CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dean
Ikeep the grin on my face as Sloan stomps up the steps to the back door. When she steps aside to let me unlock the door, I point to the scanner placed at the right height to scan her retinas. What she doesn’t know is that even though my corporation outbid her offer to buy this house, she still owns it since she’s the primary shareholder of the corporation. It’s the same corporation I used to purchase her studio in town.
She pushes the button on the keypad and holds her face in front of the scanner the way Mac showed her earlier. When the lock disengages, her expression softens slightly. But I know she’s still raging inside at the realization of how far my scheming went. Which is why she reaches for her phone as soon as we step into the foyer.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I snatch the phone and slide it into my back pocket before bending to lift her over my shoulder.
“Put me down!” she shouts as she tries to wriggle herself free of my grip.
“Behave.” I lift my free hand to smack her on the ass as I tighten my arm around her thighs.
I know it’s time to come clean about everything. I can’t have her fighting me at every turn if I’m going to have a prayer at keeping her safe. So, I walk into the living room that she decorated and drop her into the overstuffed armchair before sitting on the matching ottoman in front of her, blocking her exit with a hand on each arm of the chair.
Her eyes scan the room, looking at everything but me, and I watch her anger turn to hurt as she pulls her bottom lip between her teeth to stop it from trembling.
“Sloan, look at me.” I use a hand to gently grip her chin and pull her face toward me. “I’ve watched you for years. Not justyouon a screen, but everything youdidon a screen.”
“Stalker,” she hisses.
“Yeah, I stalked you,” I admit. “And I used what I saw to buy everything you’ve ever wanted. Your car. Your house. Your dance studio.”
“I wantedyou,too,” she whispers as her eyes fill with tears that she won’t let fall. “And I hated myself for it, because I knew all you ever wanted was to see me suffer. Looks like I was right.”
“You’re wrong,” I argue. “I also used it to decorate the dressing room at the club and this house so you would feel at home in both places. Because you own it all.”
“I don’t own anything,” she says. “Except for a ten-year-old car and a business with no place to operate. Because youstolemy building.”
Instead of arguing with her again, I pull my phone from my pocket and open the ownership documents, showing them to herone at a time. Then, I open the corporate membership registers for both corporations and show them to her.
We’re equal co-owners of Dahlia Enterprises, Inc. Which owns the Challenger, my Chopper, the club here and multiple businesses in Cherokee Falls. She owns fifty-one percent of Sly Studios, Inc. Which owns the house, my other two cars, and her studio space in Thorngrove.
I wanted to keep them separate in case the wrong people got their hands on the information…again.
She takes the phone from my hand and swipes the screen as she reads and rereads the documents before lifting her head to look at me with tears streaming down her face.
“I told you that you own me, Sloan.” I lift my hands to her face, rubbing her tears away with my thumbs. “Everything I have literally belongs toyou. I told you earlier that I wouldn’t say I was sorry. I had toshowyou. You deserve that much after everything I’ve done.”
“You broke my heart,” she cries. “Over and over and over again. Everything I wanted was snatched away from me…by you.”
“For you,” I say. “I needed you to need me when I showed up. It’s the only way you would let me in.” I place a finger to her lips to stop her argument. “You know I’m right. If you weren’t so vulnerable, you would have slammed the door in my face.”
“Probably,” she mumbles against my finger as she rolls her eyes. When I drop one hand to her thigh, she shocks me with her next words. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me for taking care of you.” I pull her toward me until our foreheads touch. “You’re mine…and I take care of what’s mine.”
“Then, show me the rest ofmyhouse.” She grins before jumping to her feet and twirling out of my reach before I can grab her.
I shake my head with a chuckle at her quick mood changes as I stand and follow her through the ground floor of the house she’s already familiar with, gauging her reactions to each room. When she gets to the bottom of the stairs, I grab her hand to stop her from climbing them and pull her to the door under them instead. This is something I added after purchasing the home, so it wouldn’t be familiar to her from her tour when it was on the market.
“I don’t need to see the dusty basement,” she whines as I put her finger to the pad next to the door. “Why does it need to be locked, anyway?”
“Because it’s a panic room,” I explain as I lead her down the stairs into the fully furnished studio apartment. “It has the same lockdown protocol as the club.”
I tell her a little about my life the past five years as she takes in the details of the small living space. I explain my stalking in more detail. By the time we’re on our way back into the main house, she knowsalmosteverything. I still haven’t told her about my obsession putting her on the radar of the most dangerous motorcycle gang on this side of the country. But as long as I keep her safe, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
