by Cali MacKay
“You need to go. Please…I don’t have the energy to deal with you on top of everything else that’s going on.” Especially when she’d spent the last few months wondering if she was paranoid or going crazy. She’d been on edge and things had somehow felt off, like she was being watched or followed. She thought she was losing her mind—and then her stalker escalated things, and it turned out that she hadn’t been imagining things.
“I know I’ve made mistakes and there’s no denying I’ve been a complete ass in the past—but that’s not me anymore, and there’s no fucking way I’m going to leave you to deal with this on your own, Lilly.” He reached out to take her hand, but she slapped it away, knowing that he was like a snake charmer, and if she wasn’t careful, he’d find a way to charm her panties off.
“You don’t get to touch me and be all sweet and chivalrous, like you weren’t the one who broke my heart.” He had that certain something about him that made it so women couldn’t help but stare, couldn’t help but fall at his feet, couldn’t help but end up naked in his bed. So he could say he’d changed, and maybe he had. But it didn’t mean she trusted him—nor did she trust herself around him. Not when the air around them was charged as if they were standing in the middle of a lightning storm.
He leaned back against the sofa, his arms stretched out as if he were relaxed and owned the place. “You’re in danger, and I’m not going anywhere. So you can push me away all you’d like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’m not leaving until the police have this guy in custody.”
She shook her head in frustration. “Don’t you get that I’m doing this to keep you safe? I don’t know how crazy this guy is, and I don’t want to be responsible for putting you in the line of fire or calling you to his attention.” Keane may have hurt her, but she’d never forgive herself if he came to harm because of her stalker.
“I can take care of myself, Lilly—and I can take care of you, which is exactly what I’m going to do. So you can keep trying in vain to fight me on this, or you can tell me what’s going on so we can try to figure out who’s doing this to you.” This time when he reached out and took her hand, she didn’t slap it away, suddenly feeling too weary to keep dealing with this on her own.
“If the cops can’t figure it out, then how are you going to manage it?” It was nice of him to want to help her out—chivalrous even—but not exactly realistic.
“Because I have the will and the means, whereas the cops have limited resources and funds.” His thumb ran a lazy circle over the back of her hand, and though it was no more than a simple touch, it was enough to start melting her resolve to push him away. “Your problem is just one of many things they’re dealing with, so if you think they’re going to get to the bottom of this without there being a proven threat to your life, you can guess again. They’re just stretched too thin.”
Didn’t he understand that by helping her, he might be putting himself in danger? “I don’t know what this guy’s capable of, Keane.”
“All the more reason to let me protect you and help you get this resolved before things escalate—and things like this always escalate, baby girl.” When he cupped her cheek and brushed his thumb over her skin, her eyes slipped shut before she came to her senses and shrugged away from him. Luckily, he let it go, and didn’t push things. “I need you to tell me everything you can about this guy. Do you know his name?”
She tried not to groan, knowing that if Keane knew the truth about how she managed to pick up a stalker, it would only complicate things between them even further—especially if he managed to get his hands on one of her books.
When she’d started writing her novels, she’d done so out of a need to tell the stories swirling around in her head. And when she’d started writing romances, it was because she’d needed to mend her broken heart and fill the emptiness Keane had left behind. She’d spent years at it, juggling a full-time job and writing whenever she could, until finally in just the last three years, she was able to switch to writing full-time. Yet she hadn’t expected that with her increased readership and exposure, she’d also end up with a psychopath stalking her.
“He goes by Sirius. But other than that, I honestly don’t know much else about him.” She chewed her bottom lip nervously, avoiding Keane’s bright blue eyes, since he might be a cheating ass, but he was also damn smart, and trying to keep things from him would be damn hard to accomplish if she didn’t keep her wits about her.
Keane shifted to sit sideways with his elbow propped on the back of the sofa, so he now faced her, his gaze intense. “Then start at the beginning. Do you suspect this is someone you know personally? And when did he first make contact? What did he do?”
“I can’t be sure, but I don’t think I’ve ever met him in person. Or if I did, I wasn’t aware of it. As for first making contact, it was about six months ago. Through…my website.” She begged and pleaded with whatever gods might be listening that he wouldn’t ask her why she had a website or what the web address was.
“What’s the web address?” Clearly the gods had a sick sense of humor.
“I don’t see why that matters.” She let out a frustrated sigh, knowing that she’d probably just made him suspicious about why she was skirting the issue. “The emails started normal enough—just wanting to discuss different aspects of my work. I was just trying to be helpful by answering, but he kept writing back with more questions.”
“And you kept answering them.” His brow furrowed, clearly not happy.
“It’s not like I knew he was a stalker at the time. But then things really started to get weird. His side of the conversation became really personal, and next thing I knew, he was sending me pictures of himself with the deer he’d killed and the rifle he’d used to shoot it—though he was careful to crop out his face.” The mere memory of it had ice flooding through her veins and sent her heart hammering.
“Fucking hell, Lilly. And he knows where you live?” Keane was pissed off and clearly worried about her—and the truth was, it had been a cursedly long time since anyone had been worried about her, and it felt damn good to know she wasn’t alone.
