I chuckle but shake my head. “Nothing.”
My husband is a very smart businessman, but maybe not so much about matters of the heart.
CHAPTER 12
ROBERT
I’m halfway through a meeting when I realize Eleanor’s Pilates class should have ended twenty minutes ago. At first, I try not to think anything of it. She and Paul could have hit traffic, or they could have decided to stop off somewhere else.
I try to shake off the feeling I’m having, but I can’t. Something is just off. I pick up my phone and dial Paul’s number, but after three rings, he hasn’t answered.
I suck in a breath. Paul always fuckin’ answers the phone when I call.
I call my wife, and when it goes straight to voicemail, I stand up.
Bennett is bent over the desk, looking through papers, but my sudden movement has him standing up. “Dad?”
I look between him and Knox. “Get the cars.”
The room instantly shifts into action, and everyone starts moving at once.
I pull my gun from my desk, stuff it into the waistband of my pants, and then follow them out the doors.
We’re pulling out of the estate less than a minute later.
By the time we get to the street outside the Pilates studio, that same feeling in my chest has become unbearable, and I know something isn’t right. I barely wait for the SUV to stop before shoving the door open.
And that’s when I see her. Eleanor is standing on the sidewalk with Victor Sterling.
Every muscle in my body tenses, and it takes everything in me not to pull my gun and shoot him right now. But there are too many witnesses, and I’d be buried under the jail by the end of the night.
For one terrifying second, all I can think is that he touched my wife.
I look at Eleanor, and she’s openly staring at Victor, who is standing way too damn close to her. She appears unhurt, but that doesn’t soften me at all.
I don’t hear Knox behind me or Bennett cursing under his breath. All I see is my wife standing too close to the one man I would happily kill with my bare hands.
“Ellie.”
Her head jerks toward me, and the relief on her face nearly drops me to my knees.
I reach her in seconds and cup her face in both hands, searching every inch of her. “Are you okay? Did he touch you?”
She shakes her head quickly. “No. I’m okay.”
She’s pale, her hands are trembling slightly, and rage slams through me so hard that I can barely see straight.
Only then do I look at Victor.
He stands there as calm as ever with his hands in his pockets like he wasn’t just threatening my wife in broad daylight.
“Kingston,” he says smoothly.
“Sterling.”
I step slightly in front of Eleanor without even thinking about it. He and everyone else knows that I would die for my wife.
Bennett comes to stand beside me. “He knocked Paul out. Knox is with him.”
