I zip up my suitcase.
“I mean, who actually pays for his fiancée to be kidnapped and then held for ransom?” I ask, dumping my suitcase on the floor before walking over to him. I crouch down so we are eye level, and a smug smile curls at his lips. My gaze burns into his. “A weak nobody, that’s who.”
His smile vanishes. Replaced by a look of contempt.
“You think I can’t do without you, you fucking bitch?”
I feel Axel move behind me. Vince just gave him the invitation he’s been waiting for, but I put my hand out to stop him. I just scoff at my ex-fiancé and shake my head. He’s pathetic.
Rising to my feet, I look down at the piece of shit.
“Enjoy prison, you asshole.” I go to walk away but stop. “Oh, one more thing before I go…” With an almighty thrust, I kick my foot into his balls. “That’s for paying those men to kidnap me. Hope you make nice friends in jail, pretty boy.”
Without looking back, I leave Vince and my past life behind me in that overpriced hotel suite, my ex-fiancé’s cries of profanities slowly disappearing as we make our way through the lodge toward the front foyer.
Outside, I follow Axel to his Jeep where I kiss him like a woman quenching her thirst with his lips. Love and lust collide with relief inside of me.
Relief because he is alive.
And relief because I am with him.
But suddenly, in the absence of fear, I start to cry. “He said that you were dead.”
Axel’s big fingers gently sweep over cheeks to wipe them away.
“He sent two suits with guns to my cabin. I’m pretty sure they wish they hadn’t shown up. I’m guessing they’re on their way to the hospital right now. Via the sheriff’s office, of course. I dumped them outside on the way. One looked like he was coming to, but the other one was definitely down for the count.” His lips curl with amusement, but then it fades, and he looks at me with so much affection it’s almost too much for my heart to handle. “Nothing was going to stand in the way of me getting back to you, baby. And nothing ever will.”
It’s ridiculous, but I start to cry again.
“I’m so sorry I left—”
But he steals my apology with a kiss. A deep, luscious kiss I feel all the way from my head to my toes.
“I’m in love with you, Lauren. All I need to know is if you love me back.”
“Yes,” I moan against his lips. “I love you so, so much.”
His big hands cup my jaw as he sears a new kiss to my lips.
When he releases me, I’m breathless.
“How did you get past security?” I ask, noticing the security officers standing across the parking lot at the front entrance of the lodge.
He cocks an eyebrow at me. “The security in this place is incredibly flawed. It only takes someone with security experience to find the holes.”
“Someone like you.”
He nods. “Yes, someone exactly like me.”
I melt into him again. Grateful he’s here.
“They told me about Anastasia, about the ransom demand,” I murmur against his broad chest.
“I figured.”
“Is it true?”
“If you believed that, you wouldn’t be coming with me now.”
“No, I suppose you’re right.”
He gently lets me go and places two gentle fingers beneath my chin. “I’ve never laid a hand on a woman in my life, and I never will.”
“I know.”
Looking into his heavily lashed eyes, I can see what a good man he is. He is strong and righteous. And he’ll spend the rest of our lives protecting me and what we have together.
A hint of a smile tugs at his beautiful mouth. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
Home.
I like how that sounds.
Because wherever he is, I am home.
He loads my suitcase into the Jeep and we take off in the direction of his cabin. Ahead, the sky rumbles with swirling gray clouds. A storm is on the way. But it could rain and storm for a million years, and it still wouldn’t come close to dampening the happiness I feel in my heart as I turn my back on my old life, and run excitedly toward a new one.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
AXEL
Inside the cabin, I take her in my arms and kiss her.
There is so much I want to tell her.
We need to start with a clean slate, and that can only happen if she knows everything. Before she left, I had already decided to tell her about my past and who I am. Because I’m so crazy in love with her, and if we have any shot at making it, she needs to know the truth.
The ugly truth.
“What they say about me kidnapping Anastasia… it’s not true.”
“I know.” Lauren’s eyes are warm and filled with understanding. “Tell me about her. What really happened?”
“I was her bodyguard.” I draw in a shaky breath as I lay all my cards on the table. “And her lover.”
Lauren nods and I can see she is bracing herself.
“When I first started working for her, I was young and foolish. Not to mention, a bit starstruck. She was much older than me, worldlier … and for an ex-Marine who really hadn’t seen much of anything other than the wet canopy of Washington state and the desert of Afghanistan, her glittering world of celebrities and wealth was very bedazzling. And Anastasia, she was unlike any woman I had ever known. She was very beautiful and she knew it. Like I said, I was young. I wasn’t smart enough to see what was coming. Or strong enough to stop it from happening. She was hard to say no to, and by the time I started my affair with her, I was so taken with her I didn’t care that I was making the biggest mistake of my career. Of my life. I didn’t love her. I mean, I tried to, but Anastasia was very hot and cold. Very demanding. And very, very jealous. Once, when she saw me talking to another woman at a gala she was hosting for the mayor, she threw a drink in the other woman’s face and slapped me hard across mine. It didn’t matter that I was advising the woman that someone had just sideswiped her Town Car outside. Anastasia had decided I was cheating on her and that was that.”
I shake my head at the memory. I could say that was the beginning of her mental decline, but it wasn’t. In my honest opinion, Anastasia had been spiraling way before I came along. I just wasn’t experienced enough to recognize it.
I look at the woman I have fallen crazy in love with and feel a surge of emotion move through me. I don’t want to hurt her. Knowing it would be hard for her to hear this, I take her hand. “Should I go on?”
Her fingers tangle with mine. “Yes. I want to know all of it. You don’t have to hide anything from me.”
I nod and try to find the right words.
“I broke it off with her. But she didn’t like it. She threatened to fire me. So I beat her to it. I quit and she went crazy. She started to show up everywhere I was and cause chaos. At my home, my gym, my new assignment. She would leave ten, twenty, thirty messages on my phone a day. And they would bounce between declarations of love, to violent declarations of war.”
I can still hear her outbursts. Her sobbing. Her angry, hateful words.
“Then it all abruptly stopped. And I thought it was done with. She was over it. But then she disappeared. It was all across the news. Shipping heiress kidnapped! Socialite missing!”