Had Clare been asleep?
That makes one of us. I’ve hardly gotten more than a couple of hours of sleep a night. I’d blame it on jetlag, but we’ve been home a week, and it has nothing to do with the time difference and everything to do with the woman standing in front of me in a long T-shirt that covers down to her thighs.
She’s got bedhead and rubs at her eyes like she just woke.
“Headache?” I guess, trying to figure out why she looks half-fucked and sexy as hell.
My cock stirs.
Down, boy. Now isn’t the time.
“Something like that.” She avoids my stare, distant and distracted. Her eyes are red, blotchy.
Has she been crying? Was tonight that awful for her too?
“What’s wrong?” I ask, and grimace. If she says it’s me, I don’t think I can live with myself. I know that I hurt her. She hurt me back. If she says it’s my mother, I can apologize and promise that she never has to deal with that wretched woman again. “Is this because of my mother?”
“What? Of course not.” She wipes a stray tear from her cheek. “Your mother was fine. She was kind of sweet.”
“Mom playing matchmaker isn’t sweet.”
Clare shrugs. “She just wants what’s best for her son. She loves you.” Another tear glides down her cheek.
“What is it?”
“It’s stupid,” she whispers, and her voice breaks as the tears glisten in her eyes. She folds her arms across her chest and swipes the tears away, but they keep falling.
I want to hug her, embrace her, pull her against me and soothe the pain. But that’s not appropriate if I’m nothing more than her boss.
“Tell me,” I say. “Whoever made you cry doesn’t deserve your tears.”
I momentarily hold my breath, hoping I’m not the reason.
“It’s my ex,” Clare says, and her voice cracks while the tears rain down her cheeks.
I let my guard down and pull her into my arms. “What did he do?” My stomach sinks at the knowledge that anyone would hurt Clare.
“What didn’t he do?” she says, and wipes the dampness from her cheek before glancing up at me. “He’s been calling, leaving messages on my phone, texting me inappropriate images.”
My blood boils, and my hands bunch into fists. “Let me see your phone.”
She shuffles her feet and grabs it off the kitchen counter, pushing it into my hands. I’m expecting the inappropriate images to be dick pics or some other crassness, but instead I’m met with death threats, and it’s clear he’s been stalking her.
“How long?”
“What?” she asks, momentarily confused.
I flip through the images and texts, trying to determine when this started. Was it after we came back from Europe?
“How long has he been threatening you?” I ask.
Clare sighs and leans back against the counter. “I don’t know. It never really stopped. I’m sorry, I should have warned you. I mean, living under your roof, it puts you and your daughter at risk.”
“We have top-notch security. No one is getting in without me knowing about it. I’m worried about you, though. You look like you haven’t slept since we got back from Paris.”
“That’s probably because I haven’t,” she says, and glances down at her feet, dragging her toes over the floor. “The texts were less often, like he didn’t know where I was and maybe didn’t care. As soon as we landed, they started flooding in at record speed.”
“First thing tomorrow, we’re changing your phone number.”