His Wicked Obsession (Archer and Virginia) novel Chapter 512

As soon as the words left her mouth, Dominic's violent aura completely evaporated.

As if drained of all his strength, he suddenly crushed her into his embrace, his arms wrapping so tightly around her back it felt as though he were trying to fuse them together.

Burying his face in the crook of her neck, his breathing grew ragged and heavy.

"Don't leave me." His voice trembled, laced with an almost desperate vulnerability. "Gemma, I can't lose you a second time. I wouldn't survive it."

"Gemma" froze in his arms.

She didn't fight him, but she didn't hug him back either.

She merely lowered her lashes, allowing this powerful man who ruled over the city to cling to her like a drowning man clutching a piece of driftwood.

But deep down, she knew he wasn't really hugging her.

He was embracing the vibrant, fiery heiress of the Harringtons—the woman he had carelessly thrown away.

After what felt like an eternity, Dominic finally let her go, his demeanor returning to its usual icy restraint, though the redness in his eyes remained.

Without looking at her again, he turned and headed upstairs to his study.

"Gemma" stood in the foyer, watching his retreating figure disappear around the staircase, a layer of cold sweat coating her palms and back.

...

In the second-floor study.

Dominic didn't bother turning on the lights as he walked straight to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

A long time passed before his private cell phone began to vibrate on the desk, the screen casting a blinding white glow in the darkness.

Dominic's jaw clamped shut, his knuckles turning white around the phone.

"You have a death wish, Julian!"

"I have a death wish?" Julian laughed even louder, a reckless, unhinged edge to his voice. "Dominic, who exactly is this grand display of eternal devotion for? You treated her like garbage when she was right in front of you and drove her off a cliff!"

Julian paused, his tone shifting into pure venom.

"Do you honestly believe finding a woman who vaguely looks like her and wiping her memories magically turns her into Gemma? Dominic, a fake is always a fake. The real Gemma Harrington has been dead for a long time, and you buried her with your own two hands—along with your unborn child!"

"If you had just acted like a decent human being and cherished her even a little, you might have been a happy family of three by now. Instead, you're stuck deluding yourself with a knock-off!"

Those words—"a happy family of three"—stabbed precisely into the most hidden, agonizing part of Dominic's soul.

Flashes of the blinding pool of blood beneath Gemma and that blazing, infernal fire seared through his mind.