It’s an actual card, not just one of those generic things the florist sticks in.
A thick, plastic card slips out, landing on my counter when I open the main card, and I find myself gasping once more because it’s a gift card to a very high-end kitchen supply store.
Something to brighten your day and make you smile.
Love,
Landon
I pant out a breath. Then another. He put this all together himself. Wrote the card himself too and then had it delivered. Just to brighten my day and make me smile. I can’t remember the last time someone did something like that for me. Made me feel this… special to them.
I pick up my phone, debating if I should call him or not. It’s only a little after five, and I don’t know if he’s at work still or driving home, so I decide on a text.
Thank you. This was the best surprise to come home to. My smile is uncontainable.
He replies almost immediately. Open your door and show me.
My brows pinch in as I read over his text only to jump six feet in the air when I hear a knock on the door. He’s here. Gripping my phone tighter, I squeak out a girlish squeal, only to just as quickly rein in my over-exuberance. It’s not easy. It’s a damn chore.
I’m a total slut for him. No shaming there. I wear that title proudly.
The man makes my heart thunder, my belly flutter, and my mind turn to goo.
I skip—way too quickly, might I add—to the door and fling it open wide.
Landon is wearing his glasses, dark slacks, and a pale blue button-down shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His green eyes are sparkling, so much lighter than I think I’ve seen them.
“I snuck over here first before going home when I saw you reach your door. You like the flowers?” he asks, smirking at me, his gaze devouring.
“I love the flowers.” I lean into the doorjamb, putting us only inches apart.
“I thought about getting them from Stella’s greenhouse but was afraid of her wrath if I pillaged her flowers.”
And I’m in love. All over again and again. He was going to pick the flowers for me himself?
“You didn’t have to do all this. The gift card. It’s too much.”
His whole body dips in until it presses against mine, barely inside my door. His lip captures my bottom one. “I would have gotten you more, but I think it might have scared you.”
“Are you falling in love with me, Landon Fritz?”
It’s meant to be a joke. Something light, to ease the coiling tension that’s burning low in my belly, threatening to consume me. But he doesn’t take it that way. And when I realize this, realize he’s not denying it or pulling away or running back to his house, but rubbing his nose against mine with an achingly wonderful and slightly nervous grin on his lips, I thread my fingers through his hair and close the inches between us, kissing him hard, with a passion I’m tired of fighting.
I don’t care that he’s my student’s father. I don’t care that he’s my former asshole neighbor. I don’t care that I only left my husband not even eight short months ago or that I should stay away from him because I worry about my family getting their greedy meat hooks into him.
I just care about how he makes me feel, and right now, I’d rather die than give this up.
This perfect man. This perfect moment.
That is until the perfect moment bursts, and everything instantly goes to hell.
29
Blinding light flashes from directly beside my face, blasting my eyes open and forcing my head to turn in the wrong direction. In the direction of the motherfucker who’s snapping our picture. Again. With a douchebag, I got your shit on camera smile.
Fuck.
Motherfuck.
This slimy motherfucker—and yes, I know I’m dropping motherf-ers like Stella pops Skittles, but can you blame me—is leering at Elle, a dirty, grimy smile on his ugly mug. “Ellery Chambers, who’s the new man? Is he why you left your husband David Chambers or was it because he cheated on you?” He thrusts a phone into her face, and she jumps back, slamming her head into the doorway.
She doesn’t even wince. That’s how stunned and terrified she is.
But then, the guy turns his eyes on me, and I realize I know him. That is to say I’ve seen him at events and things all over town. And when he realizes that he, too, knows me, it’s game over. His eyes widen with Pulitzer-caliber excitement.
“Landon Fritz. You’re Landon Fritz.”
I almost wish he had thought I was Luca, but I suppose my glasses are a bit too telling.
His smile turns positively sickening with glee, and his camera comes up again. It wasn’t from his phone, which I find almost weird, but I react—stupidly, I admit that—and grab it from his face, rip it over his head, and smash it to the ground.
The guy starts screaming at me. Threatening lawsuits and First Amendment rights and screw him. My hands are on Elle, and I’m tearing her from her doorway, shutting the door behind us and running us away from the guy at a full sprint. He’s getting pics on his phone now. I know he is. He’s not telling us so, but I’m not stupid. I know how this works.
When Reese died, the media were relentless.
It was like the fact that I had just lost my life and my soul and was actively bleeding out without signs of stopping was ultimate fodder for their vampirish ways. They camped out on our lawn. On the sidewalk. Tried to climb my goddamn six-foot fence. They trailed us everywhere. Attempted to get Stella—poor little, tiny, baby Stella who was not much more than a toddler and who had just lost her mother to talk to them. They had no boundaries. No respect.
They never have, but when they catch a scent?
I slam the door shut behind us, locking it up and setting the alarm. The big alarm. The one that has motion sensors in the grass and blares loudly when someone hits a certain perimeter.
“Landon?”
That’s Elle, and I think that’s all she’s got because she stops there. She’s horrified. And worried and looks more than just a little guilty. She hasn’t seen me like this, but I don’t just have one girl to protect now, do I?
Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I make the call. It rings once, and Mr. Fairchild, my parents’ house manager, who was also a former member of MI6, answers. “Dr. Fritz?”
“I need security to come to my house and escort us to the compound immediately.”
“They’ll be there in fifteen minutes, sir.”
He disconnects the call because he has work to do. Knowing him, he’ll be here himself—like he was back then, by our side—until this is resolved.
“Stella, we have a code gray,” I yell out into my house. “Get what you need and nothing else. Move. You have five minutes.”
She doesn’t respond, but I hear her moving upstairs.
“Landon?”
I blink, noting Elle’s frightened tone, and spin back around, facing her.
“What just happened?”
“We were photographed.”
“I get that. But what’s all this?”
“They’ll hurt you.”
Doesn’t she understand? That’s what they do.
“Landon. It’s okay.”
I shake my head. It’s not. Once they get involved…