Bad Swipe Bad Swipe (Billionaire's Club #12) - Elise Faber Page 0,66
fell off the couch.
Ben was standing in the entryway, face hidden in the shadows, a bag at his feet, but there was something about the way he stood that had fear shivering down her spine.
“Why?” he asked, voice chilled as it slid along the air to her ears.
“Why what?”
He strode over, and she saw that his expression was furious and cold and completely unrecognizable.
This wasn’t her Ben.
She knew that in an instant.
“I could have forgiven the movie being leaked. Thought it was just a mistake, that you loaned it to someone you shouldn’t have.” His jaw clenched as he crouched in front of her. “But then it was the details about the contract with Talbot Green, the confidential information of my deal to stream to Europe, the specifics about the new algorithm.”
His fist banged down on the table.
“Was it worth it?” he asked. “What they paid you? Was it worth hurting me?”
“Ben,” she breathed, swinging her leg down and sitting up fully. “I don’t know what you think, but I didn’t do anything—”
“You used my laptop,” he interrupted. “When you came home from the hospital but hadn’t gotten one from work yet. You went into my email and shared—”
This was madness.
“I didn’t share or steal anything,” she said. “This is all some stupid misunderstanding and—”
His voice was deadly soft. “Why did you do it?”
She pushed off the couch, squatted before him, ankle protesting the movement. She ignored the pain, both striking through her heart and shooting through the joint. “I didn’t do anything. I promise you. I would never—”
“Except, you did.”
She grasped his cheeks. “I didn’t.”
“Four isn’t a coincidence, Stef,” he said, not moving, his deep brown eyes boring into hers. “And you were the only one with the movie. The only one with access to my email and the other details. I didn’t want to believe it—”
“Then don’t,” she begged. “Because. I. Didn’t. Do. It.”
Ben went still beneath her. Just stopped breathing, every muscle in his body going rock-hard. But there wasn’t any heat in him, in his eyes.
No.
It was ice—pure and simple and biting, almost burning her with the intensity of the frost.
He jerked himself out of her grip.
“Get up.”
Stef blinked. “What?”
“Get up.”
This time she didn’t get a chance to even blink. Ben grasped her arm, yanked her up to her feet, and not all that gently either. Not like the tender, lovely man she’d grown to love.
The man who stood in front of her was a stranger.
He strode to where the bag sat, sitting on that white rug. “Get. Out.”
“Ben,” she began, wanting to beg, wanting to get him to see reason.
“I’ll have your stuff sent back to your place, the realtor take your condo off the market.”
Something cracked wide open in her chest. Her trust, her love, that all drifted away like clouds floating across the sky.
She tried one last time.
Because he was Ben. He’d shown that he was different. She wouldn’t cower. She would fight for what they’d built, fight to hold on to all that was special between them.
“Don’t do this,” she whispered.
He bent, grabbed the bag, and strode to the elevator, waiting until the doors opened before he launched it onto the car. “Go,” he snapped. “And feel privileged that I won’t be suing you.” He made a sound of disgust. “I can’t believe that I ever thought you were different from her. From all those people who just wanted to get close to me, just wanted a piece of me. But you’re not, are you? You’re just like her. Probably laughing at my idiocy.”
“I’ve never thought you were an idiot,” she said. “I love you, so fucking much.”
He scoffed.
And lips parting, a shaking sigh emerging, she stifled any further thoughts of begging, of trying to understand, trying to get him to believe her.
Because fuck him.
Because he’d given her the strength to do it, but she was the one who’d actually looked into herself and found worth and value, found a woman who could be loved.
Who deserved to be loved.
“Get the fuck out,” he said in that icy tone of his.
“I’m gone,” she said, limping toward the elevator, stopping only to grab her purse off that table in the entry, to pick up Fred’s leash and snap it to his collar. He was excited for a moment, probably thinking it was walk time despite the dark skies outside. But when she didn’t bring Sweetheart along, when she merely stroked that soft, white head and whispered, “Be good, Sweetie Pie,” he slowed, glancing over