Nothing Left to Lose (Guarded Hearts 1)

He stood, bending to grab my hands as he tugged me to my feet. “I’m only a pervert around you,” he replied, laughing sheepishly.

“Yeah right, player.” I scoffed sarcastically as he pulled me from the room.

“I’m not a player!” he protested.

“Mmm hmm, yeah, whatever.”

As I turned to walk off, a small slap to my behind made me squeak in surprise. “I’m not a player! I’m a one woman man,” he stated, shaking his head.

“Oh really? So that just means that you’ve never had a threesome?” I joked.

He rolled his eyes at my comment. “Miss Spencer, you are the only girl for me,” he answered, bowing theatrically.

I giggled. “Whatever you say, boyfriend.” I blew him a kiss and headed to the lounge to work on my project for school. I didn’t bother to try to listen when he slipped out of the front door to talk to Dean about the secret agent’s stuff that I wasn’t allowed to know about.

~ Ashton ~

I smiled to myself. The word ‘boyfriend’ was bouncing around in my brain as I made my way to the door to go and speak to Dean. When I stepped into the hallway, I saw him standing there waiting for me, his face pale and worried.

I slapped his shoulder and took the letter from his hand, trying to appear unconcerned. “This it?” I asked, swallowing my anger. He nodded in confirmation. I looked at the address on the envelope. It was addressed to Anna but had been sent to the College’s office address, so at least he didn’t know the address of our apartment.

“The school just sent it over by messenger,” Dean replied, shaking his head nervously. I scowled when I flipped it over, seeing the prison address on the back. I didn’t want to read it, but I had to. “Maybe we should send it on to Senator Spencer and not open it.”

“No, I’ll send it on to him after,” I disagreed. I needed to know what he said. If this was a threat against her, I would be wasting time sending it over to the Lake House and back again. I tore it open and held my breath while I read it, thankfully it was fairly short.

Dear Princess,

I see you’ve started a new school. You’ve already been there for a couple of months from what I hear, so hopefully you’ll stay at this one longer than the last.

I miss you and can’t wait to see you. The trial is less than three months away now, and I can’t wait for us to be together again. I dream about you every night, how I want to run my tongue over every inch of your body and hear you call my name. God, I’ve missed your beautiful face so much and I hope that you’ve missed me.

Maybe once all of this is over, we can move away somewhere nice. I know you didn’t much care for Miami, so we can talk about it. I hope you’re behaving yourself while I’m not there. If I find out that you’ve been with anyone else whilst I’ve been locked in this shithole, I will be very angry, Princess. You’re mine, and mine alone. I can’t even bear to think about you with other men, but I know you wouldn’t do that to me, so I try not to dwell on it too much. I guess that’s just me being my usual jealous self. I’ve just been apart from you for so long now that it’s starting to drive me crazy, I can barely think about anything other than holding you in my arms and taking you into our bed again.

Life here is much the same as usual, nothing ever changes in this place, I guess that’s why I hate it so much – well, that and being away from you. I wish you would visit me, even just for a few minutes so I could hear your voice and see your face again. Sometimes I think I’m losing grip of you, at times I cannot picture the exact shade of your hair, or the exact fragrance of the perfume you favoured. All of that will change soon my Princess, just a few more months and then we’ll be reunited, and nothing will keep us apart this time.

Well, I’ll write you again next week. Good luck in your new school; see you in a couple of months.

As always, I love you.

Carter

xxx

I could barely breathe through my anger. Dean was watching me curiously, so I shook my head. “It’s not a threat. It’s a love note from Carter,” I stated, almost spitting his name. Dean’s face turned angry too. “I’d better call her father. You tell Peter about this when he gets up. Don’t say anything to Anna, I’ll ask her father again if she can be told, I really think she should know about this.” I shoved the note back into its envelope and slid it into my pocket. I didn’t offer to let Dean read it, there was nothing of interest in there, and if these notes ever did get back to Anna, I knew she wouldn’t want people to know about them anyway. She valued what little privacy she had.

Dean was watching me, waiting for more directions; I closed my eyes and thought everything through. He wouldn’t get to her; if anyone came anywhere near her, then I would kill them. He was talking about seeing her at the trial and about the future, so he wouldn’t order anyone to hurt her in any way. He loved her.

I opened my eyes. “Okay, she already has pretty tight security; I think we need to pull in a little further. We’ll cut far guard distance from a hundred yards, to fifty instead. Make sure you have your gun with you at all times. We’ll still go tonight otherwise she might get suspicious, but I think that both you and Peter should come, if you don’t mind. I’ll authorise overtime payments for you both for any extra hours that we need when we go out and stuff,” I instructed. Forcing a smile, I tried not to show the panic that was building inside me because she was in the apartment on her own, even though I was standing outside the only door.