Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 72715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
“This Ramirez. He has an accent?” she asked through clenched teeth.
Once again, Jake nodded.
“He…He said on the phone that I could thank him for the flowers in person.” She yanked her hand free, and Jake felt a loss that went far deeper than the end of physical contact. “How did he know where to find me?”
“He’s been watching you.” He let his guilty gaze dart away from hers. “For a while now.”
“The guy outside the coffee shop?”
“Yes.”
She began to clench and unclench her fists, the only outward signs of the anger and betrayal he felt sure were simmering inside her.
“What makes you so sure it’s the same guy?”
As a cop, he appreciated her deadly accurate questioning, but as the man who’d violated her trust, he wished she wasn’t so quick to put the puzzle together. “The tattoo, for one thing. He’s also been seen around the streets outside the hospital.”
“Seen by whom?” Brianne asked. But as she spoke, she began to question more than Ramirez’s hidden agenda. She began to question Jake’s.
He was certain of too much to be coming into this situation fresh. Since awakening this morning, emotion and confusion had been her constant companions—her stomach rolled, her head ached. And she had a hunch things weren’t about to change anytime soon.
He inhaled deeply. “That’s where things get complicated.” He ran a hand through his hair and stood, then began pacing the floor in front of the couch. “Back when you mentioned you thought you were being followed, I got suspicious.”
“But you didn’t let on. In fact, you lied.” The hurt and the anger she’d been holding back rose to the surface.
“Yes. No.” He shook his head in frustration. “I protected you. You’d just gotten through telling me you had a well-founded history of anxiety. You equated me to your parents and admitted that when I entered your life, history of danger and all, I’d probably caused all those fears to resurface. I couldn’t bring myself to validate your feelings and upset you, or somehow set you off again.”
“It’s not like I’m some mental patient that needed sheltering! I asked for your professional advice. I didn’t ask you to cushion me from the truth.” She rose. “I thought I was being followed. I may not have liked it, but I could have dealt with it. I’ve dealt with a hell of a lot worse.”
“That’s bull.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and met her gaze. “You’ve dealt with tragedy and come through stronger than you were before. But unless you’ve dealt with a psychotic like Ramirez, one who’d kill you as easily as he’d blink, you haven’t dealt with worse. Not even close.”
At his words, she jerked back, the truth striking her in the heart.
“I’m sorry to scare you, but I’m not sorry for laying out the facts.”
“A little late, but you’re right.” She straightened her shoulders and found the inner strength she knew she possessed. “I haven’t been through worse. This ‘psychotic’ has been following me. Didn’t I deserve the chance to protect myself?” She pinned him with her glare. She wasn’t about to let him off the hook for keeping such a serious secret from her.
He cleared his throat. “I made sure you were protected.”
“Not very well if those flowers got through,” she muttered.
“Hospital flowers are delivered all the time.” He held his hands up in front of him in supplication. “But I’m not here to argue with you, okay?”
But she’d obviously hurt him, because a flash of pain crossed his handsome face. Still, she couldn’t afford to feel sorry for him, not when she had a cop killer sending her flowers and calling her at work. A chill rippled along her spine. “Protected me how? And don’t leave anything out.”
“There wouldn’t be any point to that now.”
“But I don’t know that for sure, do I? I don’t see why you held out on me to begin with.” She folded her arms across her chest, more to prevent the shaking than as a defense mechanism.
“I’ve had a detective following you,” he told her. “And when he wasn’t with you, I was.”
His words shouldn’t have shocked her but they did. She braced her folded hands lower, around her stomach, a way of offering herself comfort, although she found none. A small part of her wondered if Jake’s recent interest had more to do with keeping her in his apartment than keeping her in his bed.
He’d been deep inside her body, and they’d made love many times, and so her heart rebelled against the idea. Her mind insisted he’d been drawn to her long before she’d moved into the penthouse and before she’d become a target. But her wounded pride and sense of betrayal still made her question his motives. She didn’t want to believe he’d lie, not even in the name of protection.