Chapter 18
Brennan Diamond
Dressed in robes after sharing a mind-blowingly erotic shower with my future wife, I sigh and adjust my semi-hard cock before pulling her into my lap on the hotel room’s couch.
The effects of the drugs wore off hours ago, but I’ll never get enough of exploring and pleasuring my baby doll.
Shame over my lack of control slices deep into my heart even as masculine pride fills my chest as she winces and shifts on my thighs.
“Are you sore, baby doll?” I ask.
“Shut up, brute,” she snarls, but there’s no real heat in her voice.
“Says the goddess who demanded more, deeper, and harder every time,” I murmur against the top of her head.
She covers her amusement with a scoff and slaps a hand to my chest.
“It’s been over eight hours since we barged in here and locked the door behind us. We need to talk about where we go from here,” she says.
I growl and tighten my arms around her.
“We get married, of course,” I say.
Her head shifts as she no doubt rolls her eyes.
“Duh, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I told you I saw Ms. Baker in the hall before the waitress tried to lead us into an unlocked room.”
“You did, and you’re brilliant for stealing this room. You saved me, baby doll.”
She sighs and says my name with enough warning to sober me.
“I contacted a few people while you took your first nap,” I admit.
“Who?”
“Liam Brunswick, Carlos Lopez, the physician Liam brought to the office the other night, and my personal lawyer,” I rumble.
She stiffens.
“You didn’t involve Matteo or Brook Ricco, right?”
I shake my head.
“The fewer people who know, the better,” I say.
She relaxes and nods.
“Good. I met Brook at Mr. Carter’s gym. She married Matteo, who is often glued at the hip with Liam, but Matteo and Brook just finished their honeymoon. I don’t want them involved. At all.”
“Whatever you say, love,” I murmur as I rub my stubbled cheek over her freshly blow-dried hair. Her warm scalp and soft locks against my roughened face highlight our differences.
I plan to blow dry her hair for the rest of our lives, but the first experience holds an intimate edge I never want to lose.
“So what happened? You contacted them and then what?” She asks.
“Lopez retrieved the footage from the hotel, I sent saliva samples to the physician for drug analysis, Liam is working his magic on locating Ms. Baker and identifying whoever was waiting for us in the other room, and my lawyer is building cases for both of us.”
She pulls her head out from under me and meets my gaze.
“You’re certain someone else was in the room?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Can I see the footage?”
I lean forward, grab my phone off the coffee table, and text Lopez my request. He responds within thirty seconds. I play the video and hold it up for us both to watch.
Audrey snorts.
“That’s the clingy rich bitch.”
I squint, but no matter how many times I replay the video, I don’t know what makes her so certain.
The woman wears a hotel staff uniform, complete with a white long-sleeved undershirt, grey vest, black tie, wide-leg black pants, and high heels.
The only thing to set her apart from a worker is the baseball cap on her head, and she keeps her face averted from the cameras.
Audrey pauses the video and points at the woman’s shoes.
“I’ll never forget the way those looked when she fell on the floor. And the hair. I think I still have gel trapped in between my fingers from that monstrosity.”
I huff in amusement.
“Clingy rich bitch, eh?”
Audrey rolls her eyes.
“You’re the one who never told me her name, and I’m damned sure not looking her up.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. Her robe slips open and reveals a delicious amount of cleavage.
I tease my fingers along her upper chest.
“I like clingy rich bitch. It fits her well,” I murmur.
Audrey grabs my wrist and tugs my hand away from her.
“I don’t want to be here anymore. Let’s go home,” she says.
A low note of pleasure escapes my chest.
“Home. I like the way you say that,” I murmur.
Her expression softens as she smiles.
“I like saying it. Where are the new clothes you had delivered?” she asks.
I give a disgruntled sigh.
“You heard them?”
“Yes. I was asleep, not dead.”
“I told them to knock, not try and break the door down,” I complain.
“So where did you hide them?”
“In the closet.”
“You were just going to pretend we were stuck here all day waiting on clothes, weren’t you?” she accuses.
I smirk and kiss her temple. She huffs and pushes out of my arms.
I let her go just so I can watch her hips sway as she glides across the room.
As we dress in comfortable silence, her eyes roam over me with appreciation and delight, stroking my ego and hardening my cock.
Wearing sweats with her hair in a messy bun and her face bare, she looks like the most gorgeous freckled life-sized porcelain doll.
