Page 114 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
Hers might be meant to destroy me.
***
The drive home takes forever.
I break every speed limit, weave through traffic like a man possessed, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel. The rational part of my brain—the part that's kept me alive andthriving in a world of predators—tells me to calm down, to think this through, to approach the situation strategically.
But rationality has never been my strong suit where Poppy is concerned.
The estate appears through the trees, its familiar silhouette somehow changed now. Tainted by what I know, by what I'm about to face. I park the car and sit for a moment, gathering myself, trying to find the control that's always come so easily.
It doesn't come. All I feel is the churning in my gut, the pounding of my heart, the desperate need to see her face when she tells me what she knows.
I find her in the garden, sitting on a stone bench among the roses. Her back is to me, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her posture rigid with tension. She's been sitting there for a while, I think. Waiting. Preparing.
She knows I'm coming. She knows the confrontation can't be avoided any longer.
"We need to talk," I say.
She turns slowly, and I see it immediately: the knowledge. It's written all over her face—in the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin, the way she looks at me like I'm a stranger. Like I'm a monster, she's only now seeing clearly.
She knows. She's known since yesterday.
"Yes," she says quietly. "We do."
I cross the garden and stop a few feet from the bench, close enough to see the fine tremor in her hands, the rapid pulse beating in her throat. She's afraid of me. She's never been afraid of me like this—not even that first night, when she saw me standing over a corpse.
"You met with Zachary Mercer yesterday." It's not a question.
Something flickers in her eyes—surprise that I know, or maybe just resignation that the pretense is over. "Yes."
"Behind my back. While my driver waited for you. You lied to me and snuck out to meet the man who's been trying to destroy me for three years."
"I didn't know who he was. Not at first." Her voice is steady, but I can hear the strain beneath it. "I just knew he had answers. Answers you weren't giving me."
"Answers about what?"
"About my father." She rises from the bench, facing me fully now. "About Dwayne Thomas. About what happened to him twenty-five years ago."
The name lands between us like a bomb. For a moment, neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
"Zach told you."
"He told me everything. He showed me documents, police reports, pages from my father's journal." Her voice cracks. "He showed me who Dwayne Thomas really was. And he told me who killed him."
"Poppy—"
"Was it true?" She steps closer, her eyes blazing. "Did you kill my father? Did you strangle him in a bathroom at St. Augustine's when you were sixteen years old?"
I should have been prepared for this. I've been rehearsing this conversation for days. But the reality of it—the raw pain in her voice, the betrayal in her eyes—strips away every prepared response.
"Yes," I say. "It's true."
She makes a sound—half sob, half laugh—and turns away, her hand pressed to her mouth.
"Poppy, listen to me—"
"No." She spins back, her composure cracking. "No, you listen. You've had days to tell me this. Days to find the words, to explain, to give me any version of the truth. Instead, you've been lying to me. Fucking me. Telling me I belong to you, that we have something real, while you knew—youknew—that you killed my father before I was even born."
