Billionaire Erotic Romance Boxed Set: 7 Steamy Full-Length Novels (111 page)

“I’m okay,” I choked. I grabbed him by the wrists and removed his hands from my shoulders. He reached for my hand and I swatted it away. “I’m sorry, but I need time to think. I’m going to go back into the city. Tell Charles I’m fine and I’ll talk to him soon.”

“Caitlyn wait. Do you remember?”

“No. Or, maybe. It really doesn’t matter. I need to regroup.” I took off the ring on my finger and shoved it into his palm.

With that I turned around and left him there, taking the road south toward San Francisco.

I managed to catch a public bus headed toward San Francisco, which was fortunate, because by the time I got to the city, I had a screaming headache. I got off the bus at the Golden Gate Park. The scenic view of the city’s skyline was gorgeous as always. Fog had begun to roll in, covering the tips of the tall buildings. Life was so much simpler when I was alone. I began the walk to downtown.

What did I want to do from here? Seeing Charles and Justin had been overwhelming; they both wanted to continue on as if the past two years of my life hadn’t happened. I knew that could never work; even if I somehow forgot the past two years, I knew I’d still be a different person. I couldn’t go back to the life of a person that was no longer myself. I decided I’d spend some time downtown, thinking the fresh air might help my screaming headache, before calling Victor and having him or Oscar pick me up. Victor’s mansion would be a much better place to sort out what I wanted to do next than being under the constant eye of Charles.

When I arrived downtown, the fog had settled in and the sky was beginning to grow darker. The usual crowd of tourists and shoppers still lingered, and I picked my way through them until I got to Union Square. There I spotted someone I recognized leaning against the edge of the fountain: an old lady who was never seen without her small, somewhat dingy looking poodle. It both warmed my heart and saddened me to see her out here. She was wearing a thin sweater and a small, tattered blanket was draped around her shoulders. Her eyes were half closed, but I knew she was awake, just off in her own little world.

“Hi Marge,” I said to her.

The old lady snapped her head up. She peered up at me, her dull, milky eyes confused. “How do you know…” she began and then her eyes brightened. “You’re that girl I knew, the girl with no name.”

I laughed. “Yep, that’s me.” I petted the poodle.

“You sure look different. Where did you find clothes like that?”

I stared down at my designer clothes. “It’s a long story,” I told her. I pulled off my cashmere scarf and handed it to her. “Here, you look like you need this more than I do.”

“Really? Thank you.” The old lady took it from me and wrapped it around her neck. “It’s so warm!” she said with a smile. Her eyes glazed back over.

I turned to go, but the old woman continued talking. “It does get pretty lonely out here sometimes. I doubt they would accept me as one of their own.”

I didn’t know how to respond—Marge had always been mostly lost in her own world— so I just gave her a small nod and left. I supposed it did get pretty lonely when your world was different from that of the people around you.

It was completely dark by the time I exited the park. The crowds had thinned out a bit, and I walked aimlessly, lost in my thoughts. After a couple of turns, I realized I was the only one walking on the block.

Despite my warm jacket, I was chilled straight to the bone. I wrapped my arms around my body for extra warmth, but that did little to help me. The cool, damp air had previously been doing my headache some good, but I was starting to think I needed to lay down. Maybe it was time to call Victor. He would be mad, but I was sure he’d send Oscar to pick me up and bring me back to the mansion. I could deal with his anger later.

A pair of feet quickened behind me then stopped. “Hand over everything you’ve got,” a gruff voice behind me barked.

I froze in place and slowly turned around. A man shrouded in a hooded jacket loomed over me, pointing a handgun at my chest with his right hand.

My mind and the rest of my body stopped working. I stared at him, my mouth hanging open in shock.

“You stupid? Hand over the purse now or I’ll shoot you. And keep your eyes down.”

Shaking, I handed him the purse. He paused.

“The coat too,” he said. “Looks expensive.”

Shivering, I complied. Why hadn’t I paid attention to where I was going? How was I going to call Victor? Could I at least have the phone?

“All right, turn around.” I turned. “See that alley up ahead to the right? Walk to it.”

