Page 54 of Until Ace

I started considering her my friend when she cornered me in the break room after Ken denied me a promotion. I didn't know she felt the same.

“We are,” I say around the lump in my throat.

“Then why the hell are you locked up in your head, your ice-queen mask firmly in place, not listening to a word I'm saying?” She looks to the side before she sighs, then turns back toward me. “Why aren't you sharing what's on your mind and telling me what I can do to help?”

Sharing what's on my mind?

How she can help?

I never even considered talking to anyone about what’s going on, not only with Jim but with Ace as well. Beyond the basic information I shared with him about the current problems my brother dearest handed me, we didn’t talk about it anymore.

Ace invaded my mind and didn't want to let go. No matter the shitstorm swirling, he is all I can think about.

It’s been almost three weeks since the break-in.

Three weeks, during which I’ve lived in Ace’s home.

Three weeks of Ace watching over me, cooking for me, taking care of me. He lets me sleep in his bed with him instead of the one in the guest bedroom, and he gives me good-morning kisses every day.

Great kisses.

Spectacular ones.

Kisses that get me stuck in my head, thinking about him. Waiting.

Waiting for him to take more.

This is the first time in my life I’ve want someone to take from me. Since, in his taking, I know down to the very essence of me, I would be also getting. There’s no way a man as magnificent as Ace is proving to be could just take. He’s all about giving.

But there’s a flip side.

As amazing as time with Ace has been, I can't stop thinking about what else has been going on. In the past three weeks, the messages from the Russians went from bad to downright ugly before they stopped altogether.

That probably scares me the most. Once the messages stopped, men started coming into the dealership.

I didn’t know them and had never seen them before, but I know who sent them.

Ace has made it a point to come get me once my day is over whenever possible with his work, or to come in to have lunch with me. If he can’t wrangle that, he just comes and hangs out with me. I’ve started living in constant fear, more than ever before, that he’ll clock the shady men who have started hanging around the lot at the dealership. They try to seem like they’re watching the cars, but in reality, they’re watching my every move, and I don’t want Ace to figure out the truth.

That I’m too much of a hassle.

Too much of a headache.

Because like everyone else, he will leave.

And if that day comes, I know all the pain my family, especially my brother, has put me through will seem like nothing compared to losing Ace.

Because of all of that, I live on the edge between complete terror and utter and spectacular joy.

Living with a man who seems to have walked right out of your imagination, proving to be all you ever wanted and needed, yet waiting for the other shoe to drop, for your brother to blow all that happiness to smithereens, proves to be quite stressful, to say the least.

And on top of all of that, I really, really need Ace to make a move, so I can hopefully relax a little, even when that possibility is very unlikely.

I just don’t know how to communicate all that in one simple request.

“Mandy,” Mia snaps before reaching over and taking my hand in hers. Her eyes do a scan of my face before they soften, and she urges, “Please, talk to me.”

I look into her kind eyes, and blurt out, “I think I’m falling in love with him.”