He walks us all the way along the seafront past all the other stores. We stop and look in a couple of windows as we pass.
“I don’t care what anyone says,” he mutters. “A football is just not that shape…”
As he talks, something—or someone—catches my attention. Glancing back, I find a man leaning back on the railings, staring down at his cell.
He doesn’t look overly suspicious, but something about him gives me pause.
“You okay?” Seb asks when he realizes that I’m not listening to his explanation about why American football isn’t really football.
“Y-yeah, I’m good.”
Ripping my eyes away from the man, I continue forward when Seb starts walking again.
With my skin still prickling with awareness and my palms starting to sweat, I look back again a few minutes later.
Sure enough, the guy is still there.
Seb’s earlier words about some psycho stalker come back to me.
If what he’s saying is true and he does exist, surely he wouldn’t follow me all the way here. Would he?
“What’s wrong?” Seb asks, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me close, his warm breath coating my skin and tickling down my neck.
“That guy.” I nod my head toward the one in question. “I think he’s following us,” I whisper.
Seb follows my stare and nods at the guy as if he knows him.
“I should fucking hope so. I pay him enough.”
I rear back, stepping out of his hold. “I’m sorry, what?”
“Is this really the first time you’ve seen him?”
“Uh…” I look between Seb and the guy who’s now aware we’re both talking about him. “Yes, it is.”
“He’s been watching you since the moment I realized you were here.”
My chin drops.
“You had me fucking followed?”
“No, Hellion. I had you protected. There’s a very big difference.”
Ripping my hand from his, I cross my arms under my breasts.
“Is there?”
“Yes,” he hisses, his hard eyes trained on me. “Having you followed would mean I’d be told what you were doing, where you were going, who you were with. I never asked for any of that, no matter how badly I wanted to. I just wanted you safe, Stella.”
“So you found me how, if you didn’t use your little friend over there? How did you know exactly where I was yesterday morning?”
“I reached out to your friends and begged for their help. It had nothing to do with your protection.”
“And if they refused to help, then what? You’d have stalked me using a paid fucking bodyguard?”
His lips part, but no words come out. “I don’t know. Okay?” he says, throwing his arms out from his sides. “I don’t know what I’d have done next.”
“Unbelievable, Seb. Un-fucking-believable.”