Alicia softened to hear those words.She can’t be like her father. She simply can’t be.Alicia didn’t want to believe she was naïve enough to fall for a scam artist. She wanted to believe that dating someone like Russell would’ve sent up a million red flags screaming at her to run. Not Danica. Danica was more like her mother so far. Julia would be so happy to know.
Speaking of trust… Alicia had yet to bring up Julia’s appearances.
“Please tell me that you trust me. If you don’t, tell me what I can do to make you trust me, Alicia.”
She accepted Danica’s embrace, her kiss, and her eternal promises to be the woman Alicia needed her to be.
When they made love that night, Danica asked if her new friends had helped her with her training. Although Alicia claimed to have stopped noticing them halfway through the day, they both concluded, after she managed to hold off orgasm for as long as Danica commanded her to, that they had done a great job, indeed.
She was asleep when Alicia uncurled herself from her naked embrace and walked across the room. In the pile of clothes in her suitcase was the black box Julia had given her over twenty-four hours ago.
Alicia didn’t look in it. She figured that part was none of her business. Instead, she placed it on top of Danica’s suitcase, hoping that she had neither overstepped her bounds nor opened a can of worms to rival Pandora’s Box.
“Look who’s back!” Candice leaped off the couch the moment Alicia walked through the door, suitcase rolling behind her. “It’s the star of Page 6!”
Alicia returned the hug she soon received. “What are you talking about?” She had traveled for over three hours. Sure, it was with Danica cuddling her while one watched a movie and the other went over a presentation with someone on video chat, but all those changes in air pressure and altitude could do a number on a girl. Not to mention the time difference!
“Girl, your face is all over the news again!” Candice ran to the kitchen and reappeared with a paper in her hand. “You and that hot beauty of a rich girlfriend are the talk of the town. Even people at work were talking about you guys.”
“Wow. Even the porn stars?”
“Especially the porn stars! Sally Scooter – you know, the one who won that award and posed in all those Instagram pics with me? – has the biggest crush on her and wants to know all the deets. She asked if she could come over for drinks after you got home.”
Porn stars? In my living room?Would not be the first time. Or the last, probably. “She did make a big deal about me at that ball.” Alicia left her suitcase in the middle of the room. Dee appeared in the open doorway behind her.
“Whoa. Who’s that?”
“My bodyguard,” Alicia said with a sigh. “Don’t worry. She’s harmless. Unless you’re attacking me. I think she said she bench presses three hundred pounds.”
Candice couldn’t take her eyes off the large woman closing the door behind her. “Hey,” Dee said, nodding to Candice. “I’m with her.”
“You need a bodyguard?”
If only you knew.“Apparently.”
“She’s not like… gonna live here, is she? This wasnotcovered in our agreement.”
“I only came in to introduce myself. I’ll mostly be checking in every day.”
“Oh, well, in that case…”
As soon as Dee left, Alicia was free to haul her shit into her bedroom and start unpacking. Candice whistled as she saw the number of designer dresses that spilled out of the otherwise small bag. “Someone’s being taken care of.”
“Is it obvious?”
“Next, you’ll be telling me she proposed to you.”
Alicia lay out three dresses while she debated where the hell to put them in her tiny closet. “No. Not yet. I got a feeling that may be happening, though.”
“You don’t sound too enthused about it.”
Alicia snapped her suitcase shut. “It’s awfully fast, isn’t it?”
“Maybe a tad.” Candice shrugged. “I guess billionaires get to roll however they want. If she wants to marry some poor hottie, is it like you’re going to say no?”
That didn’t get an immediate response.
Apparently, there was no time to respond, even if she wanted to. For her phone exploded with life, the ringtone so recognizable that Alicia dove halfway across her bed to get to it.
