“I don’t like you right now.”
“Cherry, I’m a very busy man. All you’re doing is wasting my time.”
“Good. I hope you choke on your time.”
Wanting to further piss her off for my own amusement, I reminded her, “Like you used to choke on my cock?”
“Oh. My. God!”
“Now those are words I’m familiar with.”
“If you don’t leave. I’m calling the cops.”
“Call them, Paige. It’s probably best I meet them.”
“Once again, you’re not making any sense.”
Unable to hold back any longer, I snarled, “I will once you sit your ass down!”
She could see it in my eyes, I wasn’t backing down. Finally she was fully aware I wasn’t leaving. Mumbling under her breath, she sat in the chair parallel to me, which was the furthest seat away. There we were, at opposite ends of her rectangular, wooden table.
“Happy now?”
“Why would I be happy with what I learned this evening?”
Her gaze shifted to my suit jacket as I pulled out the file, I brought with me. I slid it across the table, and it stopped right in front of her eyes.
“What’s this?”
“Open it and find out.”
She did and in a matter of a few seconds, the reality of her life was blatantly staring her in the face.
With an anxious expression, she met my eyes. “How did you get this?”
“How I found out is irrelevant.”
“Adrian…”
Without wasting any more time, I spoke with conviction…
“Paige, when exactly were you going to tell me about your fucking stalker?”
Five
Adrian
“Adrian,” she said with a clenched jaw. “How do you know about this?”
The mere thought of someone stalking Paige made me see nothing but red.
Bright. Fucking. Red.
I couldn’t believe this was happening to her and she had yet to say one word about it. She should have told me the second she saw me sitting at her dining room table. Conscious of why I was there to begin with. Paige knew me like no one else ever had. Some part of her had to realize why I was there. Breaking and entering her dorm was one of my specialties. Paige had always been a stubborn little brat.
Her first mistake was to think I’d be ignored.
Especially, by her.
Her composure mirrored mine as she continued to search for her answers instead of responding to mine. From the moment I found out about her stalker, I drove straight to her apartment. I wasn’t going to let another minute roll by with her life in danger.
The longer I sat there with her indifference toward what was happening with this son of a bitch, the angrier I became thinking about how this motherfucker could have hurt her more than he already was.
My thoughts raced.
My hands fisted.
I resisted the urge to hit something.
My temper wasn’t anything that changed throughout the years. If anything, it only got worse the older I became. Fighting was always second nature to me. It didn’t matter how many times I got in trouble at school or with my family. It gave me a sense of control in a moment when someone was trying to steal it from me.
For years, fighting was my source of adrenaline. It was a vicious cycle I reveled in, savoring every second of it while I could. Fighting was my outlet, an act that allowed me to take out the frustrations I’d gathered over the years.
It wasn’t normal by any means. I knew how fucked it was. Now that I was older, I used a punching bag instead of someone’s face. Sometimes I hit that bag three or four times a day, depending on how much pressure was on me that day to get the job done.
It was why I usually stayed at the same penthouses all over the world. They’d accommodate my needs for a punching bag in my suite. It was how I stayed on top in an industry where everyone was trying to take me down.
One by one, my irrational thoughts of what could have happened to Paige bled into each other. There was no way in hell she wasn’t moving in with me. Now more than ever, she needed my protection. Her safety wasn’t something I ever took lightly.
After all, I was the man who made sure every cock all through high school and college didn’t come in her direction. For what felt like the longest time, she hated me for it. But the truth was, she fucking adored it.
In my final attempt to create some sort of bridge between us, I replied to her question, “I had my PI investigate you.”
“Wow,” she breathed out. Completely unhinged. “You have a lot of nerve. Why are you having me investigated?”
“What choice did you give me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Typically, when someone ignores your calls, texts, and emails it means they want nothing to do with you.”
“You and I both know I’m not made like that.”