He didn’t say a word, but the look of hope in his eyes encouraged her to continue.
“I want to try having a relationship.For real.It scares the hell out of me. I’ll admit it, but I want to try.” She didn’t miss the spark of hope in his eyes, and the way his lips kicked up into a sexy grin. He made it so easy to want to jump into his arms.
“Then we try, at your pace,” Angelo said.
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest. “How do you make this so easy? I thought love was supposed to be an epic struggle.”
He went utterly still and she dared to open her eyes and look up at him. What she saw on his face was like the sun had coming out after months of rain. Angelo’s brows drew together as his lips parted and it took him a moment to speak.
“You love me?” he asked, the vulnerability in his tone tugging at the strings of her heart.
In that moment she was wrecked for all other men, all because of the way his brown eyes softened when he asked if she loved him with such hope and yearning. There would never be anyone else who held the power to make her feel such a flutter of hope mixed with such…peace.
“You know what I mean,” she evaded, but the look in his eyes didn’t change, didn’t relent. That gaze swept into her very soul, penning his name there for all time.
“Kara… when you truly care about someone, it’s not supposed to be hard. Real love is easy. I think the world has pushed us to believe that loving and caring for others is hard. But it’s not. It’s so much easier to be kind, to love, to open yourself than it is to close yourself up. We’ve been taught to be cold and cruel because it’s supposed to be easy, but in truth it’s not. Loving someone? It’s so easy, sweetheart.”
They were both dancing around those three words that had scared her last night when they been swimming. Kara appreciated Angelo respecting her fear, but as he held her, she wanted to hear the words so badly her chest ached enough to make her draw in a shaky breath. She wasn’t going to ask for them. Not just yet. She would know when the time was right to say them.
“But we don’t have to rush anything. I mean it,” Angelo reassured her. “I never want to push you.” He pulled away a little so that he could open the door. “Why don’t we—” he halted as he took just a step inside and she barreled into his back.
“Angelo? What is it?”
“Kara, don’t move,” he whispered. Then he slowly pulled out his phone, dialing a number. “Asher,” he whispered. “I need you to get inside the house right now and look at something for me.”
“Angelo—” she matched his urgent quiet tone. “What is it?”
He stilled in answer. Asher rushed up the sidewalk and swept past them, his gun coming out instantly. He halted a few feet just beyond Angelo inside the house. She heard a soft rasping sound like paper stock moving against each other.
“Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s flowers,” Asher said matter-of-factly. “Someone sent you flowers.” By the grim sound of the bodyguard’s tone, Asher didn’t apparentlylikeflowers.
“Shit,” Asher cursed. “It’s safe, Angelo.”
Angelo’s shoulders relax and he stepped toward Asher. “What does the card say?”
Kara skirted around Angelo’s protective stance and outstretched arm to find a bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table. She reached the card that Angelo was holding. He let her take it from him, but the look on his face showed he regretted that decision immediately.
“Kara, I don’t think you?—”
She ignored him as she read the words written on the card.
“Kara, I look forward to meeting you soon.”
It wasn’t signed but she knew who had sent it. Cormac Callahan. A man she never met yet wanted to control her father’s empire through her.
Her mother’s voice screamed in her head for her to run. Her skin prickled with invisible flames that burned while her mind went numb with dread and fear.
“Kara?” Angelo grasped her waist as she let the card fall to the floor. Terror, pure and unadulterated rush through her entire body making her suddenly dizzy.
Have to leave…have to run…have to hide…
She left the kitchen and headed straight to the bedroom upstairs. She retrieved the second-biggest suitcase Angelo had bought her and tossed it on the bed throwing the lid open. It was just big enough to carry a decent amount of clothes but not too big that she couldn’t move fast with it. She had packed half of what she needed when Angelo’s hand suddenly appeared in on the stack of shirts she had just packed. He spread his fingers out, covering her clothing, stopping her from putting anything else in the suitcase.
“Kara, take a minute.Breathe.” He used his other hand to gently turn her face to him.
“Angelo… I have to leave. You know I do. The window for my escape is closing. If I leave now, I might be able to vanish. Hemay not be ready. Cormac might think he’ll be freezing me in place long enough to…” she didn’t finish.
