Beauty and the Billionaire

He drops his hands from my face as the elevator doors slide open. He takes my hand again, guiding me off with him. There is only one set of double doors on this floor.

When he tries to pull on my hand for me to come with him, I don’t move. “Kennedy.”

My mind starts to spin with so many things. What if I really do love this man that has been searching everywhere for me. It must hurt him when I try to pull away from him. Heck, when he said he was leaving earlier I started to freak out, not wanting him to go.

Still, someone tried to kill me. My breathing picks up, thinking about the possibility that it could be Dane. My stomach turns, not wanting that to be true.

“Kennedy.” He says my name again. I gasp for air, trying to answer him. “Where the hell is your inhaler?” I gasp loudly again, shaking my head, having no clue what he’s talking about. He pulls me into the room with him.

In one move he lifts me off my feet and takes off. What the hell is wrong with me? Breathe, I scream at myself. He sits me down a moment later. I watch as he starts pulling crap out of a bag in a hurry, tossing it all behind him.

“Open your mouth.” I part my lips as he shoves something into my mouth. “Breathe.” I suck in a breath of air. Within a few seconds, my lungs finally fill with air. He does it a couple more times before I get myself back under control. He drops the inhaler, pressing his forehead against mine and closing his eyes.

6

DANE

My heart pounds so hard it’s the only thing that I can hear. I could have lost her. Again. How the hell did she not know she has asthma?

“What would have happened if I didn’t have one of your inhalers?” I lift my head.

“I didn’t know that I needed one.” I gently tuck her hair back behind her ear knowing she’s still a little shaken up.

“It’s not often that you do. Only when you get really worked up or scared.”

“Oh” is all she says, wetting her lips.

“I was not fucking kidding when I said you’re never leaving my sight again. Not after all of this.” I push back from the bathroom counter I set her down on. “You clearly need a keeper.” She narrows her eyes on me.

The only reason I even had her inhaler with me is because it was one of the things she’d left behind in my room. I’ve been so desperate to find her I was willing to take any part of her that I could get.

“Answer me this, precious. Why did you need your inhaler? You were fine up until the second we’d made it back to my room. Then what happened?” I don’t even want to say it but I’m so pissed off right now. I can barely think straight. “Did I scare you?”

I would think if she was going to have an attack it would have happened well before we’d gotten all the way back here. I must have scared her somehow.

Her teeth sink into her bottom lip as she looks down at her hands in her lap. I put my finger under her chin to bring her eyes back up to mine.

“Why are you scared?” I push for an answer, needing to know what I did to make her feel that way in order not to do it again in the future.

“No one knows what happened to me that night.”

“What night?”

“April 3rd.”

“Then you hadn’t been gone that long. We made love and I went into the office. When I’d gotten back all your shit was gone.” Her brows pull together.

“I was found alone and unconscious in a parking lot.” Everything inside of me stills. “Someone hit me in the back of the head.” She lifts her hand and proceeds to touch the spot of her injury. “They think it was with a metal pipe. I don’t remember any of it. Not even them finding me. They put me into a medically induced coma because my brain was swelling.”

Anger unlike anything I’ve ever felt rolls through me. I turn, storming out of the bathroom. I don’t make it far because I can’t control myself any longer. I need to release some of this anger before I explode. I've already scared her enough. I drive my fist into the wall. I welcome the pain, needing to feel something besides the rage before I murder someone.

“Dane.” She barely whispers my name. I turn to see her standing in the doorway of the bathroom. “Are you leaving?” She shifts on her feet, something she does when she’s uncertain about something.

“Told you. You’re not leaving my sight. Wherever I go, you go.” We sure as shit aren't going home. Not until I find out who did this. I will use every resource I have to find out who hurt her and our baby.