Page 25 of Forbidden Confessions, Volume 2 (The Forbidden Volumes #1)

Rush

W ell, that was an unmitigated disaster. Now what?

A thousand plans jet through my head, most of which are centered around winning Vanessa back. But first? I’ve got to do damage control.

She doesn’t know that the minute she called the burner phone her father shoved in my hand the day he left me her official protector, it sent a text to his device. Right now, Douglas Hartley thinks there’s an emergency and that Vanessa is in danger.

That’s not good.

I need to call the man pronto and assure him that his daughter is alive and in one piece before he hunts me down, barking about his baby girl’s safety, and tears my head off. Once he’s calm…I’ll break the news that I’m going to marry her—with or without his blessing.

I’d better have bullets handy.

Sighing, I tug the car keys from my pocket, then reach for my cell. I’m scrolling through the contacts on my personal phone as quickly as I can, but the fucking thing rings in my hand.

Too late.

“Douglas—”

“What the fuck is going on?”

I head for my car and try to find reassuring words. I’m drawing a blank because my brain has one track now: Vanessa. I’m fixated. No, obsessed. She can’t get away from me. I won’t let another man put his hands on her. I have to make things right between us.

“Nothing I can’t handle.” I slide into my car parked across the street from Vanessa’s cottage and watch her through the windshield.

But she glares at me through the window, arms crossed over her chest. Yep, she’s furious.

I had strict orders not to tell anyone that my job at the hotel and my life in St. Augustine were a front.

As soon as this mission is over, Douglas will assign me elsewhere—for God knows how long.

I really hope it’s not Russia. It sucks there this time of year…

And I would be so far from Vanessa.

On the other hand, she wants space now and I can’t completely piss her off. If I want to win her back, I shouldn’t look like the stalker I’ve become. Sure, I was assigned to her—for a good cause. But honestly, I love this part of my job.

Douglas scoffs as I start my car. “Then why did she call the emergency line twice this morning?”

“I don’t know,” I say as I drive around the corner, then pull into the nearby park.

“Bullshit.”

I knew that answer wouldn’t be good enough for Douglas, and if I don’t come clean, he’ll call her, anyway.

I sigh as I walk across the open space until I have eyes on Vanessa’s place again. “Someone broke into her cottage yesterday. I don’t know who. He took nothing and left nothing behind.”

“C’mon. You fucking know who did this.”

I know who’s responsible. Bryan Russell is drug-distributing scum who’s been using his job as the hotel manager, along with his connections at other resorts around the country, to facilitate his illegal activities.

“I don’t know exactly who Russell sent to do his dirty work.

And I don’t know why he struck at Vanessa.

Does he think she’s on to his ruse? Or is he trying to warn us away by silently threatening her? ”

Either way, I won’t fucking have it.

“My questions, too. Is she okay? Afraid?”

“Fine. A little rattled, but?—”

“Where are you?”

“At the park down the street from her place.”

“Watching her?”

As always. “Yes.”

“Have you laid eyes on her recently?”

Actually, I laid a whole lot more of me on her than that. But if I admit that to Douglas now, he’ll kill me the first chance he gets.

“Ten minutes ago.”

“Okay, here’s what I want you to do…”

Douglas Hartley outlines a strategy that’s impossible, given the fact Vanessa isn’t even speaking to me. I’m half listening when I see two men dressed in delivery uniforms, caps pulled low, approach Vanessa’s cottage on foot. One heads straight for the front door and rings the bell.

The other skirts the side of the house and disappears around the back.

“Fuck! I have to go.” I pull my gun free and check to make sure it’s loaded, cocked, and ready. “I’ll call you.”

“Why? What’s happening?” he demands.

“We’ve got company.”

I end the call and take off running. I’ve got to reach Vanessa before these two. I can’t let anything happen to her.

Vanessa

When the doorbell rings a few minutes later, I’m still half-dressed and fuming. If Rush thinks that all he has to do to win me back is come knocking with some charming, aw-shucks apology, I’ll show him otherwise.

