“Right, well, I’ll leave you two alone. I’m off to bed,” Liz said, taking the hint. Over her shoulder she called, “Don’t do anything I would do.”
“Don’t you meanwouldn’tdo?” Robert smiled.
“I know what I said,” Liz quipped as she walked into her room.
Robert cracked up. “She’s something else.”
“That she is.”
Looking serious all over again, he said, “I’d feel better if you’d allow me to hire security for you.”
I frowned. “Iwouldn’t. I’d feel like a prisoner. Besides, we don’t even know if thereisanyone stalking me.”
“Olivia, I . . .”
“You what?”
He clasped his hands at his waist. “I haven’t felt this way about a human in a very long time,” he said uneasily, as if he was admitting to committing murder.
“Which is what?” I held my breath.
He hesitated, finally saying, “Protective.”
It wasn’t the declaration of love I’d been hoping for, but it still warmed my bones.
I gave Robert a quick tour, which lasted about one minute, as small and unembellished as the place was. I wondered how my shabby things and the overall way I lived must look to his billionaire eyes. Even the nicest items in the apartment, a second-hand wool rug and a pair of vintage brass lamps Liz had picked up at a yard sale, were laughably modest compared to, well, literally everything inside Robert’s home. I had to hand it to him for keeping a neutral expression, since he was probably thinking I lived like a pauper.
“It’s nothing fancy, but it’s where I call home. For the time being, anyway. Liz is moving in with her boyfriend, so I’ve got to find someplace new to live. Soon,” I said as we took a seat on the sofa. I’d stupidly offered him a beverage in the kitchen while I was getting water before remembering that the only liquid he could drink would have to come from my veins, which was so not going to happen. “
“Where will you move?”
I shrugged. “I honestly haven’t figured it out yet.”
“Will you stay with family while you’re looking?”
“Not unless I want to live at the cemetery. I don’t have any family left,” I said with a shrug.
I expected him to be squeamish about the topic, like most people usually were when I shared such information, but he was unaffected. As old as he was, he’d likely lost a few loved ones throughout the years. “What happened to your parents, if you don’t mind talking about it?”
“I don’t mind. They were killed by a drunk driver.”
“I’m sorry, Olivia.”
“They died when I was young, so I hardly remember them,” I said. “I try to not be bitter, because what good would it do me?”
“Was the driver brought to justice?”
“He didn’t need to be. It was my father. He was sixteen beers deep when he got behind the wheel to drive him and my mother home from a bar—from what I’ve been told, he was the more sober of the two. They only made it a few miles.” I shook my head, embarrassed. “Sorry, that was an overshare, wasn’t it? I’m not usually one to air dirty laundry.”
Robert shifted on the sofa, his strong thigh resting against mine. I stifled a moan, battling an urge to straddle him right then and there. For the umpteenth time, I was thankful he wasn’t a mind reader. He was so beautiful that I physically ached looking at him. But it wasn’t just that; I genuinelylikedthe vamp, too.
Some women are inexplicably turned on by awful, disrespectful men who treat them like garbage under the guise of being “bad boys,” but not me. After the way Nick behaved in our relationship, never again. Still, it made me feel special, knowing that Robert wasn’t so benevolent with every woman, as if he was saving his sweetest self for only me.Whyhe did remained a mystery.
“I like your dirty laundry, so to speak,” he purred. “Tell me more.”
“About what, my dead parents?”
He shook his head. “No, I want to know about later. Where did you go after your parents died?”
