He saw Alice crumpled on the ground, sobbing. He saw the vivid handprint blazing across her cheek. His eyes turned bloodshot in an instant—a beast provoked beyond reason.
"What did you do to her?!"
He scooped Alice up, passed her to a bodyguard, then turned and bore down on me in long, furious strides.
A tearing pain ripped across my scalp. Dustin seized my hair and wrenched it back so hard my entire face was forced upward.
"I'm done going easy on you, Cecily. Apologize to Alice. Now."
I thrashed in his grip, my scalp screaming with pain, but I didn't care anymore.
"She's not insane! She never lost her memory!" The words tore out of me in a raw, desperate scream. "Dustin, listen to me—she's been faking it from the very beginning! Believe me!"
"Enough!"
His roar detonated like a gunshot, and the room went dead silent.
My heart hammered so violently I could hear it pounding in my ears.
"I don't know what she's talking about," Alice whimpered in the bodyguard's arms, crying so pitifully, so helplessly. Her voice hitched like a startled fawn's. "Sweetheart, I'm so scared. Why won't she just leave us alone? I only told her I'd give her a generous sum if she'd walk away from you, and she said she'd kill me and my baby."
Whispers rippled through the crowd.
Every condemning stare landed on me, as if I were the monster in this room.
"With a temper like that, she's clearly unfit to be Mrs. Delgado," someone murmured.
"Poor Miss Dotson. If she loses another husband and child, she won't survive it." Another voice, sympathetic and resolute.
"If you ask me, Mr. Delgado should just—"
The voices crashed over me in waves, and Dustin stared at me like I was his sworn enemy, his gaze cold as a blade.
"Get on your knees. Bow your head. Beg Alice for forgiveness."
A violent tremor racked my body.
"No—Dustin, I'm carrying your child!"
I stumbled backward, both hands pressed protectively over my stomach, grasping for any last shred of his mercy—even though the baby was already gone.
But he only stared at me, nothing in those eyes but frozen contempt.
"Do it."
He didn't want me. He didn't want our child. I'd known it for a long time, but the knowing didn't stop my heart from ripping apart.
The next second, a bodyguard clamped down on my arms and forced me downward. I refused to yield. A boot slammed into the back of my knee.
The pain was blinding, as if the bone had split in two.