaze darkened, but I was too angry to stop now. There had been too many times over the years I’d wanted to tell him and off and hadn’t. Too worried about being nice. Being liked. Having so-called friends.
I folded my arms across my chest. “What’s next, Derek? You going to sit outside my bedroom window with a boombox?”
All traces of compassion drained from his face so quickly it was almost frightening. “You don’t understand what you’ve done. Wife.”
“I understand perfectly.” My voice sharpened. “I left you. I chose someone else. And your ego can’t survive it.”
“I saw you.” The words dropped between us like a blade. “At the ball.” His gaze hardened, burning with something ugly and raw. “The way you looked at him. The way you danced with him.” His lip curled slightly. “You’re not just playing the game anymore, are you? You actually feel something for that… alien.”
My heart skipped once—hard. I didn’t look away. “What if I do?”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke on.
Jealousy twisted Derek’s features, the emotion so stark it almost startled me. Rage followed close behind, tightening the lines around his mouth. “Then you’re even more foolish than I thought.”
He stepped closer again.
My back flattened against the wall. The corridor suddenly felt very narrow, very empty.
I could scream. I could try to run. But he blocked the hallway, and instinct told me I wouldn’t make it two steps before he grabbed me.
Where the hell were Krag and Rohn? They were supposed to be right behind me on the next elevator. They’d stopped to talk to Chet for all of two minutes.
“You think he’s going to save you?” Derek’s voice dropped, soft now. Intimate. Terrifying. “You think your precious Warlord can protect you from what’s coming?”
Ice slid down my spine. “Why would be need to protect me?” I asked quickly, forcing steel into my voice. “We were friends. What is wrong with you?”
“You don’t know what you’ve done.” That smile appeared again. The same calculating smile he used in negotiations, right before someone signed away a company they never should have lost. “You’re my wife, Victoria.”
He kept using that word, wife. Coming from his lips, it felt like a rope closing around my throat.
“You’re mine. You gave me your word, and you don’t get to break it.”
“I want a divorce.” My voice softened slightly, confusion pushing past the anger. “An annulment. We never consummated the marriage.” I shook my head, frustration tightening my chest. “Why are you making this so difficult?”
This didn’t make sense. “You don’t even want me,” I continued quietly. “This was a business arrangement. That’s all it ever was.”
His tone shifted again—suddenly calm, almost conversational. “That’s where you’re wrong.” He stepped closer until there was barely a foot between us. Then his hand lifted.
For a heartbeat, my body locked in place as his fingers brushed my cheek.
The gesture mirrored one Egon used all the time—gentle, grounding, steady.
But Derek’s touch felt completely different. Cold. Wrong.
Revulsion twisted through me.
Derek’s eyes were glassy, unfocused, something frantic flickering deep beneath the surface. “Either you get rid of him,” he said quietly, “or I will.”
I froze, trying to process that my friend, the man I’d agreed to marry to help him with some money issues, was threatening to kill Egon just because I had fallen in love with him. “You were my friend.” Maybe if I told him enough, he’d start acting like it again. “You should be happy for me. Stop this.”
