Shopping for a Billionaire 4 by Julia Kent

victim.
    “What isn’t your fault? What was Andrew talking about? Something happened ten years ago and you’re blaming yourself for it.”
    Blood drains from his face, but he doesn’t change expression, eyes hard now, mouth immobile. No answer. No reaction.
    Just a silent no .
    I refuse the no, though, because I’ve decided that I can do that. Other people have the right to live according to their internal core, and so do I.
    So do I.
    What I want is equally important, and if someone else has a different opinion then they can express that and instead of living life as one big chain of reactions to other people’s reactions, I’m going to act.
    Act.
    And process it all later.
    My hand covers his, the one pushed against the wall. When our skin connects I feel his trembling. A little too good at making the surface look placid, he keeps all the ripples underneath. 
    He doesn’t have to do that with me.
    And he doesn’t move his hand. If he had, he would drag my heart with it, and right now I can’t handle the road rash.
    “Declan?” I prod, my voice as tender as can be. “Where have you been?” 
    His mouth is set in a firm line, tense and unforgiving, but those eyes narrow with a questioning look, reading my face, and then the tension in his jaw lessens, as if a single layer is peeling back.
    His lips part, a thin line of white showing between them as they start to form a word, the beginning of a sentence that will break through whatever wall has been built between us.
    “Validating myself.” He says it with such nuanced dryness that I’m not sure whether to laugh or be offended. 
    And then—
    “You’re not supposed to be here,” says a woman’s cold voice behind me.
    It sounds like death.
    I turn around.
    Close.
    A Coffin.
    Declan doesn’t move his hand. I cling to that single fact. It’s all I have, literally, to hold on to right now.
    “Here to take out the garbage? Don’t you need that weird little car that looks like you’re carrying a bowel movement on the roof?” Jessica says with a sneer. 
    “No,” I say, eyes on her, hard as rock. “If I need a piece of crap to do my job,” I say, looking her up and down slowly, “I can find one anywhere. Even on Twitter.” 
    Her eyes lock on my hand. The one touching Declan. The one he’s not moving.
    Hardened again, he stares at me, then lets his glance dart to her. “You interrupted us,” he says coldly.
    Is he talking to me? No. I interrupted him and his brother, not him and Jessica. Instead of opening my mouth and stammering a nonsensical apology, I inhale slowly, as silently as I can, and just keep my eyes on Declan, pretending Jessica doesn’t exist.
    Turnabout is fair play.
    “The race is ending. We have photo ops to attend to.” Her tongue rolls inside her cheek, the movement so masculine it makes her look like Ann Coulter for a moment. 
    Declan blinks exactly once, but his fingers move just enough to squeeze mine affectionately, grasping me. “I’ll be there.”
    Her eyebrow arches and the look she gives me makes it clear she thinks I deserve my car. “Don’t waste your time. We have more important things to attend to.”
    He makes a small, derisive sound. “The world won’t end if I’m not in a picture at the finish line, holding a ribbon.”
    She looks like she’s been slapped.
    “When your company donated heavily to support this charity, it meant—”
    “I know what it meant.” He is iron. Steel. Titanium. But his thumb caresses the back of my hand, and for all his hardness, I turn soft, my insides a twist of silk sheets, my mind airy with a floating feeling that makes it hard to breathe.
    “Don’t ruin this for everyone, Declan,” she challenges.
    “You should take your own advice, Jessica,” he says, cool as a cucumber. “How’s business?”
    She storms off in a mumbling fit.
    I don’t know what to say. He’s standing before me, touching me, my hand the center of the universe, his eyes a distant sun. A