Maria grabbed the flowers, slammed her foot on the trashcan, and was about to throw them away when I stopped her. “Don’t. I need to take pictures of this. I have to keep track of everything he gets me.”
“Well,” she reached into her back pocket and grabbed her phone, pointing it at the flowers. She snapped a few pictures, and when she was done, she pressed the black button on the trashcan and tossed them. “Done. Now all that’s left is…” her eyes fell on the envelope in my hand.
Fear clawed at my throat as I stroked my name across the paper. The blue ink smeared. It smeared. It shouldn’t have smeared. “Oh my god! It wasn’t delivered. He was here. He was here! It should have been dry. The ink is wet.” Blue stained my thumb, and I felt marked, but it wasn’t like Godrick marking me, which should have made me feel dirty, but it didn’t, but this made me feel filthy. I wanted to scrub my body clean. My life wasn’t mine anymore.
Maria opened the front door with so much ferocity that the breeze made her hair fly in tendrils reaching for the sky. She looked left and right, seeing if she saw him, but the hallways were empty, and the only thing left was the elevator. He could be going down it right now. “You need to open it. You need to see what it says.”
“I don’t want to.”
“I want you to. I need to know how serious this is. We need to call your brother, and maybe you need to call Godrick.”
“I’m not calling him. It’s fine.” I flipped the envelope around, and it was sealed shut, which meant he licked it. I made my way to the kitchen knives and slid one of the blades through the paper. Tears fell off my face the closer I got to pulling out the message that waited for me. “It smells like his cologne.” And the smell was making me sick to my stomach. It was cheap and musky. Godrick’s cologne was rich and light, like and air and the ocean. His was an effortless scent while Brian’s was so thick it smelled like he was covering something up instead of adding the cologne to his wardrobe like Godrick did.
A man’s scent was an extension of him.
That didn’t say much about Brian.
With a deep breath, I pinched the paper between my fingers, and with my other hand, I tugged the envelope, releasing the yellow piece of notebook paper from its confinement.
“It’s going to be okay,” Maria soothed me, rubbing calming circles between my shoulders. “I’m here for you.”
I lifted my head, nodding, and the motion caused tears to break free from my bottom eyelash line. The paper was smaller than I thought it would. Unfolding the paper square, I closed my eyes for one second before gathering the strength to open them again.
When I did, the breath left my lungs in shaken, battered pants. I covered my mouth with my hand and cried. He’d never let go. I’d play this game for the rest of my life.
“What? What’s it say? Let me see,” Maria snatched the paper out of my hand and read: “Do not worry, my love, for I am here. I am in the shadows; I blend with the night. You never have to search for me, for I am here. I will watch over you until you see my love is why I am here, for I am here for you, my love.”
“That’s not creepy,” Maria muttered under her breath sarcastically. “Can I ask what you saw in this guy? He seems insane.”
I sat in the chair that Maria left vacant a few minutes ago. His play on words scared the hell out of me. “He wasn’t like that. It wasn’t until after we broke up that he got like that.”
“It was his stressor.”
“What?” I asked Maria as she stared at the note.
“His stressor, the thing that caused his psychological break to make him coo-coo.” She whistled and spun her fingers in a circle next to her temple.
“How do you even know anything about that?” I brought my legs to my chest and hugged my knees tight.
Maria took her phone out and took a picture of the note, and then laid it on the counter. “I watch a lot of Criminal Minds.” She crossed her arms under her breasts and checked the time on the oven. “What are you going to do? I’m not going to leave you here, and I need to go to work. I’m covering for someone tonight. You can’t be alone right now. He can be anywhere.”
“I feel like he is everywhere.” I shivered from the uneasiness and glanced around to make sure he wasn’t near me or hiding in a corner.
“He isn’t here, but do you want to call your brother? He needs to be here. Well, someone needs to be here.”
“I don’t want to leave the apartment. I’m safer here, but at the same time, I can’t let him run my life. If I stay here alone, then he can come here, and no one will be here, if I go with you, he won’t bother me.”
“I work until three in the morning, can you hang with me that long?”
My eyes rounded when I heard how late she worked. “Three? That’s like six hours past my bedtime.”
“You still give yourself a bedtime?” Maria glanced at the note on the counter, biting her lip as if something was bothering her.
“If I said no, would you stop hanging out with me?”
“I’ll have to think about it.” Maria smiled, but for the first time, it didn’t take over her entire face. Great. Now she was scared. She’d never come around me again.
“I understand if you don’t want to be my friend anymore. This isn’t exactly normal.”
“Normal? God no, you are anything but normal. You are the quirkiest person I have ever met and this? This is just a little action right when I thought you were getting boring.” She took three steps toward me and braced herself on the chair. “Lucy, I’m not that kind of friend that runs away when my friend needs me. If those are the people you are used to, I’m glad you moved because you needed new people.”
I did need new people. She was right about that. No one who wasn’t my brother had ever been there for me like Maria had. This was my new beginning, my new start, my way of getting new people, and I didn’t care what I had to do; Brian would not ruin that for me.
