Page 45 of Rebel Protector
“I didn’t want to do it,” she said quickly, “but I was scared. I didn’t want anything to happen to Damian. By that stage, I knew Alek well enough to know that people who crossed him had a way of disappearing. So, I planted the idea in Damian’s head, and a few weeks later, he proposed.”
Dom shook his head.
“I always felt bad about that.” Becca’s voice broke, “Damian loved me.”
Dom studied her, an inscrutable expression on his face. “You didn’t love him back?”
“I think I did love him a little, but I wasn’t madly in love, no.” She sighed. “As the wedding day approached, I began to get cold feet. Damian was all for it. He had no idea it was a trick to get him under my father’s control.” She swallowed. “He was so happy, so blissfully unaware.”
The muscle in Dom’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t interrupt.
“We flew out to a resort in the Caribbean for the wedding. It was the perfect setting. It should have been idyllic, and yet I was so wracked with guilt, I couldn’t focus on what should have been the happiest day of my life.”
“You married him?” Dom blurted out. “You went through with it?”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Yes. I promised to love and obey him in front of our friends and family, and then two days later, I ran away.”
“Ran away? How? Where did you go?”
“I just took off.”
Her heart twisted painfully in her chest. It had been a cowardly, despicable thing to do.
“Damian never saw it coming. We were out snorkeling, and I said I was going back to the hotel for a massage. Of course, that was a lie. I went straight to our room, packed my bag, then caught a cab to the airport. I left on the first plane back to the United States and never saw Damian again.”
CHAPTER 19
Well, fuck me.
This woman never stopped surprising him.
“Are you still married?” Dom asked.
She shook her head. “No, Damian divorced me a few years later. A private investigator tracked me down and served the papers—I signed them without a second thought.”
“He didn’t come himself?” Dom couldn’t believe the hacker had let her go so easily. If she was his woman... He shook his head.
Better not go there.
“No. I think he was too angry, or upset, or both. Alek found me, though. Told him I wasn’t coming back, didn’t want anything to do with him. He said Damian had disappeared, and no one knew where he was. I think my father tracked me down because he figured Damian might’ve tried to reach out, but he didn’t.”
Dom frowned. “That’s why you and your father stopped talking?”
It was starting to add up now. The bastard used her. Used his own daughter to keep a hacker in line. What a goddamn piece of shit.
“Yeah. We didn’t speak again—until recently. I don’t know what happened to Damian, but I carry the guilt around with me everywhere.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” Dom felt the anger rise in his chest. “You were a kid. Your father used you.”
“I know, but it doesn’t make me feel any better.”
They stood in silence as the sun gave one last valiant effort to shine, then sank into the ocean. It should have been a peaceful setting, but Ghost felt anything but. Inside, he was seething. He wanted to break Markov’s face, pay him back for what he did to Becca, what he was still doing to her...
But when he glanced at her sad expression, his gut twisted.
Did she still have feelings for the hacker? Was that why she hadn’t settled down? Or was she so messed up from it all that no one stood a chance? Easier to stay on the move than commit.
Yeah, he knew how that worked.