Page 6 of Beautiful Villain
I looked down.He wasn’t wrong.I looked like a disaster.
Fear curled low in my stomach.
“Who are you?”I asked.
He studied me for a long moment.“Someone who knows you missed a very important appointment today.”
My breath hitched.“I need to get back.”
I swung my legs off the couch and stood too quickly.The room lurched.I would have fallen if he hadn’t crossed the space in two strides and caught my arm.
His grip was firm, not gentle.Heat flared where his hand touched my skin.
“Sit,” he said.
I did.
Anger flared through the fear.“Don’t touch me.”
He released me immediately, stepping back like I’d burned him.
“Then don’t give me a reason to,” he replied.
Silence stretched.
“Why am I here?”I asked finally.
“I already told you - I rescued you off the side of the road.”
“Youhitme with your car,” I reminded him.
“You stepped out into oncoming traffic without warning,” he countered.
“So what, now you’re helping me?”The thought seemed preposterous to me, that he could hit me, then help stitch me back up again.
He tilted his head slightly.“I haven’t decided if that’s what this is.”
My chest tightened.“Then what is this?”
His dark eyes met mine.Assessing.
“A complication,” he said.
I let out a weak laugh, because apparently that was my coping mechanism now.
“Well.I’m sorry to add you to the long list of people whose lives I’ve complicated.It’s a talent.Very transferable.”
“You should be.”
His gaze dropped then, slow and unapologetic, taking inventory.The torn hem of my dress.The stiff, dried blood clinging to fabric that had cost more than my monthly rent.The ruined veil.The bruises already blooming beneath my skin.All the careful planning.All the fear.All the contingencies I’d rehearsed in my head—reduced to this mess on his floor.
Everything I’d planned had collapsed spectacularly.Everything I’d feared had arrived early and brought friends.
His eyes lifted back to mine, expression unreadable.
And somehow, insultingly, I had the sudden, absurd thought that this wasn’t even the worst mess I’d ever made.
Just the most expensive.
