Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 182

Chapter 182

Daphne’s POV

42%

55 vouchers

The street outside was the regular kind of busy-people moving in and out of the afternoon, caught up in their own

momentum.

I turned left and started walking, quick, not quite running, my bag pressed against my side, eyes forward.

I made it maybe half a block before I heard the door behind me

Of course, he didn’t listen.

I kept walking, faster now, weaving around a couple stopped on he pavement looking at their phones.

His footsteps followed behind me, not hurried, just matching my pace with that effortless, irritating stride

“I just want five minutes,” he called.

“You’re not getting them.”

I turned the corner and immediately collided with someone coming the other direction. The impact wasn’t hard enough to knock me down, but it rattled me.

Strong hands caught my shoulders, steadying me with a grip tha was firm and grounding.

I looked up, and found myself staring into the narrowed, piercing blue eyes of David Tyrone.

He had his phone to his ear and was clearly mid-sentence when walked into him.

He pulled the phone down, and for a moment he just looked at me. His brow furrowed into a scowl, head tilting by degrees, taking in whatever my face looked like.

Then he looked past me.

He lowered the phone completely. I heard a tinny voice on the other end saying something, and he said, “I’ll call you back,” and ended it without waiting for a response.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I forced out, a pathetic, shaky smile plastered on my face. “Nothing. It’s…Sorry, I wasn’t-looking where I was going. What are you doing around here?”

His eyebrow finally did the thing I’d been waiting for-it shot up toward his hairline.

“Am I limited to certain sectors of the city now?”

“No, I just…” I stopped, and swallowed. “I didn’t expect to see you here.” I stuttered, my mind racing for a way to get him to keep moving.

I didn’t want him to know who Kyle was, I didn’t want him to see the messy, broken parts of my past.

David existed in glass offices and town cars and restaurants when the menus didn’t have prices.

Not on this block, with its independent coffee shops and cracked pavement and a dry cleaner with a handwritten sign in the window.

But of course, that was a ridiculous thing to say out loud, so I ke mute.

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17:12 Mon, Mar 9

Chapter 182

M

冷42%日

55 vouchers

He looked back at Kyle, his gaze turning into chips of ice.

“Again. Why were you running?”

His voice had that quality it got sometimes… like the question wasn’t going anywhere until it got an answer.

I looked at him. Then, against my will, I looked over my shoulder.

Kyle had slowed when he saw David. He was standing a few feet ack now, hands loose at his sides, that particular stillness about him that I’d learned meant he was assessing.

“He’s just a stranger,” I said quickly, looking between the two of them. “A random guy who was bothering me in the shop. It’s fine, Mr. Tyrone. I can handle it.”

Kyle hissed, a short, ugly sound. “Seems like people in this town have a real problem minding their own business. Who’s the suit, Daphne? Your new keeper?”

David’s entire posture shifted, however he didn’t explode; he went still, like a predator deciding exactly where to strike.

He took a deliberate step forward, putting himself between me and Kyle.

“Wait-“I moved before I could think, my hand darting out to catch David’s arm. The fabric of his suit was cool, but the muscle beneath was like iron.

He stopped, but the cold, focused expression on his face didn’t fcker. “It’s fine. I said I can handle it.”

“Get behind me.” He said it simply, like it was the only logical conclusion to reach in a world governed by his rules.

“Mr. Tyrone-”

He turned to look at me then, and there it was-that look. The one that left no room for a rebuttal, the same look he used when he was closing a multi-million dollar merger.

“Don’t be stubborn, Daphne. Get behind me.”

I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it. I looked at the set off his jaw and the sheer, immovable weight of his presence. I stepped back, moving into the space behind his shoulder.

David turned back to Kyle.

“Following someone against their will is a significant lapse in judment,” David said. His voice was perfectly level, devoid of the heat I felt rising in my own chest.

“Do you understand the consequences of your actions?”

Kyle looked him over slowly. “And you are?”

“Someone who’s telling you to walk away.”

“Is that right,” Kyle took a step closer. “Big words for a stranger.”

“Then let me make it clearer.” David didn’t flinch. He didn’t shif his weight or prepare for a blow; he just stood there with the chilling patience of a man who had already calculated every possible outcome and knew he won them all.

“Wherever she goes from here, you don’t. If I find out you’ve aproached her again-here, or anywhere else-we will have a much less civil version of this conversation. Do you understand he?”

Kyle laughed, but it sounded forced. “You think a fancy watch makes you tough? She’s coming with me.”

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17:12 Mon, Mar 9

Chapter 182

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