“Who’s that?” Becky nudges me again. “Don’t say a new employee.”
“No, he’s, uh…”A friend of my ex-convict pen pal’s who claims I’m his after a year of silence.“A friend.” I go with the simpler explanation.
Becky’s brows shoot to her hairline, but when a customer enters, she heads over to help, which leaves me to continuecounting the till for our handover into the evening shift. Behind me, Scary Guy smirks and stares a beat too long at Becky.
Millie meows, watching me pace back and forth in the living room, wearing out a strip on the hardwood. But there’s nothing else to do. My evening routine often involves relaxing with TV or planning for my role as a research assistant in the coming months, but there’s no way in hell my brain can focus on any of that tonight.
My brief conversation with Tanya stole my focus for a whole three minutes, when I cancelled our movie plans for later in the week. With Cade around—and my second stalker—there’s no way I can focus on anything social.
Not as another note marked with a V, in the same handwriting as the first, is gripped in my hands.
Stay away from Cade if you know what’s good for you
If only the note were the worst part. No—the fact that I discovered it leaning against the vase holding the calla lilies from Cade was. Theemptyvase. The flowers are nowhere in sight.
The fuckerstole them.
Once I realized that, I dropped the note and ran around my home searching for anything else he might have stolen, checking my bedroom for anything amiss and making sure Millie was all right. Once finding her safely stretched on my bed, I was pissed that once again, whatever drama of Cade’s life dragged itself to the safety of mine.
The fact that someone who illegally broke into my house would dare to be so moralistic—warning me away from Cade—is ironic. And while they’re the bad guys in this, I’m half-tempted to take their advice because Cade is proving to be every shade of a red flag—every negative decision a person can make.
He’s yet to return, so until getting answers, my nerves are stuck on the edge. Doesn’t help that with every turn of my living room, the empty vase once home to calla lilies taunts me. A part of me should be thrilled, considering keeping them sends a message to Cade, but it felt like a slap in the face. After everything, something good from his re-arrival was taken.
It’s close to ten at night when the door handle jiggles. Considering my bodyguard outside, I presume it’s Cade, so my pacing ends, wondering when and why Cade became the safe person in my life—earlier thoughts aside.
As he slips through the door, he discards his coat and tosses it onto my couch. His boots trail an irritating path of snow chunks inside, as if he owns the damn place. A fight I’m fully willing and ready to have when he sweeps across the room and yanks my face up to his and kisses me with the desperation of a dying man. He claims every inch of my mouth, reminiscent of our kiss this afternoon and distracting enough from the fact he’s walking me to my room.
“Wait, we need to talk.” I shove the note into his chest. “Read this.”
“So talk.” Pushing my hand away, he kicks the bedroom door shut and angles me towards the bed. His face is anything but tender, though. All hard lines and frustration. “While you do that, I’ll be fulfilling months of fantasies.” His foot knocks against mine, tripping me onto the bed, determined and clearly working through a plan.
“Cade.” I shove the paper at him again, and this time he takes it, reading it with a dismissive sweep of his eyes beforecrumpling it and tossing it to the ground as if it means nothing. He straightens between my legs, standing there, seething, as if torn about what to do.
“Where did you find that?” His read of the note may have seemed dismissive, but it clearly isn’t, if his expression is any indication.
“In my living room after theybroke in.” Whoever “they” are anyway. “You need to start explaining because I’m not letting them steal more from me.”
I cover my mouth, but it’s too late. I hadn’t wanted to tell him about the theft because then he’d assume the flowers meant something to me—which they didn’t.
Flint eyes scan the rest of my bedroom. “What the hell did they take?”
“The calla lilies you gave me yesterday.”
His scan abruptly ends as he focuses on me, while the corners of his mouth lift slightly. But he doesn’t comment on my feelings regarding what was stolen. Instead, he abruptly yanks his phone out, putting it against his cheek.
“They were inside her fuckin’ house,” he practically shouts the second the poor soul on the other end answers. “Do whatever you must to get me information on them—or you won’t enjoy who I’ll become. Tomorrow, I want guys posted outside her place, regardless of if she’s inside or not. It was a note this time, but next time…”
Millie.Who’s to say whoever this is won’t ramp up and hurt my cat? Or steal something valuable? Or destroy my home?
He hangs up and turns to face me, but I start before he can, gesturing to the phone he just slid into his pocket. “Who were you talking to? Who are these ‘guys’ who’ll hang out here? Cade, what is happening? You need to start explaining!”
He shoves me onto the bed, on my back. The hand tattooed with my name bands around my neck, keeping me pliant andsubmissive as he nips down my chest and into the collar of my shirt. My traitorous body doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t want to stop him, but the instincts that have kept me alive this long push him away. They’re the instincts that wrote the goodbye letter to him once, so I have to trust them.
“Cade.” I push into his shoulders as he edges my shirt up. After finding the note and his reaction, we can’t just move on from that.
But he also makes focusing impossible.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted you to say my name like that. How long I’ve dreamed of making you beg for what onlyI’llgive you. To beg for forgiveness after making me obsessed with you, only to take yourself away.”
