Somewhere in the depths of her panic, she found her courage. She yanked her arm free, and said, “Go to hell.”
But he moved fast and he seized her by the arm. This time he cut off her circulation. “Look behind you, Beth. Do you see my blue Lexus parked by the oaks?”
Woodenly, Beth turned, his grip spreading a biting pain up her arm. She saw him. David. His little face pressed against the glass, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Panic choked her.
“David!” she cried, and started for him without thought. Hector yanked her back by both arms and wheeled her around to face him.
He pressed his face inhumanly close, so that when he spoke, she could feel his loathsome lips moving against her own pursed ones. “The only way you can see him and touch him and kiss him is if you return to me. If you return to my bed.”
Beth didn’t know how she managed, only knew that she had to leave, now, before this became a public spectacle.
She spat into his face, wrenched free, and ran, her breath soughing out of her chest like a hunted animal’s. She flung herself against the side of the Lexus and tried yanking open the door, but it didn’t budge. “Mommy!” she heard David wail from the inside, frightened, and her heart broke when she heard the muffled cry coming over and over like a litany.
Tears flowed down her cheeks as she fought with the door. She was crying—crying for him, for her, for every mother.
Helpless to get him out, she put her hand against the window and spread it wide and spoke as loudly as she could. “David, I’m going to be with you soon, I promise! I promise!”
And then, before she could notice that David had also spread his palm open on his side of the window, fitting the shape of his small hand into hers, Hector had revved up the engine and sped off with a screech of tires.
Taking her son, her baby, with him once more.
Landon jotted down notes on the legal pad on his desk, then typed the data into his computer. His intercom buzzed, and Donna’s voice burst through the speaker.
“Mr. Gage, Detective Harris here to see you.”
“Show him in.”
His office doors swung open. Harris was a little man with an unremarkable face and a keen eye—the perfect spy. He sat and pulled out a sheaf of papers, matching Landon’s brisk manner. “Your wife was out and about today,” he said.
Landon’s answering smile was brief, cool, as he lifted another file to skim through. “I know. I was with her this morning.”
“Well, she seemed to be in a rush to make an appointment this afternoon.”
Landon’s movements halted. She’d gone out?
When the man remained silent, Landon shot him an impatient look over the top of the report he’d been reading. “And she went where?” Landon set the report aside, and the little man shifted when he gave him his undivided attention.
“To meet Hector Halifax.”
Harris dropped the pictures on his desk and Landon’s chest muscles froze until he couldn’t breathe. He smiled thinly, but inside he experienced something he hadn’t felt before. Not in six years. Not ever. He thought he was going to get sick. “She went to see Halifax?”
“Indeed.”
An instinct to protect her, grab her close to him and never let anyone, much less a rat like Halifax hurt her, warred with the need to grab her little neck and shake some common freaking sense into her.
Why? Why, Bethany, damn it, why?
He gritted his molars in anger. “You must be mistaken,” he said.
But Harris rarely was, and signaled at the photographs. “I’m sorry, Mr. Gage. But the pictures speak for themselves.”
Landon glared down at them at first, still stunned by the fact that Beth had met Halifax today…
Today, of all days, when they’d at last been granted a hearing date. What she’d done was both reckless and stupid, and finding out this way only poked at the ghosts of a dark, bleak past Landon had long ago tucked away.
Forcing his hand to keep steady, he inspected the pictures on his desk, one by one. This was the second time the man across his desk had brought him this kind of news. The first time, it had enraged him. And now…
His heart stopped at the sight of her in the photographs—the sight of her betraying him.
They were touching… Halifax was touching her… Beth was letting him. His lips were… My God, they were against hers. What was this? What in the hell was this?
“Did you witness this yourself?” he demanded.
“I had some blind spots, sir, as I lingered inside the restaurant. But the times they were together, they were close. As you can see.”
Landon saw.
Outside, life continued. The office noise. The ringing phones. He set the last picture down and bent his head, his voice rough as tree bark. “What time?”
“This afternoon. 4:30 p.m.”
He squeezed his eyes shut against the emotions that assailed him. The thought of the bastard touching her, of Beth standing there while he held her delicate arms, Beth meekly waiting for the kiss to deepen, made Landon want to tear open a wall.
There had been signals, warning bells. Telling him not to trust, not to want her. Landon had ignored them, every last one of them. Her meeting Halifax during their engagement party—her resistance to sleeping with Landon.
He hadn’t understood why, but he’d forged ahead, first out of revenge perhaps, then out of sheer blind need, pretending he could build something with Beth, something that lasted, something that through the hate and anger and revenge shone special.
Could he have imagined whatever had been growing between them? Could he be that blind? That stupid?
Or had Beth simply thought to sweet-talk Halifax into relinquishing custody?
But Halifax would use this evidence against her.
Growling in frustration, Landon scraped a rough hand down his face, then he and the detective exchanged a glance that spoke volumes. “Did my wife leave with him?” Landon asked.
“No. When I exited the restaurant, she was getting into her own car.”
But not before they’d kissed!
Rage stiffened his muscles, gripped his throat, made it hard to speak. Beth’s pretty profile in the photo blurred as his vision went red. Halifax. Once again, the bastard thought he could take his wife away from him.
And Beth had gone to him. Despite Landon’s warnings, despite how delicate the situation was.
She’d run to the enemy and cast Landon into a role he’d sworn never to be cast in ever again: the fool.