ACCIDENTALLY MARRIED TO THE BILLIONAIRE SINGLE DAD (Gabrielle and Damon) novel Chapter 95

CHAPTER NINETY FIVE

GABRIELLE’S POV

“How did that happen?” I asked, my heart racing.

He exhaled and sat on the bed. “Selene kidnapped your sister at the event. I took her back to the hospital. She snuck her underwear in my jacket when I left her alone in the car.”

The knot in my stomach slowly loosened but my heart wouldn’t stop beating so fast.

“You’re sure Selene didn’t do it?”

He shook his head. “I had already dropped off Selene before taking my jacket off.”

“But would Emily do that?” I asked.

He raised a brow. “You don’t know why she’d do that?”

Of course, I did.

I just kept making excuses for Emily–kept pretending she wasn’t capable of hurting me like that. Even though I’d seen it in her eyes the last time we spoke.

She hated me.

The realization settled slowly, sinking its claws into me.

Emily hadn’t done it to get Damon.

She’d done it to get me.

I pressed my fingers into my palm as memories I’d buried clawed their way back to the surface—Jared’s face when I exposed them, and how Emily’s disguise finally fell off.

Lies.

All of it.

“She wanted you to leave me,” Damon said quietly, like he didn’t want to push the knife any deeper. “And she almost

succeeded.”

My throat burned. “I didn’t even give you a chance to explain,” I whispered. “She knew exactly where to put the knife.”

The shame was immediate and suffocating. I had given her and her betrayal so much power over me and I didn’t know how to

take it back.

“Can you take me to her later?” I asked, raising my eyes to his reluctantly. I was too ashamed to look into his eyes. “I just want to know why she did it.”

He nodded. “Anything you want, wife.”

Then his phone rang and he picked up, speaking Italian with the person on the other end.

I moved away from him and walked into the balcony of the suite. Hell, I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me. And to think I had confronted Selene about it and –

Hold on!

I turned to walk back into the room but Damon was already standing at the door, staring at me intently.

“Selene told me both of you were talking about getting back together,” I said, my voice shaking. “She purposefully left out the

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CHAPTER NINETY FIVE

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part about my sister, I see that now. But I still want to hear it from you. Is that true?”

He leaned against the frame. “No. That never happened.”

My chest tightened anyway.

I should have spoken to Damon before confronting her. Now she knew I wasn’t sure about my place in his life and I knew she’d use that information to her advantage.

I wanted to beat myself up.

“Hey,” he said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

My face flushed as I stared back at him. “I’m just–I’m sorry I compared you to my ex. And I’m sorry for running away.”

He closed the distance between us. “Shhh. No need to apologize. Yet.”

I raised my head to hold his gaze when he was closer. “Yet?”

He pushed a strand of hair out of my face. “There’s no place you could have run to that I wouldn’t find you. There’s not a line in the world that I wouldn’t cross for you. There’s no rock I wouldn’t look under to get to you.”

My breath stuttered.

The way he said it wasn’t dramatic or loud. It was matter–of–fact, like a truth he’d already accepted long before I ever questioned him.

The words wrapped around my chest, tight and suffocating in the best possible way.

I hated how badly I needed that.

I hated how easily it unraveled me.

Or maybe I didn’t.

“You don’t know what you’re saying, Damon,” I whispered, my voice failing me. “You don’t mean that.”

He cupped my cheeks. “I could go on and on but part of you already knew that even as you left.”

My heart slammed hard against my ribs.

He wasn’t wrong.

I searched his face for exaggeration, for arrogance, and for that careless billionaire confidence but there was none.

“You don’t have to apologize to me, wife,” he continued, softer now. “You reacted and I understand why.”

My eyes burned. “You shouldn’t.”

“I should,” he said immediately. “Because I married you knowing your past and knowing what they did to you. And I still chose to be you.”

Something inside me cracked open.

He rested his forehead against mine, close enough that I could feel his breath on my face. “But don’t ever think disappearing will make me let you go. That’s not how this works.”

My fingers curled into his shirt without my permission or even my thoughts. It just did.

God.

My knees weakened.

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“And,” he said, “I prefer hearing my apologies when I’m deep inside you, hearing you whisper my name and watching every reaction on your face.”

My stomach flipped.

His words shouldn’t have affected me the way they did.

His words shouldn’t have knocked the air from my lungs or sent a sharp pull straight through my body, but they did.

I swallowed, my grip tightening in his shirt as if letting go would send me spiraling again.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” I said weakly.

His eyes darkened instantly.

“That’s the problem,” he murmured. “I shouldn’t feel that way at all. And yet-” one of his hands slid to my waist. “You do this to me.”

My pulse betrayed me, racing under his touch as my breath hitched. My body leaned closer to his, as if drawn by a spell.

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