This time last week, we’d been on a boat in Italy. I’d told him I’d loved him, and he’d kissed me like he loved me back.
Seven days felt like a lifetime ago—long enough for a dream to twist into a nightmare.
Maybe he needed that information to track down my stalker. Maybe he wanted to make sure no one in my life was a serial killer. Maybe…maybe…
I was grasping at straws, but all I could think about was Christian sitting at his desk, picking through my life with the ease of someone typing in a Google search.
Even if he wasn’t my stalker, he’d crossed many of the same boundaries. Stepped over many of the same lines.
The urge to vomit rose again. I’d already thrown up all the contents in my stomach, so I could only dry heave into the toilet.
I have to get out of here.
He wouldn’t be home for another few hours, but I couldn’t risk him leaving the office early and finding me like this.
I couldn’t pretend everything was okay when it felt like nothing would be okay ever again.
I forced myself off the floor and quickly cleaned up before I entered our bedroom. Although I had a ton of stuff stored in the guest room, I’d all but moved into Christian’s room after Hawaii.
He’d cleared out a section of his closet for me, and the sight of my clothes hanging next to his familiar dark suits twisted my heart into an excruciating knot.
“It wouldn’t hurt you to wear something other than black, gray, and navy, you know.” I lay in bed, wrapped up in the comforter and watching Christian get dressed.
Suit. Tie. Watch. Cufflinks.
I never thought watching a guy put on cufflinks would be sexy, but he made everything look sexy.
“Other colors hurt my eyes.”
“I wear other colors all the time.”
“That’s different. I love everything you wear.”
My stomach flipped, and I flopped back on my pillow with a sigh. “It’s not fair that you can end every argument by saying things like that.”
Christian’s laugh lingered in the room long after he left.
The memory pulled a smile out of me, but it faded when my current reality sank in again.
The binders. The secrets. The need to get the hell out of here before he came home.
I couldn’t face him right now, not when my emotions were so raw and all over the place.
I needed time to think and space to process away from him.
I forced my eyes away from his section of the closet and threw the essentials into a duffel bag. A few changes of clothes, toiletries, and Mr. Unicorn, who I grabbed on my way out.
At the last minute, I scribbled a quick note to Christian and left it on his office desk. That and the files should be self-explanatory.
I wasn’t ready to talk to him, but I worried what he might do if he came home and found me gone without a trace.
I hugged Mr. Unicorn tight to my chest as I took the elevator down to the lobby. I didn’t care that I was an adult walking through public with a stuffed animal. He was the only male who’d never let me down.
I knew Brock was keeping an eye on me and that he’d alert Christian to where I’d gone, but I’d deal with that later.
For now, there was only one place I could go that was almost as safe as Christian’s used to be.
“Ava?” I called her on my way out of the building. My voice wobbled, but I refused to cry. Not now, not here. “Can I come over? Something…something happened.”