Page 22 of Ice Cold Christmas

Screw this. “Get your ass out of here, Dario.” And with that, he slammed the door in her stepbrother’s face. Locked it, too. Then he turned back, with his arms crossed over his chest.

Melody stared up at him. Beautiful. Tempting. With tears still clinging to her long eyelashes.

Once again, he wanted to destroy. To completely wreck whatever—whoever—had hurt her. But tears clung to her lashes, fear lingered like a perfume around her, and…Victor hauled her into his arms. “You’re safe.” Gruff.

She stiffened within his grasp.

Right. She didn’t know him. Didn’t remember a damn thing. As far as she was concerned, a stranger was hugging her.

He squeezed a little tighter. “You’re safe,” he repeated.

He felt her draw in a shuddering breath.

Slowly, he let her go. A hard task when all he wanted was to keep her close.

“Were you just trying to comfort me?” she asked as her head tilted to the side.

He had been. “Doesn’t happen often.” Actually, it pretty much happened never. As a rule, he didn’t have close emotional attachments. There had never been room for those attachments in his life. Not with all the plans he’d long since had in place.

Melody was the exception to that rule. She was an attachment that he had never, ever been able to shake.

“Guess I’m special?” she mused even as she swiped away a tear from her cheek.

Oh, baby, you have no idea. Instead of saying that, he decided to get to the point. No more bullshitting allowed. “Where the hell were you?” For so many months.

“Why does it matter?” A shrug of one shoulder as she turned away from him. “Not like you looked for me. Not like anyone looked. I don’t believe the story before about your PIs. You were just telling me what you thought I wanted to hear.”

What? His hand flew out, curled around her shoulder and, at his touch, she spun to face him. The tears were still there, but, now, anger gleamed in her gaze, too. A bright rage shined in the green eyes that had haunted him for so long.

Like he hadn’t woken up from plenty of his own nightmares over the last year. Nightmares where he woke up and he reached for her, but she wasn’t there.

Nightmares where he heard her crying out for him. Begging for him. But he couldn’t help her. He couldn’t find her.

“I looked,” he told her grimly. “I called the cops. I truly hired five different PI groups. You want to see the receipts for the fortune I paid them?” Money that had turned up nothing. “I freaking ripped the state apart. Ripped the world apart.” There had been so many false leads that had wasted his time. “There was a video discovered of you getting on a private plane, one bound for Mexico.”

Her brows rose. “Mexico?”

“Seemed like you left willingly.” The cops had finally turned up that bit of video evidence. “Looked like you ran away. Left me behind.” His back teeth had clenched. “I didn’t buy that bullshit. I kept digging and digging. Found out that wasn’t you going to Mexico. Just some weird-ass fake trail. Lost too much time searching for you there. Your phone was never recovered. It turned off after your father and I received those final texts from you.”

She blinked quickly. “What texts?”

“The texts you sent.” Except…I don’t think they were from Melody. I think they were from the sonofabitch who took my Melody from me.

“Tell me what the texts said.”

He already had told her what his said. Don’t look for me. “Tell me what the fuck happened to you.” There. Done. “Tell me everything,” he demanded. “Because I damn well deserve to know.”

Her lower lip trembled. “What were you to me?”

“Enemy,” he said flatly.

She jerked.

“Lover,” he said, softer.

She backed up a step.

“Which one do you think I was?” he asked.