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I dial my attorney, Callie North, who doesn’t answer, and I’m not even truly sure she’ll feel able or willing to dive into the muddy river with me, not with snakes and monsters lurking about. Nevertheless, the beep sounds, and I go all in. “Callie, it’s Alana Blue. I’m in some trouble. Google my name, and you’ll know more. Please call me.” I end the connection and pretend to punch in another autodial before placing the phone to my ear, all the while my mind is racing. I knew I was in dangerous territory, but what I never considered was who might be in bed with Damion’s father and where that leads. And I should have. Damion has told me stories of his father.
He warned me about him.
I fight the urge to call Damion, aware that I made this bed, and I will not pull him under to suffocate with me. And he’ll jump right in if I give him the chance, which I will not. My Uber pulls up, and I immediately run toward the car. I’m opening the door when Craig appears. “What are you doing?”
“Your services are no longer needed.”
There’s a scowl on his face that reads angry, and not in an “I’m worried” kind of way. In an “I bested him” kind of way.
“Do you really think this is a good idea?”
I don’t reply. I slide inside the car and shut the door. “Lock it, please.”
The driver eyes me in the mirror but does as I’ve asked, and he’s already accelerating, moving forward, and driving me away from the place I’d gone to find justice but have failed. I should have known that justice is never easy to get when money and power are front and center. I sink back into my cushion and think about what comes next. Will the press be waiting for me at the hotel? Will the FBI? I need to go to Callie’s office, which is unfortunately in Connecticut.
I pull out my phone, book another Uber trip, and work out the details with the driver.
Forty-five minutes later, I still can’t reach Callie, but I’m standing at the back parking lot leading to her private entrance. I start walking up the stairs when to my utter shock Damion steps in my path.
Chapter Three
Alana
Only a few steps separate me from Damion when the days apart have felt like miles. My pulse leaps and then hums with his nearness, and when the wind lifts, the scent of his cologne tickles my nostrils and sets butterflies to fluttering about in my belly. There is no denying that my heart sings and cries at the sight of him—the man who has been my world, my entire life, and devastatingly, just as certainly, the man I must leave behind.
He’s wearing one of his well-fitted, expensive suits and looking deliciously male in it, but then he has always been the perfect man personified to me. And nothing about how I feel about him has changed. I love him. I lust him. More importantly, I respect and like him, which is hard to come by in this world, in the same person you both love and lust.
As I told a live audience just an hour before, he’s also the best man I know. Which is why I cannot be here with him right now. I will not destroy him.
I will not.
“No,” I say forcefully, my voice quaking with the word. “Just no. And you need to respect my feelings and stay away, Damion.” With that, I finally do as I should have the moment he’d stepped in my path; I turn to walk away, trotting back down the steps, but my effort is in vain.
Within seconds, Damion is catching my hand, heat ripping up my arm and across my chest with the electricity of the connection. When he touches me, I melt and forget all logic, and there’s no escaping what comes next. He turns me to face him and steps closer yet, one step above me, his body close enough to radiate warmth. He is big, powerful, strong—things I need right now so very desperately.
I need him, but he is not a luxury I dare.
“I said no, Damion,” I manage to repeat, but my voice is raspy, affected by his presence.
“And I tried to respect that, Alana. I did. I tried to give you what you wanted. I tried to stay away, but you are now in danger, and that’s where I draw the line. I’m sorry, baby, but like it or not, you’re coming with me.” He never gives me the chance to reject the idea, which I most certainly would. He captures my hand and starts walking, and the next thing I know, I’m being led down the stairs toward a black SUV.
Adam, the bodyguard Damion hired for me through Walker Security, is holding open the rear door, and it’s clear my “no” means nothing at this point. Damion came for me, and as is his way, what he wants, he gets. I have no say at all, at least at this moment, and while a part of me is relieved and pleased he’s here, another says, why now? Why not yesterday? Why not the day before? Of course, he’s already told me I’m in danger, but I’m hyper-aware of the fact that if he found me now, he could have found me when I was at the Ritz.
I’m not sure how I feel about that fact, as that means he chose to stay away until now. It’s what I said I wanted, so I have no right to be upset that he listened. I left him, not the other way around, and in an abrupt, emotional way. He probably hates me for it, too, and that should please me. That means I can push him away and keep him safe, but I guess the human part of me that’s in love with him doesn’t want that to be possible.
I’m a mess. He is, too. We’re just so very fucked up with each other. Always have been and clearly always will be. The truth is, we’ve been playing emotional tug of war our entire lives, and it always ends with us divided. Now is no different, and it was never going to be different. On some level, we both understand this as truth. We both knew we always had an expiration date that we’ve managed to drag out way past its date.
I don’t look at Adam, and when I slide into the car, I scoot all the way to the other side of the vehicle. Savage is behind the wheel, and he doesn’t offer me one of his silly quips or even a greeting. He hits a button over his head, and a dark window slides between us, an action that tells me he expects war between me and Damion. He’s not wrong.
Damion joins me, and Adam shuts the door behind him.
In unison, we rotate on each other, and I’m instantly captured in the full weight of his intense stare, but there is no denying the softening of his gaze as it falls on my face. “Alana,” he breathes out roughly.
That one word, my name on his lips in that deep, tormented timbre, seeps inside me and both burns and soothes my soul. I hurt him. I feel that pain in this moment, and it cuts me deeply. He hurt me, too, but I just don’t know how to be with him with all that has happened and has to happen in the future to end his father’s reign.
It’s Damion’s time to sit on the throne, and I won’t stop until I make it happen.
But as empowering as that thought and my mission are, my name on his lips has undone me, weakened me, and, at the same time, heated my skin and made me melt. That’s how much power Damion has over me. That’s why I can’t be here with him.
