CHRISTIAN
My nightswith Stella were the only peace I had.
My days were a tumult of work and chaos. I’d spent the past month weeding out suspects for the traitor, figuring out how the hell someone created a device similar to Scylla, what that someone’s connection to Stella’s stalker was, and tracking down the stalker bastard himself.
I already had a shortlist of suspects for the leak. Every name made my blood run cold, but I had to be careful how I handled the situation. I couldn’t make a public move until I was certain who the traitor was. Loyalty ran both ways, and false accusations were the fastest way to seed resentment among the ranks.
I had the perfect trap in mind, but I needed to wait until Harper Security’s annual poker tournament to set it. Until then, I couldn’t trust anyone in the company with sensitive information.
As for Scylla, I could almost guarantee Sentinel was the one behind the knockoff device. They’d imitated everything else I’d done; copying proprietary hardware was the logical next step. I also wouldn’t put it past them to bribe or blackmail whoever the traitor was.
I sat on that suspicion. First, I’ll deal with the traitor. Then, I’ll go after Sentinel.
The only remaining question mark was their ties to Stella’s stalker and who the fucker was.
I’d combed through Stella’s contacts, but she’d interacted with so many people over the years it was impossible to narrow them down to a decent suspect pool. The stalker could be anyone from an old colleague to the barista who made her drink every day.
Part of me admitted I could’ve gotten further in all my investigations had I not been distracted. I wanted to spend time with Stella, which meant no long hours or overtime at the office.
I took her on dates every weekend, ate dinner with her every evening, and fucked her into oblivion every night, all the while knowing I should spend that time doing something else.
Stella’s ability to fuck with my rational decision-making crystallized a little over a week after Frank Rivers’ timely demise.
I clicked and unclicked my pen as I stared at the note on my desk.
The stalker had gone underground since Hawaii. No new notes and no contact…until now.
Click. Click.
Two sentences, typed and delivered in a plain, unmarked envelope. It’d been tucked in with the rest of our mail even though it didn’t contain an address.
You can’t protect her, and you will NEVER have her. She’s mine.
Whispers of rage brushed my senses.
The message itself wasn’t concerning. It sounded like something a petulant child would write.
What was concerning were the three photographs that’d accompanied it: one of Stella getting breakfast at the cafe near the Mirage, one of her taking photos at the National Mall, and one of her exiting the grocery store.
All of them had been taken in the weeks since we returned from Hawaii.
The rage thickened and coated my skin with frost. I was tempted to give in and take it out on one of the many names I kept in my database for that very purpose, but I suppressed the urge in favor of calculating my next move.
I couldn’t trust anyone except myself with Stella’s safety, not even Brock. He wasn’t one of my suspects, but he hadn’t noticed the stalker getting close enough to take those photos of her, which was a big fucking oversight.
Granted, his job was protection, not surveillance, but it still pissed me off.
The stalker had resurfaced after weeks of radio silence, and I bet a forensic analysis of his note would return the same results as it always did.
Nothing.
Whoever he was, he was damn good at keeping his hands clean and sneaky enough to get that close to Stella without her or Brock noticing.
If anything happened to her…
My stomach clenched.
D.C. wasn’t safe until I sorted out my internal mess. I couldn’t focus on tracking down the stalker if I couldn’t trust my men.
Click. Click.
I made up my mind on the second click.
I set my pen on my desk, tucked the note and photos inside my inside jacket pocket, and drove home.
Stella was in the kitchen when I arrived. She was so busy blending that atrocious wheatgrass smoothie she loved and humming along to the radio that she didn’t notice my entrance until I wrapped my arms around her from behind and kissed her neck.
“Christian!” Surprised delight filled her voice. “You’re home early.”
“Slow day at work,” I lied.
I breathed her in, reassuring myself that she was safe and in my arms. She smelled like sunshine and green florals, and I let the scent dissolve some of the tension in my muscles before I spoke again.
“I had an idea.”
“Uh oh,” she teased. “Should I be scared?”
“I doubt it. It’s on your vision board.”
I’d seen the list she’d pinned to the corkboard in our room. She said she’d created it in college and never threw it out.
The list consisted of three things: a brand partnership with Delamonte, an extended trip through Italy, and a walk-in closet. Two of those three were crossed off.
Stella turned to face me fully. Her eyes had widened with shock and a touch of hope.
“Italy,” I confirmed. “Summer vacation. We can do a month-long trip through the country. Rome, Milan, the Amalfi Coast…”
Taking her out of town was the obvious answer until I sorted out the mess on my side, and her bucket list gave me perfect cover for the trip.
I didn’t want to tell Stella about the stalker’s latest note. It’d been directed at me, not her, and I didn’t want to freak her out. Not when I didn’t have a clear solution yet.
“Another trip?” Doubt colored her voice. “But we just got back from Hawaii.”
She was right. We’d returned from Kauai only a month ago. It was too soon for another trip, especially with everything I had on my plate.
But the thought of that asshole possibly getting his hands on her…
It took only one slip up. One distraction, one mistake, and I could lose her forever.
I forced my lungs to expand past a rare bout of panic.
“The first half didn’t count since it was for work,” I said. “It was basically a long weekend.”
Stella shook her head. “I’m beginning to suspect you don’t actually work when you go into the office. I’ve never met a CEO with more vacation time than you.”
My mouth tipped up despite myself. “It’s a different type of work.”
I earned a decent salary from Harper Security, but the bulk of my net worth came from the secret software and hardware I developed and sold to the highest bidder. There were certain groups I didn’t do business with—terrorists, certain governments, and a few distasteful individuals.
Other than that, everyone else was fair game, and they paid a king’s ransom for technology their competitors didn’t have.
I spent fifty percent of my office time running Harper Security and the other half on development.
“Are you sure a month isn’t too long?” Traces of doubt lingered. “We can’t just up and leave for that long.”
“I’m a billionaire. We can do whatever we want.” I smiled at her playful eye roll. “Consider it my birthday present.”
“We already celebrated your birthday,” she pointed out.