Page 49 of The Wrong Husband

"I may not have known you long, but the unhappiness in your eyes tells me you've been through a lot."

I open my mouth to protest, but he places a finger over my lips.

"I am going to do my best to lighten those shadows. My instinct tells me you deserve every happiness possible. And I plan to do everything in my power to deliver on it."

His words are overwhelming. I glance away, trying to get a grip on my emotions. Then, to buy myself time, I go on the offensive, again.

“How did you know to drive by my place to pick me up as I was leaving?”

“You leave for work every day around the same time. It’s not difficult for me to drive by in time to pick you up.”

He does have a point.

“And you’re right. I do also have someone watching you, to make sure you’re okay.”

I jerk my chin around to stare at him. “You have someone watching me?”

“The gray sedan parked at the top of the street, then the janitor who works the ER, among others.”

Anger squeezes my guts. I curl my fingers around my backpack, which I placed on the floor of the car earlier. “I can’t believe you’d do that again; and after you know how much I hate surveillance on me.”

“Better you be pissed off at me than unsafe.”

“Why would I be unsafe?”

“The Davenports are a wealthy family with enemies. We have security on all family members—it’s discreet, so unless something goes wrong, none of us would ever know there were people around guarding us.”

“That’syourfamily. I’m not a Davenport?—”

“But you will be.”

Argh, the arrogance of this man. I don’t know whether to be impressed or upset with him. Or both? I throw up my hands. “But I’m notyet, so why the security?”

“Our enemies will have clocked that I’m interested in you.”

I begin to protest, but he raises his hand. “And even if they haven’t, I can’t take the chance.” He stops at a red light and turns to me. “I cannot… Will not let anything happen to you.”

His words land with surgical precision—direct, focused, undeniable.

A part of me registers the shift in my own physiology—elevated pulse, tightened breath, a warmth in my chest I can’t quite classify.

I assumed he stepped back the moment he told my brother I was safe. That he’d done his duty and moved on. And maybe, part of me resented it—his silence, his distance. It felt like I’d lost something vital.

I felt his absence like a phantom limb.

Now, hearing this? Hearing how much I still matter to him? It hits somewhere deep. The intensity in his voice, the way he saysinterestedlike it’s code for something far more dangerous, far more intimate—it coils heat through my chest.

I should dismiss it. Compartmentalize it. Log it as irrelevant to the situation at hand.

But I can’t ignore the effect it has on me.

Not as a woman. Not as someone who’s been seen by him—in ways I didn’t know I wanted to be seen.

I don’t say anything.Can’t.Because I’m not supposed to want this. Not his protection. Not his obsession.

And definitely not this reckless, magnetic pull toward a man who sees everything, misses nothing… And still chooses me.

Hearing him declare how much I mean to him makes me realize how much I crave his attention.