He wouldn’t.
Chapter Ten
Godrick
“Mr. Stoneridge?”
I glanced up from the blueprints I had in front of me of the new building to see Logan Green. “How can I help you Mr. Green?” I started sketching a new idea on the blueprint and then erased it. I couldn’t make up my damn mind. They were rough drafts, nothing too special yet. The workers had already started on the foundation of the building, but I’m nipping and tucking a few things about the building, adding another story, subtracting the scenic rooftop, and then changing my mind last minute and adding it back. Those aren’t things that I need to worry about right this moment, but in a few weeks, I’d need the final blueprint to get this building up and running across the river.
“I know I only got here a few hours ago, but I really need to leave. Something has happened at home, and my sister needs me.”
Pure fucking terror ices my veins. “Lucy? Is she okay?” I hurry around the desk, not giving a damn about the blueprint any longer. “What happened?”
“May I?” Logan asked as he took one foot inside my office.
“Come in, please. Tell me about Lucy. Is she safe?” My mind raced to a million different scenarios. I knew I shouldn’t have left her alone. Watching her the last five days without one single touch nearly drove me off a damn cliff, literally. I had been driving, and all I thought about was her wearing all those short dresses to work, proving that she did, in fact, own more than one dress that drove me crazy.
My mind was so focused on her, I didn’t make a turn I should have and nearly flew over a guard rail, but I corrected myself in time.
Logan stepped inside and took off his baseball cap. His shirt was wet with a day of hard work, and his jeans were filthy with dried cement. “I’m coming to you man to man, not employee to boss.”
I sat down in the chair in front of my desk and crossed my right ankle over my left knee. “I can respect that. I honestly do not care about anything else besides Lucy.”
“Alright,” Logan rubbed his palm over his mouth, seeming a
bit ragged. “Didn’t you say your friend Cortez was going to make sure she was safe? After what happened at the bar, Brian should be in jail.”
My blood stopped flowing when I heard the underlying implication. “Last time I checked, Brian was in jail. He had bail set at a few million; I made sure of that.”
“Then can you tell me why my sister got flowers and a card delivered to our door from him? It had a creepy poem on it.”
“Your sure it was him that delivered it?” That made no sense. Cortez would have notified me if Brian had gotten out of jail. I thought for a brief moment about having one of my security guards watch her apartment because I couldn’t be there. I didn’t, and I regretted that decision.
“Yeah, she said it was his handwriting on the envelope.”
“So? He could have written it in jail. That isn’t a big deal.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t be if the ink wasn’t still wet. It got on her hands. He was there, right outside our apartment door, and we had no idea. This guy; he is dangerous. He gets more daring, closer, loses his mind just a little bit more, Mr. Stoneridge. Over the last year, I thought that restraining order was enough, but I don’t think it is. I don’t think this man will stop until he has her. Mr. Stoneridge, my sister is the only thing I have in this world, and I thought when we moved here, I had fixed everything for her. I wanted her to have a better life, but now she is scared again. I don’t want to have to hold her through the night while she cries anymore.”
She cried? Did she have nightmares? I had to get over there. I needed to make sure she was safe with my own eyes. First, I was going to give Officer Cortez a call. I wanted to be there for Lucy and hold her in my arms tonight and keep her safe from it all. It would be another boundary I would cross with us. It seemed, her and I had the same thought this week of staying away from each other.
Lucy was scared, but I didn’t know what I was. My heart knew what I wanted, and I knew I wanted her, but my mind was playing tricks on me. What could I offer her? I was an asshole, and that was on a good day.
“I’ll go over there with you.” Logan and I stood at the same time, and it was then I saw the true difference between us physically. We were the same height, but I was thicker. He wore workers’ clothes, and I wore the clothes that showed I paid his bills, yet I didn’t feel above him, and I hoped he didn’t feel inferior to me. I wanted him and I to get along because he’d be seeing a lot of me.
“You don’t have to do that, Mr. Stoneridge. I can protect my sister.” His hand grabbed my arm when I turned away from him, and I glanced down where he touched me. No one touched me unless I permitted it.
“I’m not saying you can’t. I’m saying it isn’t your job anymore.”
“Like fucking hell it isn’t.” The professional Logan was gone, replaced with an enraged protective brother. His fingers tightened around my arm more, causing the patience I had to thin. “It will always be my job to protect my little sister. Always. I don’t know what you two have going on, but don’t think for one minute you can barge in and take my spot in her life. She’s my sister. I’m the one only two years older than her that still made sure she got her through high school, graduations, proms, everything. Me.” Logan pounded his chest, making it a point to show that it was him that he was talking about. “Don’t think for one minute I’m going to let any man try to come in and tell me it’s not my job to look after my sister. Not for one fucking minute.”
“It’s a good thing you love her so much and that I know you are the only important thing in her world, for now.” But I plan on being the most important thing to her on another level; I’m not trying to take your sister away from you, I’m just taking care of what’s mine and giving you the chance to put yourself first for a change. “ This is the first and last time you will ever touch me. Next time I’ll rip your damn arm out of your socket if you do. Let me make one thing clear, Mr. Green, I respect you wanting to take care of your sister, hell I even respect you for trying to take me on but make no mistake who the more powerful man is here.”
