The Don Tore Up Our Divorce (Gemma and Cassian) novel Chapter 438

Chapter 438
Gemma's POV

My eyes follow his gaze downward. The sight that meets me is mortifying: the blouse is gaping open, revealing far more than I intended. 

A hot flush burns my cheeks from the inside out. 

“Ah!”

The scream that rips from my throat is high-pitched with shock. One hand flies up to clutch the fabric closed over my chest, while the other snatches another pillow from the nearby chair. 

I hurl it at him with all the force of my embarrassment. “Stop looking!”

But his reflexes are quicker, and his hand shoots up to catch the pillow effortlessly in the air. He sets it aside on the dresser calmly, “Are you trying to kill me?” 

He asks, a faint amusement in his voice. Who would think that a Mafia Don would be brought down by a pillow? 

“You’re lucky all I did was hit you.” 

I snap back, turning my back to him to finish buttoning the blouse at the speed of light. 

I can feel him watching me, warming the space between my shoulder blades. When I risk a glance over my shoulder, I see his expression has softened with a look of… fondness, maybe?

I'm hallucinating. 

“Yeah, you went easy on me,” he murmurs. “If you want, you could even whip me.”

I spin around, fully buttoned now, and stare at him. 

“What’s wrong with you?” 

How had I never noticed he had such strange tendencies? This sneaky man had kept his true colors hidden well.

He closes the distance between us in two easy strides. Before I can retreat, he reaches for my collar, deftly straightening the fabric I’d twisted in my haste. 

The touch is brief, yet it sends a jolt through me. “So…” he says, his eyes holding mine, “if you ever run into someone as twisted as me, remember to call the police immediately.”

He’s turning my anger into a joke. I think he’s completely lost his mind, I just can't prove it yet. 

“Don’t think you can sweet-talk your way out of this,” I warn, my voice trembling slightly. I jab a finger in his direction. “Try sneaking a peek at me changing again, and see what happens!”

I blurt out in frustration. He catches my pointed finger, his hand wrapping around it, holding it captive. His skin is warm. 

“So, does that mean you’re giving me another chance?”

Shit, I’ve walked right into his trap. 

I pull my hand back, my face burning. “Let go! Grandpa’s still waiting downstairs. Today’s Hazel’s birthday!” 

I push past him, my shoulder brushing his chest, and hurry out into the hallway, not bothering to close the door properly behind me.

He follows, “Have you settled your living arrangements in Florisdale?”

I don’t answer. The truth is, I haven’t. My plan is to wing it: my language skills are good, I’ll find something when I get there, after I get Mikhail to the hospital. 

He reads my silence perfectly. “I have a place there,” he offers casually. “I bought it years ago, never lived in it. If it’s nearby, you can stay there.” 

He pauses, then adds quickly, as if shoring up the offer against my inevitable refusal, “I can even transfer the property to your name.”

He makes it sound so simple, like dropping a solution in my lap. But nothing with him is ever simple.

“When did you buy it?” I ask, my voice carefully neutral.

“Back in college.”

A life debt?  A part of me understands that kind of obligation, but another, pettier part rears its head.

I scoff. “Oh, right! You owe her your loyalty forever. Why don’t you just spend your whole life repaying her?” 

Isn't that exactly what Reyna wants?

“That’s not going to happen.” 

His reply is immediate, hard-edged with a finality that surprises me into silence.

“Not that it matters anymore. You had feelings for her back then, anyway.”

“I had no feelings for her.”

I roll my eyes again. “No feelings? Yet you rushed to her side at midnight when she was sick. You even took her to a couple’s restaurant on our honeymoon.” 

“What are you talking about?”

He looks genuinely bewildered. Of course, he would deny it. Reyna deleted the evidence  after all. 

But Jace had hacked her account, recovered everything, and saved it in a file that he sent to me that same week. I never opened it, not wanting to poison myself further. 

But now, faced with his blank denial, I need to fall back on that proof.

“Look,” I say, my voice trembling. I pull out my phone, my fingers clumsy as I find the file Jace sent. 

I thrust the screen toward him. “The time, the place, the people. It all matches. What more is there to say?”

A timestamp from the middle of our honeymoon to Nassau, a geotag from a notoriously romantic restaurant, and a blurry photo of two figures that are unmistakably him and Reyna. 

I watch his face as he looks at it, waiting for the lie to crumble and the guilt to appear.