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As I start for my car, I notice a few other cars parked near mine. It doesn’t worry me since it is a public parking lot. However, the hairs on the back of my neck start to stand on end. A quick sweep of the parking lot doesn’t bring any answers as to the sudden wave of anxiety that pushes through me.
I only have about ten more steps until I make it to my car.
I pick up my pace, but a sound behind me has me spinning around. I come face to face with a man with a dark, grave expression on his face.
“Are you Monique Richmond?” he asks, the pinch in between his eyebrows giving him a devilish appearance.
“Who wants to know?” I ask, knowing better than to tell a stranger my name.
“Rodrigo Garcia,” he answers.
Before I can register the name, everything goes black.
CHAPTER36
Diego
I didn’t want to leave Monique’s gallery. Everything inside of me wanted to stay. To make her understand that there is no way in this world that she would or could ever become a burden in my life.
The burden would be to live a life without her. Up until a few months ago, I had conceded that the only way I could have her in my life was as friends. I made myself believe that that would be enough.
It was a lie.
What started as a friendship between us, grew into something deeper, more profound over the years. The past three months have shown me just how deep what we both feel for one another runs. I can’t go back to just having her as a friend, even as my best friend.
I want her for a lifetime—in my home, in my bed, as my wife.
Pacing my living room, I wonder if coming back home was the right thing to do. As much as I wanted to stay with Monique, I knew she needed to speak with her mother. It’s a conversation that has been years in the making. Ever since Monique found out the ugly truth about her biological father.
I know all too well the scars she carried as a result of a past she honestly had no part of but somehow believed lived on through her anyway. More than that, the belief that she’s somehow a burden is what almost did me in.
I crack my knuckles at the thought of finding her ex-fiancé wherever he is and cracking his skull for being yet another person to make her believe such bullshit.
When I check my watch, I see that close to forty-five minutes have passed since I left the gallery. I don’t know if her conversation with her mother is over yet, but the idea of her possibly leaving the gallery alone, as it’s getting dark, doesn’t sit well with me.
She’s capable of handling herself but something in the pit of my stomach has me on high alert. I don’t know if it’s because of the way we left things at her gallery, or if it’s a general sense of unease that has me grabbing my phone. Either way, I call her.
I’ll apologize if she’s still with her mother, but just the sound of her voice right now would put me at ease.
Her phone goes straight to voicemail. I pull my phone from my ear and stare at it. Before I can process it, I’m dialing Monique’s mother’s number.
“Hey, Diego,” her mother answers.
“Hi, are you still at the gallery with Mo’?”
“No, I’m on my way home. She was on her way home, too.”
That pit in my stomach starts to grow. Before she’s even finished with her sentence, I’m on my way out of the door. Monique’s gallery is walking distance from my condo. I want to make sure she didn’t decide to walk here on her own.
I tell Monique’s mom that I’m going to head back to the gallery to meet her. I do my best to keep the concern out of my voice, but I have a feeling she hears it anyway.
Though the area is safe with plenty of pedestrians around most of the time, anything can happen.
I decide to hop in my car since it’ll be faster than if I were to walk. I scan the street she would’ve taken to walk back to place but don’t see her. The idea that she could’ve gone back to her place passes through my mind.
If she did, though, that doesn’t explain why her phone went straight to voicemail. When I pull up in front of the gallery to see all of the lights turned off and door locked, my mind starts racing.
I start out taking long strides in the direction of the parking lot where I know she likes to park when she drives to the gallery. My strides turn into a full out run when I hear yells coming from the parking lot.