“I swear, I was always careful not to give him any personal information, but he somehow managed to find me.” She even wrote under a pen name—though she was mortified to think she’d almost gone on to write under her actual name, but hadn’t because the web address of her real name was already taken—by a porn star, of all things.
“Except that your website likely has your real name on it somewhere.” He let out an exasperated sigh, as if already assuming that he was right—which he wasn’t.
“It doesn’t, Keane. My name isn’t mentioned anywhere on the site. I was careful—I swear it.” Given that she’d been writing for the last six years, she supposed she was half surprised that something like this hadn’t happened sooner.
He shook her head as if it didn’t matter that she’d been careful not to put her name on the site. “And what about your personal information when you obtained the web address and site? You’d have to give them your information for payment and to register the site to your name. Did you pay the extra fee to keep it private?”
Fuck. Had she? “I don’t know, Keane. It was six years ago.”
“Let me grab my laptop out of my car. I’ll be right back—and in the meantime, if you can pull up those emails he sent you, that’d be appreciated.” Keane got to his feet, stretching out his muscular body to his full height of six foot three, and then headed for the door, leaving her to watch his broad back and that fine ass of his.
It was a damn good thing she’d have a few minutes to recover from having him so close, though he now had her worried that she hadn’t been quite as careful as she could have been. She wasn’t quite sure how her stalker had tracked her down, but evidently, there were ways of obtaining her information that she hadn’t even begun to think about.
Heading over to her workspace, she grabbed her laptop and sat back down on the sofa, just as Keane came through the
front door, taking the time to lock all her dead bolts. Sitting by her side, he dug his laptop out of a gorgeous leather bag that looked like it cost a small fortune. She hadn’t really kept up with what Keane was up to over the years, knowing it’d be too easy to want more, but maybe he’d given up just enough of his partying ways to actually get himself a decent job.
“What’s your web address, baby girl?” He sat back with his laptop perched on his muscular thighs, his fingers flying over the keys.
“Don’t call me baby girl, Keane.” It was what he’d always called her, back when they were happy and they made each other laugh, when they couldn’t keep their hands off each other and the sex was mind-blowing. But that was also before he’d cheated on her with a one-night stand, and ruined everything they’d had for a cheap thrill. She couldn’t risk him bringing her walls crumbling down, and that was exactly what would happen if he kept reminding her of what they had between them before it got all messed up.
He gave her a bit of a pout that only made him look sexier, damn it. “You used to like it when I called you that.”
“You mean, back before you cheated on me? Yeah…I liked a lot of things back then. But then you had to go and stick your dick in someone you’d barely known more than a few hours, and surprise, surprise—I stopped liking a lot of things about you.” Fuck…she didn’t want to be that bitter ex-girlfriend who couldn’t let go of what had happened, but she was. She could write an amazing love story—she just couldn’t manage to find a love story of her own.
His eyes locked on hers, as he let out a weary sigh and ran a rough hand through his thick, dark hair, tousling it so he was even sexier, without even trying. “You have every right to be pissed off at me, Lilly. I get that. But what happened between us changed me—and I’ve been working damn hard to become a man worthy of you. A man you might someday trust.”
“And maybe someday I will—but today isn’t it.”
Chapter 4
Keane knew he’d have his work cut out for him when it came to Lilly, but he’d never shied away from a challenge, and he certainly wasn’t going to now—not when she was the prize. She might want to push him away, but he wasn’t going anywhere. “I’m happy to wait for that day, Lilly. And in the meantime, I’ll be right here to remind you of how good we were together—even if I fucked things up in the end. Now, if I could please have your web address, we can try to figure out where your vulnerabilities are.”
“I already know I’m vulnerable, Keane. He knows where I live.” Lilly’s voice was laced with panic, even if she was trying to put on a brave face. “I wasn’t sure if he did or not, but last night…I left the window open while I was dealing with the cops, and when I got back…he’d left a lily on my bed.”
“What the hell are you still doing here, Lilly?” Pissed off and ready to fucking murder the bastard who was stalking her, he barely managed to keep from forcibly packing her bags and stuffing her into his car.
“Where the hell am I supposed to go? And for how long? I can spend a week or two in a hotel, but I can’t afford to stay there indefinitely, since I don’t see this ending any time soon. And you know I don’t really have any family I can turn to. As for friends…I don’t want to put them in danger.” She wrapped her arms around herself, as if it would somehow keep her safe from all her problems.
He knew she had little to no family—or rather, she had family, but they weren’t close. And how could she be close to them, when her mother, too young to deal with the responsibility of a child, had abandoned her with her dad when Lilly was just two? Her father had remarried, but he’d had his own issues, and before long, he’d abandoned Lilly with her stepmother. Luckily, her stepmom had been a loving and caring person, who’d been happy to raise her as her own, since she had no other children. Unfortunately, she’d died several years ago, which meant that Lilly didn’t really have anyone else in her life other than her friends.
