“So far, not much. She’s writing about the night she went to the gala with you.” Gemma hesitates. When he doesn’t make any move to respond, she foolishly continues. “Isn’t that the night the press first wrote about her?”
Keeping his eyes trained on her, he nods again. “Yes, it was. Do you remember what they said, Gemma?”
A frown forms as she thinks about that question for a moment. In stark detail, he witnesses as each emotion crosses her delicate features when they enter her mind.
“Yes.”
He narrows his eyes, knowing he just put her on guard. “You do, don’t you? What is it they said?” he asks.
His voice is deceptively calm, but his eyes are giving him away. There’s a storm brewing inside of him, and he knows that she can sense it.
Licking my lips nervously, I square my shoulders as though I am heading into battle. “They said that you broke the ambassador’s nose and ribs in a jealous fit of rage.”
He moves abruptly, looming down directly in front of me. Gripping my shoulders tight, he hauls me up against him, and the journal falls from my hands.
“I was jealous, Gemma. I should have fucking killed him that night.” He growls out, his tone sinister.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I can’t look away. He’s so magnificent in his rage that I can’t help but stare up at him as I see the truth of his words in his eyes.
“Do you know why I didn’t?” he questions quietly.
At this stage, I know my eyes have to be as wide as saucers. I stand mute, not having the ability to voice the question that I am dying to ask, but it doesn’t matter. He’s going to tell me anyway.
“Because I was afraid I’d hurt her as well,” he explains harshly. He pushes back from me and turns, pacing across the space. “She just fucking stood there, Gemma!”
His rage is absolutely palpable. I can feel it rolling off of him in waves. He’s still so very angry over what took place all those months ago. I feel as though he is reliving it right before my eyes.
As quietly as possible, I move back a step, not seeing any means of escape at this moment. I’m not really sure what I should do, so I revert back to my questions.
“What was she supposed to do?”
Turning swiftly, he pins me with angry eyes. “She was supposed to tell him to fuck off. She was supposed to tell him that she was mine, just like I told Susanna!”
Quickly, in my mind, I flip through the many articles that I had read, trying to catch up. I need to remember all the details.
Coming up short, I question, “Susanna?”
Shaking his head, he starts to laugh malevolently. I frown, not understanding the rapid shift in his mood.
“Yes, Susanna, the tall blonde the press splashed all over the goddamn place. She was much like you, Gemma. She was the fuckable blonde that he told her I was fucking.”
I let the details, as confusing as they were, seep into my mind. “He told Chantel you were sleeping with Susanna?”
Slowly, Phillipe starts to make his way toward me. I take another step back, and my back meets the wall. Beside my shoulder, I feel the frame of the painting, and I know I am trapped. I am trapped between him and her. When he’s finally toe to toe with me, he leans down, so our noses almost touch.
“The good ambassador told Chantel that I had been fucking Susanna for months. He then went on to describe in detail what she looked like, where we went, and how often we did so.”
I swallow slowly, before I ask a question that I’m not sure I want the reaction to. “Were you?”
His angry green eyes skewer me before he moves to the left, placing his mouth by my ear. “The only blonde I have fucked in the last three years, Gemma, is standing with me now, pinned to the wall, and probably getting wet.”
His teeth bite down on my lobe as I take another deep breath. I’m embarrassed that he is right. I am wet. His rage is beautiful. It terrifies me. It impassions me.
“She let him touch her,” he says, emphasizing each word angrily.
Turning my head against the wall, my eyes connect with his. We are so close that I can see the flecks of gold and brown around his irises.
“I can’t imagine that she would let anyone touch her after you,” I confess, knowing that I’m going to have the same problem.
“It wasn’t her body that he touched, Gemma.”
I blink once and focus back on his hypnotic stare.
“It was her mind.”
My breathing accelerates. Any notion I had about wanting to get away has now been replaced with lust. I want him. I want to reach out and stroke him to ease his pain, but his eyes are wild. I’m almost afraid of the wrath I might unleash if I make the slightest misstep.
“Let me tell you what she wrote in that journal entry, Gemma,” he explains. His left hand rises to cup my right breast. I arch into his grasp when he leans in to me, whispering so harshly that his mouth burns against my ear. “She typed about how we arrived at the gala.”
Squeezing my breast, his hand moves a little, so his fingers are at the buttons running down the center of my chest.
“She typed that I left her. She said I left her standing in a room full of people, and she felt more alone than she ever had.”
While he’s talking, his talented fingers slide inside my blouse, and he shifts back to look down at me. Bringing up his right hand, he grabs the other side of my blouse as his angry eyes start to heat.
“She wrote that she had never felt more disconnected from me than in that fucking room.”
As the curse leaves his lips, he rips my blouse apart. The buttons pop away from the fabric, falling around us as he places his right palm flat on my chest over my heart.
“Your heart is beating fast, Gemma,” he informs me, moving in close.
He’s so close that I have to lean my head back on the wall to look up at him.
“Are you turned on? Scared? Or both?”
Swallowing deeply, I open my mouth and ask, “Why did you leave her?”
Calculating eyes meet mine and narrow. He reaches down my body and starts to undo my pants.
“I want to fuck you,” he tells me.
I know what he’s doing, and I’m determined to make him talk. “Why did you leave her, Phillipe?”
His jaw clenches, as he looks to my left, staring at the image of Chantel hanging in silence.
“Shut up.” He growls as he pulls down the zipper of my pants.
Belatedly, I realize that I can’t. I’m finally breaking through, pushing him into a place he doesn’t want to go, and I’m relentless. Like a bloodhound, I can smell when I’m close.
I stop his busy hands. “Tell me.”
Glaring at me fiercely, he hisses, “Fuck you.”
I shake my head against the wall. I know he’s lost. He’s not thinking about anything now, except losing himself. The only way he thinks he can purge the memory is by fucking it away.
“So what, Phillipe? Are you going to rip down my pants and fuck me against the wall right beside her?”
His eyes flame, and his breathing increases. Twisted as it is, I find that I’m getting off on his fury. The angrier he gets, the more aroused I become.
“You’re going to fuck the blonde right in front of her to finally prove that she had a right to be angry.”
His fist slams against the wall near my head next to the side of the frame. “Shut the fuck up, Gemma!”
Reaching out to press my hand against his pants, I grip his cock hard.
“Is that why you hurt yourself? Do you think you let her down that night?” Squeezing him a little tighter, I glare right back at him. “If she were here, would I even exist to you?”