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Zack Sykes, I’m coming for you.
She leans back, wiping tears from her eyes.
“Shall we go?” she says.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “We’ll eat in our room.”
“Our room,” she giggles with a sigh. “Am I crazy if that doesn’t sound even a little bit strange to me? It feels natural. It feels right.”
“No,” I growl. “It is right. We belong to each other.”
“Thank you,” she whispers, resting her cheek against my chest. “When you were watching me in the café window, I’m sure you had all kinds of fantasies about what we would be like. And I’m sure none of them involved a crazy mobbed-up stalker.”
“My little firecracker,” I whisper, my voice husky and deep and full of passion.
I stroke my hand down her back, savoring the way she shivers beneath my touch.
“No fantasy could be better than this, just holding you in a bookshop in Paris. Nothing can compare. And soon – when you’re ready – I’ll take you fully, completely. I’ll make you mine for the rest of our lives.”
She tightens her grip on me.
“I want that,” she whimpers. “I want to feel you, Forrest, all of you. Just—just not tonight, okay?”
A savage part of me wants to roar at this, to tell my woman I’ll claim her whenever I want, however, I want.
But, for now, at least, I have to battle down the beast inside of me.
I have to be patient.
Even if it’s killing me, being so close to her and not taking her, dominating her, owning her—even if it’s tearing me up inside, I know I’ve got the rest of our lives to claim her like the beast I am.
Chapter Thirteen
Fiona
“I just can’t believe it,” Mom says, leaning close to the camera.
Her wide green eyes are still glimmering with tears, and her hair is a tangled mess, so I know she’s been running her hands through it over and over like she does when she’s stressed.
“I feel so guilty,” she goes on. “I didn’t know he could see that stuff online.”
“Don’t be silly,” I tell her firmly, sitting up in the four poster bed, the laptop resting on my thighs. “This is his fault, Mom, not yours. He’s the lunatic.”
“And now we’re in our apartment under armed guard. It’s all very strange.”
“Yeah, strange,” Kelly grunts from beside her. “More like fucked up. Fucking Zack Sykes. Why can’t he just get it into his head that you’re not fucking interested?”
“Do you have to curse so much?” Mom mutters.
Kelly gaze meets mine in the camera, sharing a secret smile.
It’s so Mom to worry about swearing at a time like this.
“It’s very kind of your new friend to do this for us,” Mom says. “I don’t know what we’d do if we didn’t have his help. I suppose we’ll have to move again, won’t we?”
“Yeah, I think so,” I murmur.
“And Kelly will have to give up her management job,” Mom goes on, sighing. “What a mess. What a dreadful mess.”
“Where is Forrest?” Kelly asks.
“He’s coordinating with his security team, I think,” I say. “And he’s telling the police that they’ve got organized crime from the States in their city. It’s like a freaking spy novel. It’s crazy.”
“But you’re safe?” Kelly asks.
I stare hard at her.
I can hear the question buried beneath the surface.
Are you sure you’re safer there, with a stranger than at home with us?
“Forrest is keeping me safe,” I tell her firmly.
Mom waves a hand at Kelly. “I think it’s romantic,” she says.
“You told her?” I say.
“Of course she did,” Mom says. “I had to know why this billionaire bachelor was suddenly helping you, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, Mom really digs it,” Kelly says, with a little eye roll. “She doesn’t think it’s creepy at all.”
“Don’t use that word, Kelly,” I snap. “Please.”
“Sorry,” Kelly says. “I’m just stressed out.”
“That’s fine,” I tell her. “Just please don’t hate him. For me, okay?”
“It would help if we could meet him,” Mom says. “This man has done so much for us. If it wasn’t for him, we’d be pulling our hair out right now wondering if Zack or his cronies were going to jump out every time we opened the front door. I won’t lie. This is a very strange situation. But even grumpy-kins over here can’t deny how much of a help he’s been.”
I giggle at the nickname grumpy-kins. It’s what my Mom and I used to call Kelly when she got into one of her pouty moods as a kid.
“Really?” I murmur. “Right now?”
“No time like the present,” Kelly says, with a note of combativeness in her voice.
Nerves swarm in my belly, twisting, tightening. I want to tell them no, that Forrest is just for me and there’s no way I’ll share him with anybody else, especially if they’re going to pick him apart and try to reduce what we have to ashes.