“You’re going to come stay with me.” His home had iron gates and plenty of security—a hell of a lot more than just the few dead bolts she had on her front door. “We’ll get all this sorted at my place, where you’ll be safe—and you can stay with me as long as it takes to get this resolved.”
Her eyes went wide and her back went straight. “You’ve lost your damned mind if you think I’m going home with you. That’s not happening. Not in a million years.”
“It is. Now. Even if I have to toss you over my shoulder and haul you out of here kicking and screaming. So I suggest you go and pack your bags before I do it for you, because there’s no fucking way you’re staying here.” When she didn’t budge, he got to his feet and hauled her off the sofa. “Go and pack, Lilly. This is not up for debate—not when your safety is on the line.”
She glared at him, daggers in her green eyes. “I fucking hate you, Keane.”
“I think we’ve already established that, baby girl.” Hell, she was already mad at him. Might as well call her what he wanted.
When she stormed off and headed up the stairs, he followed her, not necessarily because he wanted to see her room, but because he didn’t like the fact that this stalker had been in there. He stood in the doorway, lingering as she grabbed a small suitcase from a linen closet in the hall, and then headed into her room to pack.
The space was bright and cheery, done up in whites and the colors of the ocean, reminding him of a beach cottage. A teal comforter was dotted with piles of white pillows propped against a distressed white headboard, which matched a dresser and the multiple bookshelves that lined the walls. He’d always liked that she’d been an avid reader, and clearly that hadn’t changed, if the size of her book collection was anything to go by.
Wandering into her room, he glanced at the books she was reading—some mysteries, a lot more romances, some historicals, and some erotica. The mere thought of her lying in bed with a book in one hand while her other hand slipped under the covers and between her thighs had him going hard. Stifling a groan, he forced himself to turn his attention to anything that might not look right.
Keane was worried that if Sirius had been in the room, then he may have snuck in some sort of video camera, which might be feeding back a live feed. Not to mention, how did he get into the room in the first place? Had he climbed up through her window using the porch to pull himself up—or had he broken in when she’d been out and had been lying in wait, hidden away, without her knowing that he was watching her the whole time? “Did you check to see if anything looked different or out of place after last night? Did anything go missing?”
“The cops searched the house, but he wasn’t here.” Her brow furrowed, worry darkening her eyes once more as she glanced around the room. “Other than the lily on the bed, I didn’t notice anything. Why?”
“Think like a stalker, Lilly. If he’s obsessed with you, he might take something of yours, or find a way to keep tabs on you—a way to watch you.” He didn’t want to scare her, but she wouldn’t appreciate him trying to coddle her either. She was a strong woman—strong enough to kick his ass to the curb when he’d fucked up, and strong enough to have been dealing with this stalker on her own until he stuck his nose in it. “And how did he get into your room? Did he take the risk and climb up or did he break in at an earlier time and had been here all along?”
This time, she genuinely looked freaked out, her body starting to shake from the visible tension in her body. “I feel like I’m going to be ill, Keane. Do you really think he’s left a camera in here so he can watch me—or that he was actually here the whole time?”
“Unfortunately, I do.” There had been cases of strangers living in people’s homes for months without them realizing it, so it wasn’t a stretch to think he’d slipped in while she was picking up groceries.
Trying to think the way this perverted asshole might, Keane focused on finding evidence that may have been left behind, like a video transmitter. He figured he’d likely want to watch her in bed, and her bookshelves would certainly be the easiest place to get a d
ecent view of her, while keeping the camera hidden away quite easily.
Shifting for a closer look, Keane focused his attention on the shelves, and anything that might look off. “They make cameras tiny these days, and they’re readily available. All he’d need to do is fit the transmitter someplace inconspicuous. The only problem would be transmitting the image, since it’s unlikely he’s parked in a van outside your house. That means it’d need to have a decent range on it, though it’s more likely that he’s somehow relaying it—probably using your Wi-Fi.”
“Keane…you’re really starting to scare me.” Worried as she looked, he couldn’t help but pull her into his arms—and she let him, without any fuss, which spoke to just how upset and frightened she was by this whole thing.
“It’s why you’re going to stay with me until we can get this sorted. It’s not as if we’re overreacting, Lilly. Not when he’s sent you pictures of a dead animal he killed, and he’s physically been in your room.” If there was a camera hidden in the room, he wasn’t spotting it, and at this point, he wasn’t going to waste any more time looking for it. “Finish packing. I want to get you out of here now.”
She grabbed the basics, and did a quick dash into the master bath, returning with a small travel case, which she quickly packed. “I’m still not sure staying at your place is a good idea, but I can’t stay here so...I appreciate it, Keane. I promise I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I’m able to.”
“Lilly...you can stay with me as long as you’d like. And in the meantime, we’ll try to figure out who this guy is. If he’s emailed you, or if we’re able to find a camera, then there’s a good chance we’ll be able to track something back to him.” If the cops couldn’t manage to find the fucking bastard, then he’d hire Hadley’s security firm. He’d just finished working with her to find the mole in his brother’s company, and he liked her. She was not only smart and nice, but excellent at her job.
