Stolen Lust (Beauty in the Stolen 1)

It’s only at the crossing that I find my voice. “Are you going to follow me?”

He doesn’t reply.

“As in forever?” I croak.

His smile isn’t unkind. “You won’t even know I’m there.”

That’s as much as I can take. Turning on my heel, I run. I run as fast as I can, not slowing down, not until my lungs burn and a sharp pain shoots into my side. My heart is unequipped for the effort. It protests, letting me know it isn’t happy and about to go on a strike. Flopping down on the nearest bench, I dig through my bag for my emergency pills. Not having any water with me, I swallow them dry.

It takes a few minutes before I’m stable enough to move. I still feel the strain on my body and in my chest when I finally push to my feet and force them to move. Ian didn’t lie. He is having me watched. Now even. Maybe. Shit, I don’t know. A part of me doesn’t want to know, but I’ve never shied away from facts.

Mechanically, I walk back to my apartment. I’m too shaken to take in what’s happening around me. A car barely misses me when I cross the street. The driver honks the horn and shouts an insult, but I’m deaf and blind to everything. All I can think about is that I’m no longer a free person. I’ll never be again. Ian will know everything I do. He’ll know where I go and who I see. He’ll know if I move to a different city. He’ll know where I work, if I find a new job. Because I’m not using his money. Especially not now.

My resolution strengthens when I reach my building. I look up and stop. A white Toyota is parked on the curb, and Detective Wolfe is leaning against it.

Shit.

Everything goes into overdrive again—my pulse and my mind—as I try to think at a mile a minute. What does he want? Are the cops watching me? Do they know I wasn’t home the night before last? What do I say if they ask where I’ve been? I can’t think up a lie, not this fast. Is the man still following me?

I glance behind me, but there’s no one. I walk slower, but eventually, I run out of pavement, and I still don’t have an excuse for where I’ve been.

“Get in,” Wolfe says when I reach him. He opens the backdoor and stands aside.

I lift my chin. “Why?”

“We need to ask you a few more questions.”

I swallow. Ian warned me this may happen. As I duck my head and climb into the back, I repeat Ian’s instruction in my mind. Stick to the story.

Should I ask for a lawyer? Would that make me look guilty? No, I’ll wait to see what he wants. Hopefully, I’ll just answer the same questions and he’ll let me go.

We don’t speak on the way. Detective Wolfe takes me to the same office with the same sad-looking plant where his colleague is already waiting.

“Ms. Joubert,” Detective Hackman says with a nod when I enter.

Wolfe shrugs out of his jacket and points at the visitor’s chair facing the desk. “Sit.”

My legs are stiff. My knees refuse to bend, but I manage to slide sideways into the seat. Faking a confident pose, I cross my legs.

Wolfe wiggles loose his tie and unbuttons the top button of his shirt. He drapes his jacket over his chairback and removes a cufflink that he places on the desk. The other cufflink drops beside it. He rolls up his shirt sleeves and leans his palms on the shoulders of the jacket, watching me with bent elbows and flexing forearms. His blond hair is styled with a longish brush cut, but two strands have come loose and are falling over his wide brow. He’s clean-shaven, showing off the dimple in his chin, and he stares at me with piecing blue eyes while the silence stretches like a contagious and fatal disease in the air.

Licking my dry lips, I hold his gaze and wait for him to speak.

Like the previous time, Hackman perches on the corner of the desk, resting one arm on his thigh as he, too, studies me. Unlike the quiet, dangerous tension emanating from Wolfe, he wears an uncertain look.

“Why am I here?” I ask when I can’t stand the tension any longer.

Wolfe’s fingers tighten on the shoulder pads of his jacket. “Where were you last night, Ms. Joubert?”

I look between the two men calmly as my heart bounces around in my chest. “At home, sleeping.”

“Can anyone vouch for that?” Wolfe asks.

“I was alone,” I say. “Why?”

He nails me to the chair with that piercing look. “What about Tuesday night?”

Shit. I dig my nails into my palms. I visited someone? Who? I play for time. “I was out.”