His Wicked Obsession (Archer and Virginia) novel Chapter 499

Every single time she fought her nausea to swallow that food down, the look on Dominic's face had radiated a sick, pathological satisfaction.

Looking back, he wasn't loving her—he was using her to grieve for someone else!

Logic screamed at her that everything Archer Vanderbilt had said was likely the truth.

With the screen still glowing, she opened the messaging app. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long time before she finally sent a text.

[Tomorrow at 3 PM. The Hillside Café.]

After sending it, she carefully locked the phone with a passcode, deleted the chat history before a reply could even come through, turned the device off entirely, and buried it deep in the back of her drawer.

The next afternoon, in a highly private VIP room at a café in the Chicago hills.

"Gemma" walked in wearing a camel-colored cashmere coat over a black turtleneck. Her long hair fell loose around her pale, makeup-free face as she pushed open the door.

Stripped of the flashy, vibrant clothes, her naturally aloof and elegant aura was impossible to hide.

But the faint dark circles under her eyes were a glaring reminder of how she had tossed and turned all night.

Archer was already waiting inside.

He was dressed in an impeccably tailored dark gray overcoat over a pure black turtleneck. As he moved, his cuffs rode up, revealing the Sandalwood Prayer Beads resting against his wrist.

He sat with his back perfectly straight, his long fingers absentmindedly turning a white porcelain coffee cup.

Hearing the door open, he looked up.

Seeing how she was dressed today, his breathing visibly hitched, and the harsh lines of his face instantly softened.

"You're here," he said, his voice husky with the exhaustion of a sleepless night.

"Gemma" sat across from him. Skipping the pleasantries and the menu, she cut straight to the point. "Do you have proof of what you claimed last night?"

He flipped her wrist over, his thumb gently brushing against the tiny red mole.

"Did I forge this mole too?" he asked, staring intently into her face. His voice dropped to a low whisper, vibrating with tightly leashed desperation. "Did I forge all your natural instincts too?"

With every word he spoke, "Gemma's" heart skipped a beat.

She stared back at the man across from her.

"Do you remember taking Cindy to the amusement park?" Archer didn't let go; instead, he held on tighter, ignoring her resistance to fully encase her hand in his.

"It was so hot that day. You wore a light green dress, and Cindy was running ahead of us with pink cotton candy. The wind was messing up your hair, so I tucked it behind your ear..."

"And the snowy mountains in the United Kingdom," his voice continued softly. "You didn't know how to ski. I held you, teaching you how to balance. When we fell into the snow, I made sure I hit the ground first so you wouldn't get hurt..."

"And the private estate by the Thames, where we kissed under that massive fireworks display..."