Page 124 of Mercenary

He arches his eyebrows. “Your note.”

Yeah, dummy me. After sending Killer off with two actual killers—that’s another story entirely—who promised to dog sit him while I spent New Year’s in Rome, I scribbled a note to Declan. Something I did every time I left his home for any extended period of time. Just. In. Case.

Miss him? God, yes. And you know that sucky expression: Absence makes the heart grow fonder? It’s true. My love for him never waned in his absence; it grew stronger. “He’ll be back” became my mantra. But at the same time, I moved on with my life.

Matter of fact, Madelyn Smith successfully completed an entire semester with honors at the University of Tampa without the ground being ripped out from beneath her. One more year, and I’ll have my degree in marine biology.

I cock my head at him, curious. “No. I mean, this hotel. How did you track me here?”

He lifts an eyebrow. “I’ll always find you, haven’t you figured that out, my girl?” His green eyes sparkle as he says this.

His girl.

Mine.

“But this time, it was Hayden’s doing.”

“Hayden?” Now my eyebrows hit the roof. I casually scan the smiling faces surrounding me. Searching for the man with a smug, cunning smirk. The chess master of everyone I love. Except . . . Luciana . . .

“Fuck, I missed you.”

I forget the smiling faces, the minutes ticking away until midnight, my loneliness for the past few months, the ache in my heart for him. He’s come back for me.

“If that bastard every forces me to leave you again . . . I had to straighten things out with him before we could move forward.”

“For disobeying his order?” For not killing my sister?

“Yes.”

“And this took six months.”

“Six months, twelve days, and thirty-three minutes. Freaking seconds keep slipping away.”

“Why so long?” I cringe, hearing my voice quiver.

He hears it too. And if glaciers could melt in a matter of seconds, that’s what happens right in front of me. Declan rubs his finger across the scruff of hair on his jaw. Perfectly translucent. Utterly raw. Frustrated. Tired. And lost.

Looking not at all like the stoic, proud, stone-cold killer who watched over me.

His hair’s longer than I remember, a thumb’s length long, jagged in areas and a bit wild. My eyes fall to his chest, and I swear I drool. Is it possible he’s even more ripped? It’s like he spent the entire six months apart pumping iron or doing an inhumane amount of push-ups. And he’s in another gray hooded sweatshirt—I’m thinking I’ll invest my entire savings in keeping him fully stocked with them.

“What have you been doing?”

“Making goddamn amends to Hayden. He informed me if he had to wait, so would I.”

“Wait for what? Me?”

“If I could read my boss’s mind, I’d be locked up in a mental facility. Don’t know half the time what the fuck he’s talking about.”

“And amends have been made?”

“Green light, go.”

The knot in the back of my neck seems to disappear. “Okay.” Okay. We’ll discuss this later . . . if there is a . . .

“I’m not a good man. I’m not worthy of someone as pure of heart as you. And I’m not someone who loves easily. Fuck, I’m not someone who loves at all.”

Oh God. He’s about to pop my champagne bubble. No. I won’t let him come all this way to break my heart.