Logan took a step closer to me and sneered, keeping his voice low and slight on a whisper. “You think I care how powerful you are? You think I care if you have money? I don’t care about any of that. I stopped caring about you being my boss when you started eyeing my sister. Right now, your just a man trying to get close to her, and it is my job to make sure another man doesn’t become another Brian. Right now, you’re just that, another man.”
The words made my teeth grind together. Another man…I was not another man to Lucy. I was the man. In time, her and I would be together. In time. “Think what you want to think, Mr. Green, but I am not just another man. Whether you like it or not, I’m coming with you to your apartment.”
Logan glanced away for a second, jaw sliding back and forth, clearly unhappy about it, but I really didn’t give a fuck. “I understand. She’ll be glad to see you.”
Yeah, I doubted that. For the last week, Lucy had done everything in her power to ignore me, but I still found a way to be near her. I’d hover behind her, skim a touch down her arm, and while she pretended like she hated being near me, she never pulled away. She leaned in, wanting more, and I wanted to give her more.
Only when she was ready.
“Let’s go. There’s no time to waste. He could be there right now.” I rolled up the blueprints and stuffed it in a cylinder to protect it. Next, I grabbed my briefcase and sketchbook, and my charcoal pencils. I wasn’t like most people today that used a tablet or a computer to draw, I like the feel and weight of the sketchpad, the pencil in my hand, there was nothing better for me to destress. I loved to sketch, and it wasn’t always buildings. I liked to ease my mind off work and draw anything that didn’t involve damn windows.
“He isn’t there. Brian may be an idiot, but after what happened at the bar, he won’t risk coming into contact with her around people. As long as she isn’t alone, she’s fine.” Logan followed me out of the office door, and Barbara, the old minx, blew him a kiss. Logan paused at her desk and leaned his hips against it. “You can’t be teasing a man like that, ma’am.”
“I can do whatever I want. I’m double your age. If I want to blow a handsome man a kiss, I’ll do so.”
“Watch out; they might just kiss back.” And to my fucking shock, Logan wrapped his arms around Barbara, dipped her back from her chair like men did with women in black and white movies, and laid kiss right on her lips.
Barbara’s arms flew in the air, and her hands shook until they landed on the back of Logan’s head, deepening the kiss. Logan placed her back down until her feet were set on the ground and ripped his lips away.
“Well damn, Barbara, I think you met your match,” I said, respecting Logan for giving the woman a taste of her own medicine.
Logan winked at her as he walked away, and Barbara’s face was a flaming red. She fanned herself, and her pink lipstick was smeared around her mouth. “Oh my, I think you just made me feel forty years younger,” she said.
“You let me know when you need to feel that way again, and I’ll be here, gorgeous.”
“Oh, you,” Barbara giggled like a young girl with a crush. I guess that never changed with age, the feeling of love, lust, or interest. Barbara knew she didn’t have a chance in hell with Logan, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy herself. I hadn’t seen a smile like that on Barbara in years. I had yet to meet a man with the balls to do something about her flirtations.
I pressed the button of the elevator, and when the doors opened, Logan stepped in before me. When we started to descend, I snorted, and whatever tension that was between us faded as we both laughed.
“I can’t believe you do that,” I said, fishing for answers as to why he would.
“Why? She’s just an older lady wanting attention. She’s already had the love of her life. She just wanted to feel pretty again, young, and I gave her that. She doesn’t want anything else.”
“So it was a pity kiss? How did you think that would
make her feel?”
“I don’t think she’d give a shit. I hope I get like that when I’m her age.” The doors opened to reveal the parking garage of the building, and I stepped out first this time to prove to Logan that while he was dominant, he would always be the beta to me. I was Alpha. I wouldn’t bow down to him because I was interested in his sister.
“I’ll see you there. You want to follow?” Logan asked, and he tossed his keys in the air before catching them.
“I know where you live,” I clicked the fob to my Aston Martin the engine instantly started to rumbled, echoing through the parking garage.
“That isn’t weird.”
The way he said it let me know I wasn’t supposed to hear him say that. Of course I knew where they lived, when I walked Lucy home, I had already been there more than once since I owned the building. Logan’s truck pulled out of the parking spot, a newer Ford with large tires, his engine sounded as good as my DBS. The more I noticed about Logan, the more I liked him.
I tightened my hand on the steering wheel and pressed my foot on the gas, speeding by his heavy truck. My car was lean, light, and fast. It made a twenty-minute commute to their apartment, a ten-minute commute. I got there before Logan.
But who was keeping score?
With a grin, I parked, and got onto the elevator, making my way to the seventh floor. I wasn’t about to tell them I owned this building because I knew Lucy would hate the idea of living in a place that had my name on it. She’s stubborn and headstrong and wanted to prove she could do things on her own.
Kiss my Boss (Plot Twist, I'm Pregnant Book 1) Page 8
