Page 7

Seven

Dash

Getting out of the hospital is epic.

Bringing Willow home with me… well, I’m not sure how I feel about that.

She’s one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, and she’s currently asleep in my guest room. My team arrived at six thirty this morning and we made it happen. Discharge papers for both of us, medical instructions, security issues… we needed to be out before Dylan arrived.

He was due at nine a.m., everything in place to bring her home, and thank fuck for nurse Holly. Once we got her on board, it was easy to get the information we needed to get Willow out of there safely.

I make a note in my phone to send Holly some kind of gift basket. We couldn’t have pulled it off without her because Dylan was being very cloak and dagger about his plans. Luckily, I’ve been cloaking and daggering for a living for a lot longer than him.

Asshole.

Just thinking about him and the way he spoke to Willow makes me want to hit things. People. Probably just him.

What kind of prick talks to his fiancée the way he did?

Threatens her.

Promises to kill her if she doesn’t do everything he expects.

I do a mental head shake to clear my thoughts as I stare into my refrigerator, trying to decide if I want anything to eat. I have a housekeeper who comes and freshens up, stocks the fridge, leaves meals in my freezer, and makes sure everything is running smoothly.

But she can’t anticipate me being in a mood for I-just-spent-a-week-eating-hospital-food-and-want-something-different.

Maybe Willow is awake and is craving something special too.

I can order us something.

I’m not sure if I should bother her because getting her out of the hospital, into the limo, and settled in my guest room seemed to take a lot out of her and she was asleep by nine. It’s almost noon now, so it might be a good time to check on her.

I take the stairs slowly—the doctor warned me to be careful for another two weeks—and stand outside her room for a moment.

This is my house, but Willow St. Claire is asleep… right in there .

After I snuck her out of the hospital.

It’s a little surreal.

I knock quietly.

“Willow? You awake?”

“Come in.” Her voice is soft but not overly raspy, so she may have been awake for a while.

Damn.

What if she needed something?

I open the door and step inside. “Hey, there.”

The vision she makes lying there in the bed nearly takes my breath away.

Holly helped her shower last night, so her blond hair is down, tumbling around her shoulders in soft waves, and her blue eyes are clear and alert. Her skin is like porcelain, blemish-free and bright—definitely not like someone who just spent a month in a coma.

“Hi.” She looks shy, almost timid, but she’s sitting up, the copy of Pride and Prejudice I grabbed from the hospital in her lap.

“How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good, to be honest.” She looks down. “This bed is very comfortable.”

“My sister—Briar—picked it out, said guests needed to be comfortable. I told her that was the opposite of what I wanted because then they might stay longer. She laughed and called me an asshole.”

For some reason, that makes Willow smile. “She sounds like a pistol.”

I snort. “Wait until you meet my niece. Two peas in a pod. And Frankie just turned four. I won't survive the teenage years.”

“I imagine that will be interesting.” She looks around, as if taking note of her surroundings. “This room has a woman’s touch. Your sister…or someone else?”

“The only woman in my life is my sister.” I pause, realizing how that sounds. “Wait—I didn’t mean it that way.”

She laughs, and the sound is a delight. “No worries. I know what you meant. You and your sister are close.”

“Our family is close,” I say, leaning against the door jamb. “My buddies from college—Atlas, Banks, and Royal—and now Banks and Royal’s girlfriends, Aspen and Jade. They’re my family, along with Briar and my niece Frankie. We’re together a lot. In fact, all the time. It’s like having?—”

“Do they come here?” she interrupts, a look of alarm on her face.

“Well, sure.” I frown. “I mean, not often. We usually gather at Briar’s house because she likes to entertain and it’s easier for Frankie to have all her toys and stuff. But since my accident, I have a feeling they’ll be checking on me a lot more often than normal.”

“Oh, please, you can’t let them see me.” She sits up, shaking her head.

“That’s just too many people. Someone is bound to let it slip, and Dylan will find me.

Don’t underestimate him. Your family won’t do it on purpose, but someone has a bestie who loves Summer in Provence , and they’ll tell her I’m here and then…

it will snowball. Please , Hudson. Promise me you won’t say anything.