With an angry purse of my lips, I stomp toward the front door and peek out the peephole. A delivery driver looking down at his clipboard. Not Rush.

I’m more than vaguely disappointed.

As I reach to unlock the front door, it occurs to me that I’m seeing a delivery man…but not a delivery truck.

Then I hear a horrible metallic clang from my bedroom that sends my heart into overdrive.

Someone is trying to get into my house.

Shit!

I back away from the door, my thoughts racing. If there’s a bad guy in front and another in back, I’m trapped.

Metal strikes metal again, this time louder. I hear a curse, then a squeak that tells me the curtain rod in the slider’s door track is bending under the intruder’s brute force.

I need to do something now. Every second could be the difference between life and death.

Why did I send Rush away?

I race back to my bedroom. Through the slit in the curtain, I see a large boot braced on my patio—and the door heaving on its frame as he tries to shove it open. I’m jittery. It’s hard to breathe. This can’t be happening.

But it is.

I find my phone discarded on the bed I was wrapped up in with Rush thirty short minutes ago, when life was so bright and full of hope. Then I dash around to my nightstand and withdraw my gun as the doorbell rings again. The supposed delivery driver adds an insistent rap, too.

Phone in hand, I stare at my screen. Call Rush or 911? I know what Daddy would want me to do, but Rush is gone. I can’t throw him out and then call him back to rescue me. Well, I probably can but?—

The thug at my back door gives another savage yank on the slider and pries it open enough to wedge his boot inside my bedroom. I’ve wondered squeamishly if I could shoot another human being.

Time to find out.

As he struggles to wedge his body through the narrow opening, the curtain rod groans under the pressure. I set my phone on the nightstand. Then I point my gun at his foot, wincing before I even pull the trigger, then shoot.

After a deafening bang, he howls and curses. His foot disappears from the opening, and I wrap trembling fingers around the handle, trying desperately to shut the door again.

Suddenly, I’m grabbed from behind viciously by a hand in my hair and a hiss in my ear. The intruder strips the gun from my trembling fingers and tosses it across the floor. “You should not have done that.”

I’m glad I did. I also hope Mrs. Crafton heard the shot and called the police for me. If not…

I don’t want to think about that.

“W-what do you want?”

“To send your father a message to leave us the fuck alone.”

“If you kill me, he’ll only come after you harder.” And I suspect Rush will be every bit as relentless in hunting this animal down until he’s nothing but a carcass and a stain.

And Rush would only do that if he loves me.

Horrible time to realize that he probably does and I lost my temper unnecessarily.

Damn it, I wish I had a do-over on the last hour of my life.

“I’ll take that chance,” the man growls.

Then I feel something cold, hard, and cylindrical pressed to my temple. Oh, god. I gasp aloud. Every part of me shakes. This can’t be how my life ends.

I can’t let it.

Thank goodness Daddy made me take self-defense classes.

Saying a silent prayer, I let go of all my weight and fall into him. While he’s stumbling back, I ram my elbow into his stomach with all my might.

He bellows and releases my hair, doubling over. Though he’s still positioned between me and the door, I have a chance to get past him.

But when I try, he catches me with a steely arm around my waist and scoops me up like a butterfly in a net. Then he stands and slams me back to my bed. As my back hits the mattress, my robe creeps up my thighs and gapes open to reveal the inner swells of my breasts and the cleavage in between.

His pale eyes turn hot as they rake over my skin. He’s old enough to be my father—and vaguely familiar. The creepy guy staring at me in the lobby yesterday?

“Don’t touch me,” I demand.

“You’re not calling the shots. I’m going to fuck that tight little cunt raw before I blow out your brains.” He reaches for the hem of the robe. “Show me that pussy. If you make it good, I might let you live an extra five minutes.”

“No!” I fight, but he’s ten times stronger and has gravity working in his favor.

Then my robe is around my waist and he spreads my legs with his thick thighs.

Even though I thrash and struggle, he still contains my wrists in one of his hands and pins me to the bed.

I feel the cold press of his gun, crushing the bones of my fingers with the butt.

Then a feral smile stretches across his blunt face as he starts working at his fly.