“I don’t want to scare you—”
“Too late,” I mumbled.
With one long finger, he tilted my chin up and searched my face. “I must have seemed like a crazy man when I dragged you out of the office, but I swear that the only reason I did it was to get you somewhere safe as quickly as possible. I would never do anything to hurt you, beautiful.”
“I know,” I sighed.
“Good.” His blue eyes filled with relief. “Because I’m going to need you to trust me.”
Staring up at him, I lost track of what we’d been talking about. “Huh. Why?”
“You may want to sit down for this.” He led me over to the bed—the bed!—and settled us next to each other on the edge of the mattress. “A package was delivered to the office for you today. It had some pictures in it.”
“Pictures? Of what?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw, and his expression hardened. “You.”
“Me?” My brow wrinkled in confusion. “What kind of pictures?”
He pulled a manila envelope out of the inside pocket of his jacket, pulled out two photos, and handed them to me. I glanced down and heaved a sigh of relief. “I don’t understand. These are just of me going about my day.”
“On the surface, they don’t seem that bad,” he conceded as he yanked a third out of the envelope, flipped it over, and showed me the note on the back side. “But the person who’s behind these knows your routine. He’s been close enough to you to get this package on your desk. And not only does he know where you live, he made a point to let you know that he knows where to find you.”
“Oh,” I puffed out. My hands trembled so hard that the pictures I was holding started to shake. Roman took them from me, tossed everything onto the bed, and then took my hands in his.
“It doesn’t matter what he knows about you, if he tries to get to you, or what he hopes to accomplish. I’m not going to let anything bad to you, Jessa.”
“Okay,” I gulped.
His hold on my hands tightened. “Can you trust me to do that?”
My mind was swirling in confusion, but I had no doubts about Roman. “Uh huh.”
“Then go pack a bag, beautiful.” He helped me to my feet and moved towards the doorway. “I’m sure Xander or Calista will fill your grandmother in when they pick Maddie up, but I’ll leave a note for her with my number so she can reach you since I want you to leave yours behind.”
“You do?”
He turned back to look at me. “Yeah, if this guy gets a hold of your phone number, then he might be able to track it.”
My eyes got big as his explanation registered. “Oh.”
“Oh, what?” he asked, taking a couple of steps back into the room.
“Um. Well. You see—”
“You keep acting like you’re afraid to talk to me, and I’m going to think you’re lying about trusting me.”
“It’s not that!” I sputtered. “It’s just that I get...well...a little nervous around you. That’s all.”
“You’re the last person who needs to be nervous around me, beautiful.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“But I do need to know what went through your head that had those pretty brown eyes of yours as wide as saucers.”
“Oh, yeah. That.” I took a deep breath and blurted it out. “I’ve gotten a couple of strange notes. One at work and another in the mailbox here. Nothing scary. Just a little weird because they weren’t signed. There was a voicemail message, too. It wasn’t a voice I recognized, and they didn’t say much. Just my name, really. And then last night, I got a hang-up call in the middle of the night.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he grumbled, stalking forward until he stood right in front of me. The anxiousness I felt at the frustration on his face must have been obvious because he gentled his expression and sighed deeply. “You’ve kept this all to yourself, haven’t you?”
