My Heart

Alexis smiles tightly. “I know. But she wanted me to. She wanted to make sure you were okay with it.”

I nod, as Alexis turns and walks down the hallway.

Tamia wanted to get my blessing first.

Why?

The excitable hunter part of my mind tells me it’s because she knows how badly I want her. But how would she know about that?

I sigh and sit back in my chair, gripping the edge of my desk, squeezing until I feel like it might break.

There are too many questions, too much uncertainty.

I have no reason to think Tamia is even thinking of me in that way, let alone is as completely consumed with me as I am with her. There’s no reason to think she’s been spending sleepless nights with her mind filled with dreams of me, the way my nights have become prisoners to her.

I wonder if I should find a reason to be out of the house later. It wouldn’t be difficult. I could call up my best friend Tommy and we could hit the gym together or go for a drink. There’s some business down at the warehouse I could handle if I really had a mind to leave… though my managers are capable and professional. They don’t need their boss breathing down their necks.

Whatever excuse I use, the fact is I don’t have to be here. I don’t have to see her again.

But I need to.

It’s like my heart has taken on a new role now, beating with a deeper sense of purpose, hammering heavily whenever my thoughts turn to Tamia.

Which is all the damn time, these days.

My grip grows even tighter on the desk until the wood starts to creak. I forcibly remove my hands, stand and walk over to the window, looking out at the garden.

A different sort of fantasy hits me now.

I imagine my Tamia standing in the garden, her camera raised, as our children gather in front of the flowerbeds. Our children smile widely, beaming at the lens, as their mother – the woman of my dreams – tells them to squeeze tighter together.

My heartbeat does something new, it flutters, as though beckoning me to the future. As though telling me it’s not as impossible as it seems.

Turning away from the window, I sit at my desk and do my best to focus on work for the rest of the morning.

“What? Are you serious?” Alexis yells as she walks by the hallway again. “They can’t do that!”

I walk into the hallway on alert at her tone. “Is something wrong?”

Alexis pauses, nodding, as she presses the phone against her shoulder again. “Tamia’s landlord is demanding eight hundred dollars from her.”

“What! Why?”

“He’s accusing her of breaking the elevator and he needs to get it fixed.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How would she break the elevator?”

“I don’t know, Dad. The guy sounds like a complete jerk.” Alexis holds the phone to her ear again. “He’s outside right now? Tell him you’ll call the police if he keeps hammering on the door.”

I close my eyes for a second, telling myself this is none of my business.

But there’s no damn way I’m letting some low life shake my woman down for cash.

I turn and stride down the hallway, fists clenched at my sides, feeling ready to tear this motherfucker apart.

“Dad, where are you going?”

“Where do you think?” I roar.

“Okay, wait up. Tamia, we’re on our way. Don’t worry.”

I grab my jacket and pull on my shoes, striding to my car. Sitting behind the wheel as I wait for Alexis. I warn myself that I need to calm down. As far as Alexis knows, Tamia is nothing to me, just her new friend and the friend to the woman who donated Alexis her heart.

So not nothing.

But she’d be confused by my sudden protectiveness, my willingness to beat any bastard to a pulp if he ever tried to hurt my Tamia.

Finally, Alexis walks out, shouldering her bag, her phone still to her ear. “We’ll be there soon, Tam. Just sit tight.”

CHAPTER SIX

Tamia

My landlord bangs on the door again, pommeling his fist against it. It’s hardly midday but he sounds like he’s been drinking, his words slurred.

“Open up so we can have a conversation. Don’t be a coward.”

“I already told you, Mr. Reynolds. I didn’t break the elevator.”

“I saw the way you were jabbing at that button.”

I groan as I pace up and down in front of the door, wondering if I should call the cops. Alexis said she was on the way. No, that they were on the way.

Even now – when all my attention should be focused on the madman trying to hammer his way into my apartment – the thought of seeing Triston again has my belly swirling and my nerves buzzing.

Every night has been torture, thoughts of Triston keeping me awake into the early hours, my sex tingling, and my body heating every time I so much as think of him. When I do finally fall asleep, I wake with a gasp, my hand clawing across the bed as I search for him, trying to burrow into his side for comfort.