“I have to take a few days off,” I said.
“Abby, please. Just come sit down and let’s talk about this.”
“I’ll be back in a few days,” I said.
“Abby.”
His hand came down onto my wrist and I looked up into his eyes. He was pleading with me. Silently crying out for me to stop. My heart leapt out for him, but my brain was telling me to get out. My gut was churning for him, but my legs were telling me to run.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as tears ran down my cheeks. “I’ll see you later.”
Then I rushed out of his office, grabbed my things, and ran for the elevator as Colin called after me.
Chapter 9
Colin
It had been twenty four hours since Abby had barged out of my office telling me she needed a few days. The news was running headline after headline of her on the street with some guy. But it wasn’t just any guy. I recognized that slimy little face.
Derek had cornered her on the street, and I was infuriated.
I couldn’t get Abby’s face out of my mind. How scared she looked in that last shot just before she ducked into the car. Why she didn’t get into the car sooner was beyond me, and what the fuck had the driver been doing? I felt like firing someone. I needed to regain control of the situation again. My driver was done, and I’d post a security guard outside of her apartment door. Maybe this would convince her to move in with me. Maybe this would convince Abby to see that I could only protect her as much as she let me. My fears weren’t unfounded. People out there would want to attack her like this for the rest of her life now that she was successful and attached to me.
Where the hell had my fiancé gone?
That man didn’t have any right to tell Abby what he did. I called up my lawyer and asked her if this encounter had been a breach of the paperwork he had signed. And of course, there wasn’t. I’d paid this damn lawyer thousands of dollars to take care of this, and she’d forgotten to put the one clause in that damn paperwork that mattered.
Best lawyer in L.A., my ass.
Sitting in my office, I picked up my phone again. I dialed Abby’s number in the hopes that she would pick up. I wasn’t going to try and convince her to come home, nor was I going to try and make her talk. I would simply ask if she wanted him try to figure out where she was. I needed to know she was okay. I needed to know she was safe.
Especially since Derek was apparently just wandering the fucking streets with fifty grand, and nothing to keep him away from Abby.
Then, after calling her for the third time that day, she finally picked up.
“Colin, what do you want?” she asked.
She sounded exhausted, and it only fueled my desire to know where she was.
“I just want to talk, if you’ll let me,” I said.
“I told you I was taking a few days to myself. I don’t think bosses would call their employees like this,” she said.
“Good thing I’m not calling as your boss, then.”
“I’m just not sure I want to talk with you right now. Why can’t you respect that?”
“Because you won’t pick up your phone to tell me anything,” I said.
There was silence on the other end of the line and I was praying she wouldn’t hang up.
“Are you safe?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Colin—”
She was begging me to stop, yet something inside me just couldn’t drop it.
“I just want to know you’re safe,” I said.
“Then trust me when I tell you that I am.”
“I’m just—”
Groaning, I ran my hand through my hair as I stood at the window of my office.
“Are you having second thoughts?” I asked.
“I am,” she said.
I felt my heart shatter and fall into pieces on the floor in front of me.
“Why?” I asked.
“Colin, we don’t know each other.”
“Then we take the time to get to know each other,” I said.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?” I asked.
“The point is you won’t shut up and listen so I can get it out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, sighing.
“It’s not that we don’t know each other, it’s that we were seeing each other in our spare time. On our off time. You don’t seem to hear me sometimes. Like when I tell you I don’t need your money.”
“I just want to spoil you. What’s wrong with that?” I asked.
“Nothing, if you’d ask me how I wanted to be spoiled. But you don’t. You send me flowers that eventually crumble, then they’re just a hassle to clean up. You buy me an SUV, then you send a car to take me to work because you’re afraid something will happen to me. I haven’t even experienced this new city I’m supposed to call home because you’ve got me trapped in all these ivory towers.”
“But you know why I do all that, right? It’s because of encounters like the one you had with Derek,” I said. “It’s to keep you safe.”
“And all these cameras, Colin. There’s so many of them. All the time. We can’t go anywhere. I can’t do anything—”
“I don’t know what you want me to say about the cameras. I can’t pay them off, too.”
I cursed myself the moment it flew from my lips.
“Are you serious?” she asked, breathlessly.
“Abby, I didn’t mean that how it came out.”
“Then how did you mean it?” she asked.
“I just meant that there are some inherent hazards that come with me. Just like there are hazards that come with you.”
“And what hazards do I come with?” she asked.
“Does Derek count?”
“You’re fucking unbelievable, you know that?”
“No, he’s an example. Hear me out. Derek was a hazard. A hazard that came after you. And instead of running or backtracking, I tackled it head on with the one weapon I have at my disposal. Did I go
