Page 38 of Alpha's Forbidden Bond

The figure—a man—made a nervous coughing sound and stood up straight, hands already up in the air. The motion-sensor back porch light came on, illuminating us both in garish yellow light. Georgie’s grandmother was hard of hearing and slept with the fan on full blast so she wouldn’t wake up. Not unless I screamed, which was definitely still on the table.

“Who the fuck are you, and why have you been following me?”

He opened his mouth, but all that came out was a bunch of stuttering nonsense. The man was tall and slender, with a very expensive-looking suit poking out underneath a wool overcoat. His hair was slicked back, and the stubble around his chin was speckled with gray. He was, for all intents and purposes, not who I’d expected to find lurking outside my basement door.

“Who are you?” I demanded again.

“I—I—” He cleared his throat and then pushed some hair back, even though it hadn’t moved an inch underneath all that gel. “My—my name is Stanley. Stanley Kingsley.”

The name didn’t ring any bells. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I came here looking for clues,” he said.

“Clues? What are you talking about? Clues for what?”

He didn’t answer right away. I took a step closer and held the pepper spray at eye-level. “I swear to god, if you don’t start talking right now, I’m going to use this on you. Then I’m going to call the cops and have them search the town for a man in an Armani suit with red eyes and perfect hair. It won’t be hard to find you.”

“It’s actually Dolce and Gabbana,” he said before laughing softly. I didn’t crack a smile. He dropped his amusement. “And I’m sorry if I scared you. I know I probably should’ve just knocked on the door and asked if you had any information regarding your father’s whereabouts, but I guess I thought you would lie to me.”

I frowned. “Why do you care where my dad is?”

He laughed again. “Because he owes me a shit ton of money, pardon my French.”

“Get in line,” I said. “But you’ll be behind the US government, so I wouldn’t hold your breath.”

“Huh?”

“He owes a lot of people money, which is precisely why he’s hiding out somewhere and making sure nobody finds him. Not even his own daughter.”

Stanley raised a brow. “You really have no idea where he is?”

“No, and I don’t care. As far as I’m concerned, my father wrote himself out of my life the day he took off running instead of facing up to his crimes. I want nothing to do with him or the rest of my family. I haven’t spoken to them in years.” The business card all of a sudden flashed through my mind. “Wait a second, did you used to work for Pearl?”

Stanley nodded.

“Do you still carry around business cards?”

“I’m not typically in the habit,” he said. “Why?”

“Because I found one sitting by my car the other night. I thought maybe you might’ve dropped it when you were snooping around and staring into my windows like a fucking pervert.”

“Woah, woah, hang on,” he said. “Let me just clear something up—there is nothing sexual about this situation. It’s not even personal. The only reason I’ve been following you and looking into your windows is because I thought maybe you had contact with your dad. I suppose it’s possible I had an old business card in the pocket of one of my jackets, but I didn’t leave it on purpose.”

So my family isn’t trying to contact me…

I wasn’t sure how to feel about that, but there was no time to dwell.

“You really think that’s a good enough excuse for following a woman around and scaring her to death?”

“No,” he said with a guilt-ridden expression. “It’s not. I just—I thought you were maybe communicating with him in secret. I didn’t want to miss my chance to catch him, and when I saw you get into your car in the middle of the night I had a feeling you were going to meet him. He’s who I’m looking for, I swear. I’m just trying to get my money back, that’s it.”

I stared at him for a few seconds, looking down at his coat pockets to see if they were bulging in any way that might signify he was packing a gun. But his lines were all smooth and perfectly pressed. This man was skinny and probably in his late fifties. I could take him in a fight if I had to. I lowered the pepper spray.

“After what I saw, I realize now that you weren’t out at this time of night to meet your dad.”

My stomach twisted. “What—what did you see tonight?” I asked. “When you followed me, I mean.”

Stanley looked away. “I saw what I needed to see.”

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