"I'm not in any danger.Peter was overreacting.And if I am, I can handle it myself.So, again, please leave.”
She walked to the door and opened it, fully intending to usher them out, but a brutal gust of wind and cold hit her full force.There wasn’t just a subtle change in the weather.Within minutes, it had gone from cozy, pretty snowflakes to the relentless force of nature on a warpath.
They were so distracting that she hadn’t even noticed the weather changing before it should, from an approaching storm to a full-on storm.
Well, fuck.She couldn’t send them out in that weather.
Fine.
She couldn’t get the door to close, and just when she thought she was going to fly out into the storm, Austin pulled her in with one arm while he shut the door with the other.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
Yes, under Austin’s touch, it became even clearer they all couldn’t stay in the cabin together.
“Well, you can’t stay here.There’s only one other bedroom and I didn’t expect you to be so...big.”That was all she could come up with as an excuse?
“Don’t worry about us,” Darien said as if that solved their sleeping arrangements.
“Well, you can stay here for the night but by tomorrow I need you gone.”
“Doesn’t work that way.We’re here to protect you,” Austin said.
“I don’t need protection.”
“I don’t know what you know, but the people after you are not the convivial kind,” Emerson warned.
“There’s no one after me.Peter is just being paranoid and overreacting.”
“We’re not taking any chances, Adrienne,” Darien said softly.
“Did you know who I was when you saw me at Cassie’s charity event?”she asked instead.
“Yes,” Emerson’s succinct reply colored her cheeks.
Oh god.She couldn’t even blame them for setting her up.It had all been on her.She’d been the one to spiral out of control after receiving news that Desmond Morton had been released from prison.How could that have orchestrated anything if she’d been the one to bid on them—ten million dollars—then demanded they fuck her which was a ruse for basically getting rid of her virginity.
Oh god.She was going to be sick.She couldn’t look them in the eye anymore.Who did things like that?She’d paid them to sleep with her and they’d merely been there to protect her.She didn’t even give them a choice to say no.
She nodded once, then without another word, she straightened her shoulders and marched to the bedroom.She was just never going to leave the room.Ever.
But three hours later with her pacing holes into the floor, she’d worked herself up into such a frenzy, that she wanted the world to swallow her up.Of all the men she could have picked, she picked the three she really, truly shouldn’t have.
She slapped her hands to her face.They’d known she was a virgin.Could she be more pathetic?Probably not.
Absolutely mad at herself, she crawled into bed.She really was determined to stay there forever.
After restless bouts of sleep, her mind overwrought with images of their naked bodies, she kicked the covers off and lay there until she started to feel cold.How was she going to get through this?Why did she choose them?Why was she behaving like some clueless teenage girl?
Her stomach decided at that moment to growl.Great.Now she was hungry.And hadn’t she promised herself that she could eat anything she wanted as soon as she got away?
It took her another hour to work up the courage to go out into the wild, also known as her kitchen, which wouldn’t have been a bad thing if it weren’t an open-plan set-up.In other words, they would see her.Well, she planned to keep her head down and not so much as breathe in their cologne.
Angrily, she yanked a thick winter gown off a hanger, slipped into it, and fastened the belt so tight that she wondered if she would make it to the kitchen after all without passing out.
She’d grab a packet of cookies and as much as she wanted a cup of hot chocolate, she’d settle for a soda and sneak back into her room.
But the sight and the smells that assailed her when she opened the door ruined her.
