Act Like You Love Me (Jessica) novel Chapter 225

Chapter 225

Author’s POV

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Her chest rose and fell with a shallow, panicked breath. Her cheeks stayed a deep crimson, and she began to stutter, her fingers twisting nervously in the fabric of her dress.

She looked everywhere but at David’s eyes: the floor, the ceiling, the artwork on the walls.

“What are you doing here?” David asked, stepping out into the hallway and closing the door firmly behind him, cutting off her view of Aaron.

“And how do you know someone was even on this deck? This is a restricted area.”

I… I was just… I was coming to find you,” she managed to say, her voice lacking its usual rehearsed, melodic sweetness. It sounded thin and brittle.

‘I didn’t mean to… the deck was so quiet, I wasn’t sure where room you were in. I thought I heard voices, and I just… I wanted to see if you were there.”

“Is that so?” he asked, taking a slow step toward her, forcing her to look up at him.

“Well, you found me, Julie. Now, why don’t you tell me exactly how long you’ve been standing there?”

Julie swallowed hard, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, but no words came out. The game of cat and mouse had shifted, and for the first time, she looked like she realized she wasn’t the one holding the claws.

She took a deep, shaky breath. As she did, her eyes lost their light, replaced by that dull, practiced sadness she used whenever she was slipping into her performative character.

David watched her with the intensity of a predator. He noted the way her pulse was visible in the hollow of her throat, the way her hands wouldn’t stay still.

She had been listening. He didn’t know how much she had heard, but the terror in her eyes told him she had heard enough to know the tide was turning.

She opened her mouth, closed it, then tried again.

“David, please. I feel like you’ve been avoiding me ever since I got here. Did I do something wrong?” She quickly pivoted from the question.

The fake hurt in her voice was almost convincing. To any other man, she would have looked like a fragile woman on the verge of a breakdown. To David, she looked like a cornered animal trying to find a way to bite.

David kept his expression neutral, his posture as rigid as a statue. He took a slow step toward her, closing the distance until she was forced to tilt her head back to look at him.

“Did you do something to make me avoid you, Julie?”

The question was delivered with a chilling calmness. It wasn’t a question so much as it was an invitation for her to lie further.

Julie swallowed hard, her eyes flickering toward the door he had just exited.

“No! Of course not. It’s just… you’re always with Daphne, or locked in rooms with Aaron. I feel like a guest who stayed too long. I thought we were close, David. After everything that happened with Fiona… I thought I was part of the family”

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Chapter 225

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“You are a guest,” David said, his voice flat. “And as for the family… we take care of our own. But ‘taking care’ can mean many things, Julie. Sometimes it means protection. Other times, it means containment.”

The color drained from her face at the word containment. She took a small step back, her back hitting the opposite wall of the narrow corridor.

“I don’t understand why you’re being so cold. I just wanted to see you.”

“You wanted to hear me,” David corrected. He leaned in, his shadow swallowing her. “You’ve been standing outside this door long enough for the floor to remember your weight. So, let’s stop the theater. Did you find what you were looking for?”

Julie’s breathing hitched. She knew she had been caught, but she wasn’t ready to drop the mask entirely.

Her eyes filled with tears-real ones this time, born of a mixture of frustration and fear.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she sobbed, covering her face with her hands. “I just feel so alone on this ship. Everyone looks at me like I’m nobody. I just wanted my friend back.”

David watched her for a long moment, his jaw tight.

Part of him wanted to shake the truth out of her, to demand to know where the device was hidden.

But he remembered Aaron’s warning. If he spooked her now, she’d vanish into the shadows of the ship, and they’d never find the bomb until it was too late.

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