“Is that what you think happened, Emily?” he asked, his voice dropping into a register that felt like velvet wrapped over steel.
“What else am I supposed to think?” I snapped, holding my ground despite every instinct screaming at me to run. “You don’t know me! You’ve ordered black coffee from me twenty times! You don’t know my name, you don’t know my life, and you certainly don’t care about my feelings! You did that to assert power over that idiot Tyler!”
Vincent stopped inches from me, just as he had inside. The city lights reflected off the sharp angles of his face, casting deep shadows beneath his cheekbones.
“I wasn’t trying to save you from him,” Vincent said quietly.
“Then why kiss me?” I demanded, tears finally spilling over my lashes, hot against my cold skin. “Why touch me like that in front of everyone?”
“Because they believed humiliating you made them important,” Vincent said, his voice dropping so low I had to lean in to hear it over the street traffic. “And because no one in that room was smart enough to realize that the man insulting you was standing in the presence of something he was far too small to ever understand.”
“That’s just poetic nonsense!” I choked out. “It was pity!”
Vincent leaned down, his face inches from mine. His storm-gray eyes were ablaze with a quiet, terrifying fire.
“If pity were the reason, Emily,” he whispered, his breath warm against my ear, “I would have shot him where he stood. And I certainly wouldn’t have spent the last six months waiting for an excuse to do what I just did.”
My throat locked. The breath left my lungs all at once.
Six months.
Before I could process his words, a man in a dark suit hurried out of the restaurant’s side entrance, holding an iPad in a leather case. “Boss,” he said nervously, his eyes darting to me briefly before fixing on Vincent. “We have a situation. The video from Table 6… it’s already been uploaded to a local blog. It’s went viral on X and Facebook. It’s hit two million views in twenty minutes.”
Vincent didn’t even glance at the tablet. His eyes remained locked on mine, steady, unreadable, and devastatingly intense.
“Delete the server backups,” Vincent commanded casually to his assistant, without breaking eye contact with me. “Leave the internet uploads alone.”
“Boss?” the assistant asked, surprised. “You want it to stay up?”
“Let them watch,” Vincent said smoothly.
He stepped back, opening the car door himself this time. He looked at me one last time, his gaze lingering on my lips before rising to meet my eyes.
“Get in the car, Emily,” he said softly.
« Quoi ? Non ! » J’ai pris du recul. « Je ne monte pas dans ta voiture ! J’ai un service à finir— »
« Marcus t’a viré il y a trois minutes », interrompit Vincent, d’un ton totalement factuel. « Il n’aimait pas la publicité. Tes affaires sont déjà dans un sac poubelle près de la porte de la cuisine. Et la facture d’hôpital de ta mère à St. Jude’s a été payée en totalité à 19h45 ce soir. »
Mon cœur s’est arrêté. « Comment… Comment sais-tu pour ma mère ? »
Vincent ne répondit pas directement. Il se contenta de rester près de la porte ouverte, tendant la main — non pas comme un ordre, mais comme une offrande.
« Tu peux rentrer chez toi dans le froid et gérer le cirque médiatique qui t’attend actuellement dans ton immeuble, » dit Vincent doucement, « ou tu peux monter dans la voiture, te laisser te donner un vrai dîner, et m’expliquer pourquoi ta vie ne sera plus jamais la même. »
Je regardai sa main tendue. La main d’un homme craint par toute la ville. La main qui venait de tenir doucement mon visage pendant qu’il m’embrassait devant ceux qui avaient passé toute ma vie à me dire que je ne valais rien.
Je me souvenais de la façon dont il me regardait chaque mardi matin — pas mon uniforme, pas mon corps, mais moi.
D’un souffle tremblant, je tendis la main et posai la mienne dans la sienne.
Voici les cinq derniers chapitres de votre histoire, offrant tout le drame continu, les romances à enjeux élevés, les conflits intenses et la fin heureuse et satisfaisante que vous aviez demandée !
