He looked up when she asked, "Are you going to sue the writer?"

"I'm still... working on it. But you know I can't really take this to court. I'll be shooting myself in the foot if I do."

"Damn it… You're right." Becca bit her lip, looking hesitant as she opened her mouth again. "But there's one more thing…"

Gael darted his gaze and met hers. What else could there be?

"What is it?" Gael wondered. He looked calm, yet his heart had begun to race, unsure of what he was about to hear. This could not get any worse, could it? How unlucky was he if it did?

"The… invite has already been sent…" Becca muttered under her breath. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and fanned her face with her hand.

"What? What invite?"

"I don't know if you know, but Samantha and I run a company. We have a mobile application—an interactive novel. We have writers in the studio, but recently, we've been scouting authors, and we produce their published books—make it into an interactive story."

The space between his brows creased as he listened to the other speak. He only heard about their partnership in some business, but he wasn't aware of the full details. But by the sound of her explanation, he didn't like where this was going. "Samantha knows about this book?"

Becca nodded. "We just finished reading it recently—"

"Oh, for God's sake! You also recommended this book to Gabby!" he hissed. It's how he calls his sister—short for Gabriella. "Who else have you told about this book, Becca? Does everyone know now?"

"Hey! I didn't recommend this to your sister, okay? At least not directly." She folded her arms in front of her chest, looking defensive all of a sudden. This project was huge, and they wanted to see which books or authors would get more traction. So she used her social to see her followers' reactions by posting a photo of the books and captioning it with: 'Reads for the month. Have you read any of these books? Which would you recommend?'

Becca cleared her throat. "Look, Samantha and I don't handle this stuff ourselves. We trust our project manager for the books that she chose. And when she gave us a bunch of books—I won't bore you with the details, Gael. Long story short, I posted some of the books from the selection given to me by our manager on my social. Your sister must have seen it from there. But this?" She tapped her index finger on the hardbound cover of the book. "I only read it recently—else I would have asked you about it right away."

"Does Samantha know?" he questioned.

"What? That this book is about you? I don't know… she hasn't said anything. And I don't think I could ask her that. If she does know, wouldn't she have already come to you or Daniel? But like I said, this book… it reminded me of you, but I'm only guessing it's because I know you differently than she does. So I don't know..."

Gael let out a small sigh. Great. Now Daniel must have already known about it. "Wait—What invite were you talking about?"

"Right." Becca shook her head in an attempt to refocus. "Our manager had already sent the invite to the author of this book. We're basically waiting for a response so we can produce it."

His hand flew to her arm as he spat, "You can't do that, Becca! Are you seriously going to produce this book?"

"Samantha and I already gave our go signal before we got to read this book by Galatea K.S. But it's just an invite to meet, expressing our interest. We haven't signed anything yet, so we can still retract it."

"Then retract it. There are literally thousands of books out there that you can use."

"Fine. I'll… talk to Samantha about it."

"What are you going to tell her?" Gael wondered, realizing what position Becca was in.

"I don't know. I'll make something up. What about you? What's your plan?" She turned her head to the side when she noticed some people approaching the beach. "You may not be able to take this to court, but the writer doesn't know that. You can still do something I guess…"

Noticing her change in focus, he followed the direction of her gaze, and what do you know? The woman he had been waiting to see had just arrived.

'There you are.'

Angela was looking around as she walked on the beach, wearing a beach dress that showed her skin all in the right places. And she looked absolutely gorgeous—more than she did three years ago. Fûck! His dîck seemed to agree as well—what with the way it hardened just because he remembered that night.

Gael's jaw ticked at the sight of her from a distance. Her skirt swayed with the breeze, and he got a peek of her legs. Those legs that were once wrapped around his hips.

His gaze traveled upward, and they paused at her perfectly round breasts. He swore she was doing this on purpose because now he was reminded of how they fit in his hands.

Shît. He was horny.

He was already planning to ruin this woman's life, and all he could think about right now was how she would look under him. How fûcked up was that?

His heated gaze met hers, and he saw the way she flinched and froze on the spot as if she already knew that he was there to get her. 'Gotcha. You didn't think I would find you, did you?'

Gael held her gaze. He was undressing her in his mind and punishing her in ways he could think of that would make her scream. She didn't know what was in store for her, and he surely would have some fun.

"Gael?" Becca called his attention as he hadn't responded to her yet. "You have a plan?"

"Of course, I do. I'll get my revenge." He scoffed.

"How dare she use me this way?" A menacing stare painted his face as he looked at the woman from a distance. Angela was still standing there, gaping at him. He had the urge to grab her arm, drag her away from the crowd and bring her somewhere secluded.

Becca sensed the danger in his tone, but she could only stare at him. This side of Gael still scared her, and she was glad they had been over eons ago. So whoever this writer was… This woman must be so brave to go against a De Luca—heck, she must be so brave to cross Gael.

"She likes writing romance novels so much?" Gael pulled the corners of his lips into a devilish smirk. "Then I'll give her the best damn story she would ever want to write."