No one touched her except me.
His face twisted into a scowl. “Give me more credit than that.”
He hadn’t been happy when I’d pulled him away from the woman he’d brought home, but he showed up as I knew he would. I didn’t trust anyone else to look after Stella tonight, not even myself.
“Text me updates every hour. I don’t care if it’s four in the goddamn morning. I want those check-ins.”
That was as close to staying with her as I would allow myself.
Kage sighed. “You got it.”
I cast one last glance at Stella’s bedroom door.
Every cell in my body screamed for me not to leave. I despised the idea that Kage was watching her instead of me.
When he’d called her darlin’ and she’d smiled at him, I’d come close to losing my best employee at my own hands.
In a rare moment of weakness, I’d used our fake dating arrangement to get closer to her, but a part of me had secretly hoped it would shatter the mystery and end my fixation with her.
Instead, it was doing the opposite. The more time I spent with Stella, the more I wanted to be around her. To let her into places I’d never shown anyone.
It was unacceptable.
I brushed past Kage, took the elevator up to my penthouse, and went straight to the bar.
The lights of D.C. glittered like a carpet of stars outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, but I couldn’t appreciate the sight. I was too wound up.
If anything had happened to Stella…
Ice spread through my veins.
I filled my glass with a heavier than usual pour.
Sat.
And waited for the first text from Kage.