Page 69 of Discretion at Its Finest

Right here. Staring back at me. Mocking me.

A floorboard shifted behind me, barely a sound, but it pierced through me as I froze. Something cold crawled up my spine, goosebumps settling under my skin before I even turned.

His presence moved through the room, absolutely suffocating. The air thickened. I could barely breathe as he finally spoke. “Put it down, Genevieve.” His voice was lethal in its restraint.

My fingers spasmed around the paper. Slowly, ignoring my better judgement, I turned to face him as he stood in the doorway. Backlit by the hall light. Shoulders rigid, chest rising and falling with calculated control.

He took one step into the room, and I stumbled back, my body understanding the approaching danger my mind couldn’t register. His gaze flicked to the paper in my hand, then up to my face—

And something in him switched, his eyes growing darker by the second. Like he’d expected this moment. Prepared for it even.

“Reid…” My voice broke.

“You just couldn’t help yourself,” he murmured, “not even for one night.”

He didn’t stop walking, his demeanor terrifyingly calm, which somehow made this worse. So much fucking worse.

My footsteps faltered, almost tripping as I moved back. “Reid… Reid, I’m sorry.”

“You want to apologize now? It’s a little too late for that, isn’t it?”

I swallowed, but my throat barely worked. For every step he took I felt myself back away. I couldn’t even feel my body, think straight, breathe right. Everything felt wrong.

“You got on that jet with me,” he murmured, watching my every pathetic step, “and every mile we flew, I kept waiting. To see if you would tell me. At the gala, you were silent. Every day at the office, in your home… Christ, even with me inside you. You didn’t say a word. And for the last three years you kept this from me… You had a million opportunities to tell me, Genevieve.”

His eyes flicked down to the paper in my hand. “And instead… you let me find out alone.”

“I… I was going to tell you.”

“Were you?” My back hit his wall, books from the shelves falling down at the impact as my heart hammered out of my chest. “You weren’t going to tell me,” he said, voice lowering into a deadly register. “You were going to let me walk into tomorrow, into next week, into the rest of my life thinking—” He cut himself off, placing a hand by my head on the bookcase, trapping me. “That I didn’t deserve to know.”

My lips trembled. “Reid, please—”

“No,” he cut me off. “No more lies. No more tears. No more fucking excuses.”

“I—I didn’t know how to tell you,” I stammered, collapsing inward, my voice barely holding itself up. “I didn’t know when. I thought tonight I’d try—”

“Tonight?” His laugh was quiet and cruel. “After you thought of how things would have changed?” Another step closer. My spine pressed harder into the shelf. “After you realized I was the one paying my mother’s medical bills? After you realized I wasn’t the man you thought you left behind?”

His voice dropped, darker. “After all of that, suddenly I earned the truth?”

“Reid—”

“You weren’t going to tell me,” he said, quieter now, almost thoughtful in the most terrifying way. “You were going to bury it. The way you buried me.”

My chest caved. “That’s not true—”

“Then give me the truth, Vieve.” His hand slammed flat against the wall beside my head, making me jump. “For once in your life, tell me something that isn’t a lie. Something that isn’t you pretending.”

“If you knew the truth…” My breathing hitched, humiliation burning behind my eyes. “I knew you’d never forgive me. Not after what I let them do to you… after… after whatIdid to you.”

His jaw clenched, his nostrils flaring as he dragged his gaze over my face like the sight alone was torture. “Forgiveness?” he whispered, almost laughing, but the sound held no humor. “That’s what you were worried about?”

I swallowed, barely. “Yes.”

“Don’t,” he said, stepping even closer, his breath ghosting my mouth, “pretend forgiveness is something you ever gave a damn about me giving you.”

My heart jumped to my throat. His voice dropped lower still. “You’re still afraid I’ll rip apart the life you stitched together out of lies.” I shut my eyes, but he wasn’t done. “That’s why you ran, isn’t it?” His breath skimmed my cheek. “That’s why you kept him from me. Because you knew the second I knew the truth… your entire world would burn.”