He Wants Her Back: The Billionaire's Leading Lady novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: On Air

The host looked at me.

I looked at the floor manager.

"Is he supposed to be here?" the host whispered.

"No," the floor manager said. "Security's asking if they should stop him."

From somewhere off set, a voice said, "Let him through. Let him through, are you kidding?"

He walked out from between two cameras.

For all I knew, he did.

Dark suit, no tie, gray eyes on me and nobody else.

The studio audience made a sound.

The host recovered first.

"Mr. Strade," she said brightly. "We weren't expecting you."

"Neither was she," Damon said.

He didn't sit on the couch.

He stood beside it, between me and the screen with Vivica's ring on it.

A sound tech scrambled up behind him and clipped a microphone to his lapel with trembling hands.

"You're live," the host told him. "Is there something you'd like to say?"

"Yes."

He turned to the camera with the red light.

"I'm not engaged to Vivica Lane," he said. "I haven't asked her anything in eight years. That ring was taken out of a safe without my permission."

The audience gasped.

The host's eyes went huge with joy.

"And Juno Hartigan?"

He looked down at me.

"For three years, I kept Juno a secret," he said. "I told myself it was to protect her. It was to protect me. She came into my house through the garage, and I let her, and that's the worst thing I've ever done to anyone."

My throat closed.

I hadn't asked him to say that.

I hadn't known he could.

"She ended it," he said. "She was right to."

"So it's over," the host said.

"No."

He said it to the camera, flat and certain, the way he said a price.

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