Not until I’ve found an attorney and figured out a way out of this mess. Please.” Her eyes fill with tears.

Christ.

I don’t like keeping secrets from my family.

Especially not one this big.

And how the hell can I keep Briar from checking in on me?

But the look on Willow’s face guts me.

She’s in a panic, and I don’t know how I can possibly make her understand the bond our family has. Briar and the others would never tell a soul, especially not if I explain the circumstances.

Of course, they’re also going to have a field day with the idea that I have a woman I barely know sleeping in my guest room.

They’ll get the wrong idea about it, and then it’ll spiral into something I don’t even want to think about.

Briar can be more diligent than the CIA if she thinks something is up.

Maybe it’s in both our best interests if no one knows Willow is here.

Not yet anyway.

“All right,” I say quietly. “I promise. But I don’t know how long I can hold them off.

Briar is bound to check in. And Atlas likes to stop by sometimes in the evening—we’re both night owls—for a drink.

If that happens, I can keep him downstairs, though.

He wouldn’t think to wander up here… as long as you’re quiet. ”

“I don’t have anyone to talk to but you,” she points out. “I have no phone, no computer, nothing.”

“I’m going to get you one of our burner phones,” I tell her.

“It won’t be in your name, of course, so you can call anyone you like without them being able to track you.

You can also create some fake social media accounts—I have tons of work-related emails you can use—so you can get online and see what’s going on in the world. ”

“Oh.” She looks startled. “Dylan doesn’t like when I’m on social media so the only accounts I have are my official ones that my PR people run.”

I stare for a moment, trying to understand how a woman like her allowed herself to be taken in by someone so controlling. I know it happens, but I never imagined it happened to rich, successful women too. I thought it was mostly women who didn’t have money or options.

That’s probably misogynistic, but at least I’m honest.

“Let me guess,” she says when I don’t respond. “You’re wondering how I got myself into this mess.”

I guess my poker face isn’t working tonight.

“Maybe a little,” I admit. “It just seems to me you could have left.”

“And that’s why no one believes me when I try to tell them who he really is.” She sighs and leans back against the pillows.

“I do believe you, Willow,” I say carefully. “If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here. It’s hard to wrap my head around it, I guess. I have so many damn questions.”

“You can ask me anything you like,” she says. “Though, I’m just not sure my answers will be very satisfying.”

“And I’m not sure what that means.”

“It means I don’t even know exactly how it all happened,” she whispers.

“One minute, I was on top of the world, with a great new boyfriend who seemed to adore me. I had money, success, and even critical acclaim. And then slowly, one day, one step—one shove —at a time, it all disappeared. I can’t even tell you when I went from happily in love to… terrified. That’s how gradual it was.”

“Is he the reason you hit your head?” I ask, trying to keep my temper in check. I’m not mad at her but all I can think about is Briar. If some guy did that to her…

“We argued,” she says, her voice suddenly small and hollow.

“He wouldn’t let me have a glass of champagne, which was never an issue before.

Then he casually announced it was time for us to have a baby—like it was a business deal or something.

And that’s when I knew I was in trouble.

Because there was no way in hell I’d bring a child into my world.

Not with him. So I told him I wasn’t ready and he was pissed.

” She shudders suddenly, pulling the blankets up around her protectively.

“You don't have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” I say gently.

But she continues, her voice so flat it’s hard to listen to.

“He was mad. Really mad. He told me I would do what he tells me to do, when he tells me to do it… then he shoved me and—that’s all I remember. We were in the kitchen, so I probably hit my head on the edge of the island.”

The roaring in my brain is like a freight train.

The vision of Dylan putting his hands on her—shoving someone as slight as she is—makes me want to hurt someone, hurt him.

“He’ll never touch you again,” I say in a gruff voice. “I can promise you that, Willow.”

She slowly lifts her eyes to mine, and the look there is a cross between relief and doubt.

As if she can’t quite allow herself to believe me.

But she can.

She should .

There’s a reason I make a living protecting the rich and famous.

And there’s someone who desperately needs my protection currently staying in my guest room.

Maybe it’s because of my recent injury, or just because it’s who I am, but I’m invested in this now. In her. And Dylan fucking Durand will have to go through me to get to Willow ever again.