Redeemed (Dirty Air 4)

I’m tempted to call her out on her bluff, but her clutching onto her luggage and rolling it toward her has me stopping myself.

Shit. Will she really leave?

“The past few days in the hotel have been incredible. I don’t want to go back to how things were.”

“And how’s that?”

“Lonely. Without you and Marko, the thought of being on my own again is awful. Absolutely unbearable. It’s like I had a gaping hole in my chest that only started being filled over the last few weeks.”

Her bottom lip juts out. “Oh, Santiago.”

I step up to her, grabbing the handle of her luggage and pushing it in the opposite direction. “And most of all, you make the bad days better. I want more of that. If you go, I’m afraid I’ll go back to the way things were.”

She runs her hand down my chest before placing it against my rapidly beating heart. “I don’t want to be a crutch. You need to fight for yourself because you want to. Not because I’m here, for however long that is.”

Something in my chest constricts over her leaving permanently. “I do want to fight for myself. That’s the point. And you’re not a crutch. You’re part of the foundation to help me get where I want to be.”

“And that is?”

“Accepting that, while I can never be the man I was, I can become a man you want to be with.” I brush my thumb across her bottom lip.

Her eyes widen. “You can’t be serious.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t know each other well enough.”

“Give me a chance then. A real chance. No faking. No pretending. Ju

st us spending time together, learning about each other.”

She tugs her bottom lip between her teeth. The silence sets me on edge, but I hold out, hoping she will give in.

She lets out a tense breath. “Okay. But there is one house rule.”

“Name it and it’s yours.”

“No sex. Until you work on yourself—for real—I’m not sleeping with you. Bottom line.”

Mierda. I nod my head, accepting my fate. If it’s a battle with myself that Chloe wants, then it’s a battle she’s bound to get.

Except I refuse to be a loser this time.

“Please tell me why the fuck some woman called my assistant asking for your number, Santiago.” Noah skips the pleasantries, jumping straight into the reason behind his random call.

“Who?”

“Anne Carter called asking to get in contact with you. You know, Chloe’s mother?”

Now I have a full name to the horrendous stories Chloe shared about her mother. Edginess creeps up my spine at the deranged woman attempting to infiltrate my inner circle. That stops now. Chloe’s spent her entire life escaping the grasps of her mother, and I’ll be damned if she haunts her in Europe, too.

“What did she want?” I snarl.

“Beats me. She left a slurred voicemail about needing to speak to you because she can’t get in contact with Chloe. I feel the need to warn you...”

Fuck! This is all my fault. I’m the one that pushed Chloe into the spotlight, and now her mother found out.

“Did she leave a callback number?”