Chapter 124

DAHLIA

“You are my woman, Dahlia.” His words echoed with confidence.

“Your woman?” I repeated, my chest tightening, every syllable scraping against something raw inside me. That one careless phrase sliced through the thin calm I’d been clinging to. It opened all my wounds that instant.

Before he could blink, I hit him on the shoulder. Then again. “You don’t get to call me that!” I hissed, still holding onto my towel with one hand and smacking his chest with the other.

“Dahlia…”

“Don’t Dahlia me!” I pushed at him, but he didn’t budge. “You can’t just show up here, act all soft and charming, and call me your woman! Would you ever even call me your girlfriend? Ever?!”

He caught my wrists gently, his eyes wide, pleading. “I have called you my girlfriend…”

“When?!” I snapped. “When no one was listening?”

“In front of people,” he said quickly. “You were there.”

I think I remembered when he was referring to. It was the time he defende