Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91622 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Talk to you later,” Cole said, disconnecting the call. He immediately dialed Mike. “Pull photos of Victoria Maroni. Show them to John Brass and see if she’s the brunette who hired him.” Cole felt certain she was behind the shooting and was now stalking Erin, but he wanted to build an airtight case.
“Who was that?” Erin asked, joining him in the bedroom.
“Where’s your mom?”
“She left.” Erin pointed at the phone, indicating she expected an answer.
“That was Mike.” He explained everything he’d learned up to that point.
“So basically all we have now is confirmation.”
He nodded.
“That and a buck fifty will get me a bus ticket.” She began pacing back and forth on the plush cream carpet.
“But now we have a face. Your brothers know who to look out for. It’s a small town, and if they show her photograph often enough, someone’s bound to have seen her.”
Erin paused. “Okay, I’ll think positive,” she said, correctly interpreting his unspoken message.
“Good.”
“Cole?”
“Yes?” he asked.
She stepped to the bed, settling next to him. His T-shirt was huge on her leaner frame, but he liked her in his clothing. It was a damn fine view, especially since he wouldn’t be seeing her undressed anymore.
“My mother told me about the clothes you had her buy.”
“They’re hanging in your closet. I brought a few shopping bags of things in too.” He hadn’t wanted to go through the more personal items.
“I’m . . . well, thank you. It was beyond sweet of you to have her replace everything and—”
“You lost everything. It was the least I could do.” He really didn’t want her making him out to be some sort of nice-guy hero. Just because he replaced her clothes didn’t mean he could give her what she expressly said she wanted.
His head pounding, he rose to his feet.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
This was it. “Moving my stuff into another room.”
Erin reared back as if he’d slapped her. Exactly how he’d felt on hearing her words, knowing that each time he indulged in her sweetness, he was hurting her more and more. Yet he wasn’t doing this for payback. He really was trying to be a decent guy. Sleeping with her when she wanted more? That would be more cruel than pulling back now.
She folded her arms across her chest. “That night at Joe’s, you agreed. Whatever it is, for as long as it lasts. Isn’t that what we said?” Her voice quivered, but she kept it together.
“That was before I realized how much I’m hurting you. I’m in, we sleep together, you hope for more, I pull away . . . it’s a vicious cycle. You deserve better. At least now we both agree on that.”
She looked down and ran her tongue over her lips, clearly collecting her thoughts before speaking. Finally she raised her head and looked at him head-on. “You know I said that out of frustration. I’m pregnant and hormonal. This whole enforced confinement thing is getting to me, and it hasn’t even started yet. Don’t use my stupid words, said in the heat of the moment, as any kind of agreement. I told you all along, you’re not the man Jed says you are.”
“But I told you all along, I’m not the man for you. As soon as this stalker situation ends and you’re safe, I’m expected back in Manhattan. They’ll brief me and send me back undercover for who knows how long. I can’t call. Text. Check in at all. It’s not any kind of life you’d want.”
“Says you.” Anger shimmered in her eyes, which narrowed.
“Someone has to be rational.”
“And you telling me what I can or can’t handle, or better yet, what I do or don’t want in my life, that’s rational?”
“Yes.”
She blew out a long, clearly pissed-off breath. He waited for the explosion he felt sure was coming. Instead, she turned and, in silence, started for the door.
“Where are you going?”
She swung back around. “I don’t know. But I have thirty-five hundred square feet to find a place far away from you.” With that, she walked out.
And Cole’s headache turned into a full-blown pounding in his temples.
* * *
Cole didn’t know how much more of this he could take. Two days had passed since he moved out of the main bedroom. By dinnertime on Monday, Erin had gotten over her fit of anger, but as the next couple of days passed, Cole realized she’d changed the rules between them drastically.
Whereas she’d been letting him cook for them both when they were at her house, insisting she clean up in exchange, now she was taking care of herself. She beat him to the kitchen for every meal, heating up her mother’s food, adding a premade salad for dinner, also courtesy of her mother, and leaving him to figure out his own breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Of course, he was free to join her, she’d told him, and to eat whatever she was having if he wasn’t in the mood to cook. But she wasn’t doing anything for him.