I long to pull her onto the mattress and cuddle her all day long, but she’s right; we shouldn’t stay here.
Even though it isn’t likely, the people who conspired against us may be lurking around.
I call the driver and let him know we’re on the way.
Audrey sticks her phone into her bag. With just enough room for yesterday’s high heels, a makeup pouch, her wallet, and her phone, the luxury bag I bought to complement her dress and jewelry creates a stark counterpoint to her comfortable lounge clothes.
She slips the long chain and leather strap onto her shoulder and sends me a warning glance through her lashes.
I decide to let her carry her bag just this once, but only because of the extenuating circumstances.
If having it helps her feel in control or lessens the vulnerability in her eyes, then I’ll suffer the insult. Plus, no one from the office will see.
I tuck my phone into the pocket of my sweatpants and offer her my arm. She hooks her elbow within mine before weaving our fingers together. Satisfied, I open the door and check the hall before stepping out of the room.
I keep one eye on my baby doll and the other on our surroundings. Mingling with my reluctance to leave is an indescribable sense of dread.
We ride the elevator down to the ground floor, check out and compensate the couple who allowed us to use their room, then return to the elevator and wait as it carries us to the parking garage.
My sedan waits outside the double glass sliding doors with my driver behind the wheel. Concern heightens my senses as he sits slumped forward with his phone illuminating his lax face.
A band squeezes around my chest. This is wrong. I slip my fingers away from Audrey’s and stick my hand in my pocket for my phone as I turn and crowd her back toward the elevator.
The glass doors slide open behind me. After a loud pop, fire streaks across my back and electricity scorches my insides. My entire body seizes. Audrey screams.
I collide with the concrete but barely feel the impact through the agony ripping through my every cell.
For a horrifying moment after the current ends, silence and darkness rule my senses, but my heart gives a sluggish squeeze before galloping into overdrive.
My senses return in a rush. I watch in frustrated terror as three men grab my unresponsive limbs—one on each arm and the third grabbing my legs—while a fourth rushes past to Audrey.
As they shuffle me through the doors and around the front of my car, my warrior goddess swings her purse with surprising accuracy. The idiot reaching for her spins from the force of her blow—with his chin leading the way—and smacks headfirst into the wall.
I chide myself for expecting anything less from her. I may not have seen her hit Mr. Williams with her tablet, but she took him out with a single swing as well.
The man holding my right arm curses as it finally responds to my commands, but the weak, sluggish movement is not enough.
They round the bumper of my car. The two at my shoulders tug and twist me as they climb through the open sliding door of a panel van.
“Be careful!”
Cold fury forms a ball of ice in my stomach as I recognize the voice.
Marilyn Swanson sits in the passenger seat.
The clingy rich bitch is trying to kidnap me.
Audrey lunges through the glass doors and disappears behind the valet podium, and I both thank the heavens she’s seen reason and is hiding and curse the sense of betrayal and sadness roaring through me.
The men dump me on the floor of the van.
I use the jumble of emotions to pull my knees to my chest. The idiot who had my feet reaches for the slider door handle. I kick the man in the head with both feet.
My kick launches him out through the door and onto the concrete.
Audrey shouts. Everyone’s attention turns toward her.
With a vicious shove, she sends the opened valet podium toward the front of the van.
She wasn’t hiding. She was breaking open the key compartment and unlocking the wheels.
Too shocked by the unexpected attack, the driver curses and reaches for the shifter, but the podium collides with the grill at an angle and sends metal keys, plastic fobs, broken glass, and shards of wood everywhere.
The front windshield shatters.
Clingy rich bitch screams.
Smoke plumes from the engine compartment.
The two men at my shoulders pause, look at each other, then scramble out the slider, grab their friend, and haul ass toward the exit of the garage.
I roll halfway onto my side and prop myself up with an elbow.
Audrey rushes toward us. Marilyn spots her and shoulders her door open, but my baby doll anticipates the attack and uses her momentum to shove it closed again.
Rich bitch’s head flings backward as the window slams into her face.
“Fuck this,” the driver spits before bailing.
Audrey skids to a stop and grabs the first part of me she can reach as she climbs into the van.
“Are you hurt? Can you stand? We need to—”
The sound of a handgun cocking freezes us both. Marilyn presses the muzzle to Audrey’s temple.