I hesitated and gasped when I felt the barrel of his gun on my back.
Oh my god,
I thought.
He’s going to kill me.
I walked forward as he prodded me again. After several steps, I turned into the alley. I felt the barrel of the gun removed from my back and let out a breath of relief. Then, with a sharp pain at the back of my head, the world went black.

***

I woke up hours later feeling like death.

I was also completely disoriented. At first I didn’t know where the hell I was, and that made me panic. Quickly, I registered that I was shivering from the damp cold. I had been sleeping on concrete; little pebbles had gotten tangled into my hair and fell onto my torn up knees when I sat up. My head was throbbing from every angle. I felt the back of my head and found a huge lump. It was a little damp and sticky; when I looked at my hand I found a bit of blood.

What had happened? I looked around and finally registered where I was: an alley. Again. In the night. Through the pulses of pain, I registered the smell of garbage. There was a dumpster nearby. The sound outside was quiet, and there weren’t many cars passing by. Probably a side street. A decent alley. I wouldn’t be bothered for the rest of the night.

Fatigue swept over me like a heavy blanket. I put my head back down to the concrete. After some sleep I could figure out what to do next. At that moment what I really needed was sleep.

Chapter Twenty-seven

In my dreams I saw Victor.

Not only did I see him, I was standing next to him. His hand held mine, our fingers interlaced with one another’s.  He was smiling down at me. The dream was so real I could smell his cologne. I ached for him to kiss me.

We were at his mansion, but it did not look like the mansion I had lived in all these weeks. Some of it was the same, but it also had a different touch, a feeling of warmth.

I realized I was the one who had made the place warmer, just as Karen had said. There were vases filled with fresh flowers; some of my paintings featuring bright colors hung on the walls. It didn’t look as austere as when I had first arrived.  Neither did Victor as he stood there smiling over me.

His home was now my home as well.

I felt gravity shift; something or someone was picking me up. How could this be? I hoped it wasn’t the police; that always ended up with a huge hassle and nothing good. Why would someone be bothering me in the middle of the night? This was a good alley, an alley out of the way where people wouldn’t pass by too much. When they did, they wouldn’t notice, and if they did notice, they wouldn’t do anything.

I flailed my arms and legs trying to escape. Whoever this was, it wouldn’t be good.

“Dove, stop that,” the man carrying me said, that powerful, commanding voice—Victor had come for me! I shook my head as the remnants of sleep left my brain. The back of my head throbbed.

I had been mugged. He must have hit me in the back of the head and then run away, confident I wouldn’t be able to tell police until he was long gone. Then, somehow, Victor had found me.

I clung to his neck clumsily; my hands had gone almost numb in the cold. Holding me with one powerful arm, he used the other to pull out his phone. “Oscar, I’ve got her. Come pick us up. Yes, right where he said.”

With that, he put the phone back in his pocket and looked down to me. As I looked up at him, I realized it was misting through the heavy fog. His bright blue eyes moved slowly across my face, showing real concern. “Are you hurt?”

I began to cry. All the confusion, all the hurt, all the anger of the past few days came pouring out of me. Tears mixed with the rain and burned hot down my cheeks. I buried my face in his chest. “I think a mugger hit me in the back of the head with his gun,” I managed after a moment.

“Shit.” Victor set me down on my feet. I wobbled on my legs for a moment and steadied myself on his arm. Once I had stopped staggering, he kept one gloved hand on my shoulder while he inspected the back of my head with the other. “I’m sorry I didn’t protect you Dove.”

I was too tired to argue with him, to tell him that I was the one who should be sorry, to ask him how he’d found me anyway. I leaned into his chest as we stood in silence until Oscar arrived with the car.

***

Once we were settled into the leather seats of Victor’s car, I turned to him and asked what I’d been wondering since I had recognized his face. “How did you know where to find me?”

“I tried to call your phone but you wouldn’t answer, so I called Charles.” Before I could ask how he had Charles’s number, he continued. “He said you had gone to the city and he didn’t know when you’d be back. I felt like something was off, so I decided I’d have Oscar drive me around town to look for you while I kept trying your phone.”

