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But my reality hadn't been shaped in daydreams and fantasies. I’d spent most of my life in between nightmares, both waking ones and those that chased me from sleep, and that wouldn’t go away overnight.
“Thank you,” I finally said, shaking my head because I didn't have the words to express how grateful I was for his patience with me.
He scooted back from the table, dipping down to plant a too-quick kiss on my lips. “Call me if you need anything,” he said before grabbing his suit jacket off the back of the chair and sliding into it.
I stared up at him unabashedly, unsure how somebody that big and that terrifying-looking could be so damn beautiful.
He caught me looking, a wolfish smirk shaping his lips. Then he winked at me.
The man winked at me.
It was a good thing I was sitting because I probably would’ve swooned.
A few hours later, I sat across from Daisy at a small table in a quaint little restaurant. She'd picked me up and taken me to a place in Sweet Water, a little suburb outside of Charleston that apparently had been dubbed Reaper Village, after the Carolina Reapers—apparently most of Asher’s NHL team lived there.
I couldn't complain, especially when the food was so damn good. The owner of the restaurant, a delightfully sweet woman named Lyla, had come over to make sure that we were enjoying ourselves and the food, which she had personally cooked.
It was so refreshing to be in an establishment where the owner came over simply because she wanted to know if we enjoyed her food and her restaurant as opposed to the owner coming over to the table out of obligation to pay his respects to my father.
I felt like I was living a completely different life than the one I'd had a mere two months ago. Any time I thought about it too hard, it gave me whiplash.
As we ate and made small talk, Daisy's eyes kept flashing behind me, so I followed her line of sight, spotting a couple of Gareth’s guards two tables over, enjoying their own lunch.
“I'm not going to lie,” Daisy said when I returned my attention to her. “The secret service is a little creepy. Does that bother you?”
“Oh, this is nothing,” I answered, taking a sip of my sparkling water. “At high-profile events, my father would put six or more guards on me at a time. They were bastards too, never letting me explore anywhere on my own. They had strict orders to keep me in the place my father left me. At least Gareth’s guys are nice. They never question where I want to go, they just follow me.”
“Asher filled me in,” Daisy admitted. “I get it, but it also sounds like something I would write in one of my novels,” she teased.
I chuckled, nodding. “I can see that,” I said. “I'm actually reading one of yours now. Gareth gave it to me. I'm in love.”
“With Gareth?” she spluttered. “I mean, I know he's your husband but?—”
“With your book,” I hurried to correct her, my heart racing at the mention of love and Gareth in the same sentence.
“Oh,” she said, waving me off. “Thank you.” She nodded to the guards eating their lunch. “Are they going to be here forever, then?”
“I hope not,” I admitted. “Now that Gareth successfully kicked my father out of the game, it was just one more slight against him. And even though he didn't do it in an effort to start a territorial war, our families have been rivals for longer than you can even imagine. I'm sure he's getting pressure from various sections of our family to strike back. And until we figure out his next move...” My voice trailed off, a trickle of ice-cold fear slipping into my bloodstream. The idea of Gareth getting hurt because of me was one of my waking nightmares. And try as I might to push it out of my mind, it always slithered its way back in. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to him.
“And until you figure out his next move,” Daisy repeated for me. “You have to stick with the Secret Service Bros.”
I tried to shake off the lingering fear and nodded. “If you ever decide to write a mafia romance, at least you know who to turn to for the details.”
“I love the way you think,” she said, smiling at me. “But that’s the last thing on my mind right now. I just want to be here for you. I can’t imagine the shit you’re dealing with.”
“Everything is chaotic right now, even though this is quite possibly the most content I’ve ever been in my entire life. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“I think it makes a certain kind of sense, given your circumstances,” Daisy said.
Our server cleared our finished plates, and we ordered coffees to keep the lunch date going. I finally worked up enough courage to ask her more about her books. “How did you know?” I started. “That you wanted to be an author?”
“I’ve always wanted to be an author,” she said. “I fell in love with writing stories when I was younger, and I took a little bit of a detour in high school and early college because so many people told me it wasn’t a real career. But the more I tried to deny what I wanted to do, the worse my life felt. The moment I started typing out my first chapter—a horrible scene riddled with typos, tense changes, and my main character staring into a mirror—I was in love. It took me a long time to hone my craft, but even those sleepless nights where I pulled a seventeen-hour day writing gave me life.” She sighed wistfully. “And it must’ve been the right choice, because here I am fifty-three books later.”
“That’s an incredible accomplishment,” I said, marveling at the successful career she had doing something she loved.
“Have you ever had anything like that?” she asked.
“What, a dream?”
