Page 176 of Incompatible

I remain kneeling, staring up at him. "How come you always show up when I need you?" I whisper, but he doesn’t answer.

"Can I contact you somehow?"

The man stays silent.

"Or maybe I should just call Bay’s number…?"

The silence deepens.

So I lower my head. "Oookay. Perhaps it’s for the best to leave this strange situation behind, whoever you are."

I take out my phone, open a new contact, and hold it out to him.

"But please, put in any way I can reach you in case something happens, in case I need your help, and if you’re not him. I believe you would help me."

My hand hangs in the air with the phone extended toward him until he finally takes it. He types something, then gives it back to me.

He turns away from me and walks over to the two unconscious Hansons. He bends over, grabs each of them by the waist, and lifts them into the air with ease. I stare in disbelief.

They are two adult alphas, which means each of them must weigh at least two hundred forty pounds, and he lifts them like nothing. He drags them along as he moves away from me, heading toward the cluster of trees.

I stay on my knees staring after him, then finally snap out of it.

It is only then, in huge shock, that I notice a pair of eyes watching me.

Wide, stunned, horrified, filled with deep disgust.

Dereck is looking at me. I blink and our eyes meet. For a moment I stare at him with absolute emptiness in my head and then it hits me. How long was Dereck unconscious? That is the heart of the matter. His face gives me the answer. I have never seen him look like that.

"You saw that?" I whisper.

Dereck slowly sits up and dusts off his clothes. So he was lying there pretending to be unconscious. Apparently the Hansons’ blow was not as strong as the stalker’s.

"You saw that?" I repeat.

"Yes. Everything." He adds nothing else, gets to his feet and stands. I do the same, nervously fixing my pants and fastening them with shaking fingers. His gaze drops and both of us look at the two torn condom wrappers lying on the ground, a silent piece of evidence of my madness. Then he lifts his eyes andmeets mine again and in his eyes I see an ocean of shock, disgust, confusion, anger.

"You’re just a whore," he says suddenly, in a calm tone. "And a disgusting one at that."

And what can I say to that. Only one thing.

"Yes, I am. You dodged a bullet." And I narrow my eyes.

He stares at me for a moment, then suddenly inhales. "We should go home. We shouldn’t stay here any longer," he says through clenched teeth.

I want to say something, to explain it somehow, but there’s nothing to say, and honestly, I somewhat agree with his assessment of me. Because really, who normal fucks a stalker, some weirdo who shadows people? And I gave him my ass on the campus lawn without even seeing his face. Whether he is Bay undercover or not doesn’t even matter, since technically I didn’t know for sure. And that’s the brutal truth.

Of course, I could tell Dereck that it’s none of his business who I sleep with, but I have to admit that this particular situation goes far beyond a casual hookup in a club. I know it is deeply strange, practically sick.

Dereck and I leave the park in silence, heading for the parking lot and then toward my house. Dereck says nothing, absolutely nothing, and I desperately try to find some way to present this as an understandable situation but the problem is that there is no good explanation here.

We enter the house and Dereck goes to his room. I stop and watch him for a moment. Okay. Tomorrow I will clear up everything, tomorrow this matter will be closed for good, and we will never return to it. But there is something I need to make amends with, something I need to set right, because this cannot go on like this.

It doesn’t matter who the stalker is. He’s a masked man who refused to give me any identifying information, and that’s the heart of the issue.

I walk to my laptop, open it and log into my online banking. The last transfer from Bay arrived just two days ago. I click on it and choose the option ‘return to sender’.

Then I open my email and type Bay’s address into the recipient line.