I looked around the car a moment and realized my coat was in the seat next to me. The coat that had been stolen just hours earlier.

“Victor,” I said, “how did you get my coat?”

Victor removed his gloves, wincing as he eased the leather off his right hand. With his left, he stroked my cheek with the backs of his fingers. I kept my eyes on the right and realized it was badly swollen. Moving up his arm I also saw blood on his sleeve.

“You have blood on your shirt! What happened?”

He kissed me then, passionately and fully on the lips, his mouth pressing against mine with an urgency I could scarcely believe. His tongue found mine and pressed down on it, forcing it back before retreating and letting me respond, which I did eagerly. He closed the kiss by grazing my lower lip with his teeth before pulling away. Face still close to mine, he replied. “As we were searching, I saw a man holding the coat I bought you in Paris and became suspicious. Oscar pulled over and we got out. I asked him where he’d gotten such a lovely coat, and he said he’d just bought it for his wife. I told him that was impossible, because that coat could only be found at a shop in Paris, and I would know since I’d bought it.

“He tried pulling a gun and things got a little rough. If Oscar hadn’t stopped me I might have killed him, to be honest.”

“I doubt he has many ribs left intact, sir,” Oscar said from the front. “Thank goodness there were no people around.”

Victor chewed on his lower lip. I could tell he was clearly angry the mugger had hit me. “Anyway, I told him I’d make him wish he were dead if he didn’t tell me where you were. To his credit he was very specific with the alley I’d find you in, and sure enough you were there. Though now I know why he could be so sure,” he finished with a growl.

“You could have been hurt! He had a gun!”

“I know. It’s up front with Oscar.” He pulled me close to him so my face, still wet, was buried in his shirt. “At that moment, I didn’t care. I wanted you back and safe with me.”

It was all I had wanted too. I burrowed deeper into his body, smelling the mixture of rain and sweat in his shirt, and lay there without a word for the rest of the drive.

***

Back at the mansion, Victor carried me up the stairs as I lay in a half daze. When we made it to my room, he set me down gently on my bed and took my wet clothes off before wrapping me up in a thick blanket. He disappeared for a moment and came back with some painkillers, hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls, and a glass of water. After disinfecting the cut on the back of my head and giving me my painkillers, he put everything on my nightstand and sat in a chair next to my bed. I lay on my side and looked at him in the candlelight, his white dress shirt transparent, wet and slightly bloody at the cuffs, his blond hair still soaked and stuck to his forehead, his right fist swollen.

His eyes were locked on me sadly, drained from an exhausting day. The previous several hours had been a real trial for both of us. As I stared at this beautiful, nearly broken man in front of me, I realized that I had no decision to make between Victor and Justin. The way I felt when I saw Victor was like nothing I had ever felt in my life, even now with my memories restored. My relationship with Justin had been a good one, and maybe I would have led a happy life with him if I hadn’t been in the accident, but the fire in my heart when I saw Victor was something entirely different. It was intuitive, a key to a lock, and the only hesitation I had was hesitation because of fear, because I was afraid of the intensity of the heat he stoked in my heart.

“Dove,” he started, after we had been staring at each other for several minutes, “I need to tell you something.”

I bit back the words that had formed in my throat and watched him. Tears came to the surface of my eyes; I was overwhelmed and Victor was about to pour into an overfull cup. But, for all that, I was pretty sure I wanted to hear this.

“I don’t know what’s happened since you went to your old house with your brother. I haven’t asked you and he didn’t tell me much on the phone, just that you’d gone. So I don’t know if it’s too late to clear things up between us. I don’t know what’s changed, but I want to make myself clear now, because I didn’t at the picnic, and I know that isn’t fair.

“I came to terms with how I feel about you just after you left and now that I have you here in front of me, I know it more than ever. I love you, and I’ve been in love with you for a very long time now. I tried to deny it over and over because I was scared. I was scared of being hurt, of being abandoned by someone else. That’s why I would always find an excuse to leave whenever you tried to tell me how you felt. It was silly of me to think I was cursed, that I would never find love without someone being hurt. I’m so sorry that I left you in confusion. I hope it’s not too late for me to tell you this.”