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“Don’t say that,” I said, feeling the lump in my throat constrict. “I’m a mess.”
“You’re not a mess, Sadie. You’ve never been a mess.”
Zack looped his arms around my waist as my lips trembled. “It’s in my head, Zack. It has to be. She’s been locked up. No one is spying on me.”
He slowly licked his bottom lip and looked toward the front door. “I won’t even pretend to know what’s going on, but if you say you felt someone watching you, I believe it, and we’ll solve it. You deserve a normal, healthy, and happy life.”
My gaze unexpectedly dipped to his mouth as the familiar pull washed over me. The electricity zipped through my veins as he kept me in his arms.
The only place I felt safe was in Zack’s arms. It had been that way since the kidnapping.
I straightened and brought my eyes to his. “I’m not your responsibility any longer. We broke up.”
A smile cracked his steely gaze, and he shook his head. “You broke up with me. It wasn’t exactly mutual.”
As the feelings for Zack swarmed through with an intensity I didn’t expect, I stepped away, and he let go.
“You’ll always be mine to protect, even if I’m not yours,” Zack said, catching my hand in his. “I mean it. But you made your decision. Once we get through this, you can return to your plans and head back east.”
Hearing those words drip from his lips made my heart fall, even though that was precisely my plan. The plan I’d agonized over for the last six weeks.
“Now, let’s get out of here and keep you safe,” he said, low and in control.
Chapter Four
Zack
“You should have seen the look on her face, Ian. It was like she thought she was in the midst of going crazy and wanted to beat herself up on the way there.” I sighed into the speakerphone to my brother. He took over my assignment in Alaska and called to let me know he was returning early.
“She’s done that since we’ve met her, Zack. She still thinks it’s her fault that she let someone trick her into being captured.” My brother stopped speaking for a second. “And I don’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just that she always shoulders the weight of the world.”
“I know. Now is no different.”
“So, you sent the photos of everything to the prosecutor just in case it’s connected?”
“I did.”
I heard Sadie in the kitchen with the faucet running, singing one of her favorite Christmas songs even though it was only October. “I don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“Well, it’s definitely strange that she’s been feeling like someone’s watching her. But it couldn’t have been Carmella. She’s only been out since yesterday.”
“No. My instincts tell me it’s someone else.”
“Agreed.”
The water stopped running in the kitchen, and I didn’t hear Sadie’s singing. “I gotta get some dinner going. I’ll see you tomorrow. Maybe stop by here before you head into the office?”
“Will do. Did you want me to stay in the spare house on the property?”
When I first bought this place, it had a smaller home that I’d lived in while I built the home I currently live in. Being that I liked privacy and didn’t need any extra income, I’d kept it vacant.
“I don’t think so.”
“Let me know if things change. I’ll see you tomorrow.” My brother hung up the phone, and I stood from my desk, glancing at the dark green chenille couch in the corner of my office.
My mind fell back to Sadie in here the first week after she’d moved to Washington. She had on a pair of oversized knit overalls that hung from her curvy body, her hair was in a messy braid, and her big, beautiful eyes seductively watched me work until I couldn’t handle it any longer.
I smiled at the thought and shook my head. She’d managed to make me feel like the luckiest man alive in the world. Yet again.
