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“If that’s what you want, then so be it. There isn’t much I won’t do for you.”
“So, are we a couple?”
“We are.”
“How long have we been together?”
“Dating? A while, but we’ve known each other for a lot longer,” he answers vaguely.
I’m about to press him for more, but hesitate. Asking questions will most likely lead to a dozen more, and I don’t think I have the brain capacity to cope with anything else right now.
I look at him covertly as he drives. He doesn’t seem like the type to date. I’d say he’s much more likely to club women over the head and drag them back to his cave, but what do I know?
I turn toward the window as the city gives way to the country and close my eyes, feeling myself relax, which is crazy if you think about it. I’m in a car with a man I don’t know, heading to what could be a cabin in the woods where he plans to chop me up into tiny pieces. And given that I’m on a serial killer’s most-likely-to-die-next list, my fears would be well founded. But fear is the only thing I’m not feeling. I guess I have no sense of self-preservation, which explains how I ended up in the clutches of a serial killer.
Getting out of the city allows me to breathe freely for the first time in what feels like forever. I didn’t realize just how claustrophobic I was feeling until now. Everyone knows my business, what happened to me, what I look like… It’s only a matter of time before the media twists the narrative from victim to being a woman who made poor choices and got what she deserved. That’s what they do, after all. They’ll sensationalize my story without a second thought so that they can make more money, not caring for one second that they will be victimizing me all over again.
The reporters camping out on my front lawn are just the start. I had hoped to keep a low profile, but they might as well have led the killer straight to my door.
“You’re awfully quiet.”
“I don’t have anything to say. I mean, I do—I have a thousand questions. But I don’t know if I can handle the answers right now. I also won’t know if the answers you give me are lies, so it leaves me in somewhat of a pickle. But you might just be the only person who can tell me who I really am.”
“Or I could be the person who put whatever it is you’re going through into motion,” he finishes, looking over at me quickly before making a left turn. “You really can’t remember anything?”
I look at him.
“The only thing I know for sure is that I’m attracted to you, which adds some credibility to what you said about us dating. But other than that, everything is blank.”
“What the fuck happened to you?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
Chapter Seven
Rue
When the car stops outside the place this man calls home, I gulp. Any calm I found on the ride here has disappeared.
“You live here? Alone?”
I watch as he takes in the large house and nods, his jaw tight. “I have staff that live in one of the two guest houses, but otherwise, it’s just me.”
“Why do you need so much space?” I think back to my house. It’s tiny in comparison, and even there, I felt lost. “Don’t you get lonely?” I ask before I think better of it.
He takes my bags from the trunk in one hand before taking my hand with the other and leading me up the pathway. “I like my space. But there’s always someone around when I’m here, which isn’t a lot. I probably spend more time in hotel rooms than I do in any of my properties, though this one is used most.”
“Why this one?”
He lets go of my hand as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. “Because you like the ocean.”
I suck in a sharp breath at his words. “What?” I whisper as he leads me into a kitchen that looks like something you’d find on a magazine cover.
He puts my two grocery bags on the empty top shelf of his fridge before closing it and turning back to me. “I have an apartment in the city I used to stay in when I was in town for business. You happened to be with me when my realtor called and mentioned this property had just come on the market. You came to look at it with me and?—”
“And what?” I ask, enthralled. The way he’s looking at me now is making my heart pound. It’s not lust, though. I caught glimpses of that before. It’s something else. Something deeper.
“Baby, I’d buy a thousand properties just to see the look on your face again, the first time you saw the sea. My realtor was telling me about the square footage and the newly installed gym and movie theater, but I couldn’t take my eyes off you as you slipped off your shoes and walked out the back door and down to the water’s edge. It was like you were in a trance and drawn to it.”
