Page 95 of Release Me

His calls are becoming increasingly frequent.

Increasingly irate.

Increasingly threatening.

Bitch.

Slag.

No one else will have you.

You can’t hide out forever.

They come at all hours of the day and night. I blocked his number, but he just uses a different one. The sharp buzzing wakes me in the night, dragging me from haunted dreams into my real life nightmare.

I knew he’d take my leaving him badly, but it’s even worse than I anticipated—and that’s before he’s found out about Rian.

He rang my father and told him his daughter is a whore who hasn’t come home in weeks. My mother says he’s disgusted with me.

I don’t care.

He didn’t care about me when he married me off to clear his debt.

He certainly never thanked me when I paid them back through the money Remington Ireland makes, or when I appointed a new CEO for the New York branch so he could retire—aka drink himself stupid every day.

Any day now, Remington Publishing will officially belong to Rian, until he signs it back over to me at a later date—a fact that I’m more than comfortable with because I trust him with my life. He’s the only man who claimed to care about me who truly does.

‘I made you coffee, sweetheart. Left it in the kitchen by your laptop.’ He comes up behind me in his ensuite. Well, I suppose it’s our ensuite now. It’s eight-forty five and I have a meeting with one of my biggest authors in fifteen minutes, on Zoom of course because I’m on lockdown.

‘Thank you.’ I’m putting my earrings in. I glance at my bare wrist, where my charm bracelet used to sit. I should get it from Anthony’s before he destroys it along with the rest of my stuff.

Rian inhales my neck. ‘I love waking up to you every morning.’

‘I love the way you wake me up every morning.’ A slow grin spreads across my face as the rush of memories from only moments earlier flood my brain.

He grins at me in the glass. ‘Are you happy here? With me?’

‘Of course I am.’ I spin to face him. ‘What kind of a question is that?’

He shrugs, a sheepish look inches onto his face. ‘I don’t know. I wanted you for so long, sometimes I can’t believe that you’re actually here. You left one relationship and jumped straight into another. I don’t know, I suppose I’m justworried that you didn’t have any time for yourself in between.’

I reach up to cradle his face in my hands, lowering it and stretching on my tiptoes so I can meet his lips with mine. ‘Baby, I had a ridiculous amount of time on my own until you came along and rescued me from the lonely existence that I called life. The only relationship I had was on paper.’ I pause for a long beat. ‘You’re the first man who has never let me down.’

‘And I never will,’ he promises, pressing a kiss to my forehead.

The old niggling doubt creeps in. My head snaps up to meet his gaze again. ‘Are you happy? You never even had a serious girlfriend before, then I came to stay and never left.’

‘You’re exactly where I want you—with me. If you hadn’t left him when you did, I probably would have kidnapped you. That could have been awkward.’ Our lips meet again, slow and tender. His tongue sweeps through my mouth, but I pull back with a groan. ‘I have a meeting.’

‘Me too,’ he slides his arms from my waist. ‘We’ll continue this later.’ He promises with a heat in his hungry eyes. ‘I have a feeling everything will go through today. Have the champagne on ice.’

‘Seriously?’ My hand flies to my mouth.

‘Seriously.’ He backs out of the bathroom and I follow him through the bedroom, and down the wide hallway to the kitchen.

‘That would be amazing.’

‘Then you can file for divorce and marry me.’ Rian teases.