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And that fierce hug?
“I will!” she insists. “And trust me, you won’t’ want to mess with this country’s judicial system.”
I stay back—not because of her threat, but the reason behind it. Whatever it is, I should heed her warning. This isn’t about me or her. It’s about that boy on the call.
I watch on as she’s ushered away by her minder, who looks more robot than human.
A sense of emptiness crawls over me, yet I feel an enormous weight. I’m never a sore loser, but witnessing her slipping away from my grasp has awakened my belligerence.
This is far from over!
7
ISABELLE
Don’s bodyguard drags me along the hallway.
“Is my son okay?” I ask him. I wish I could reach out for that phone in his pocket and call Raffi. “Tell me he’s okay!”
But as usual, the man keeps his silence. He clutches my arm. I can barely balance myself, let alone run away, so I don’t know why he looks so worried.
“You yourself have a son. I know that!” I persist. Someone else replaced him for a couple of days not so long ago, and Thomas told me his wife just gave birth to a boy. “What if Raffi was your son?”
The man doesn’t change his expression, let alone his actions. He keeps dragging me as I flounder along the hall.
“How would his mother feel if he was snatched away from his home?”
With a growl of frustration, he mumbles, “Your son is just fine. Now shut up before I gag you.”
It turns out I had come two floors down from Don’s room. Did I walk? Run? Crawl? I can’t remember a thing. And how the hell did I end up in Clayton’s room? In his bed?
Don’s bodyguard called him Mr. Hartley. So he’s Clayton Hartley—and in close-up, out of the dark, he was even more impressive. His thin pajama top didn’t leave much to the imagination. The man has broad shoulders, a tight waist, and strong arms that can be gentle when called for. Yet, his eyes remain the part of him that holds his aura together.
Despite his anger at what Don has done to me, kindness oozed out of him like he had an abundance of it.
Never mind my initial Casanova verdict. He was a hero whom everyone would say ‘doesn’t exist.’ But he was as real as my hell, although the only thing I have of him now is the blanket he gave me to keep myself decent.
In the short span of time between me knowing his existence and now, Clayton has saved me twice.
Without him as my story tonight, I would’ve broken when the Reaper imposed his savageness on me in bed. Then, in that brief moment of freedom—albeit a moment when I literally stopped breathing—the stranger in the dark brought me back to life.
If only I could stay with him just a while longer.
I passed out a couple of times then, but not all of the events that happened with Clayton escaped my consciousness.
As we approach Don’s room, I think about how my savior’s lips felt on mine. It wasn’t a first-kiss kind of ferocity—he was simply trying to keep me alive. And from the sweat coating his face, his panting, and his tense eyes, I know he gave everything he had.
That man was exactly the safe house I had been imagining. Its door was wide open—too inviting that I gave in and entered. The fire was burning, warming the inside.
That was how I felt when I hugged him.
I might regret my audacity. But the moment called for it. I had to thank him for what he’d done, and I craved him like nothing else in my life. I had to feel him close. And in that moment, I felt him giving himself to me. Every muscle in his body was for me. Every inch of his skin was for me.
Every ounce of his heart was there on offer.
All that might’ve just been the embodiment of my helplessness. But it can’t be denied that for the first time in my life, I felt safe with a man.
So, do I really regret my audacity? No. I regret nothing. Come what may, that moment will stay with me forever.
