Page 70 of The Billionaires' Prize

KINGSTON

I find Katherine standing beneath the shower head, hot water steaming around her, palms against the wall, and skin flushed pink from the heat. She’s so lovely, I ache. After all the years I’ve spent daydreaming about her, it’s hard for me to believe that she’s real and that there’s only a pane of thick glass separating us.

She tips her head back beneath the spray, hands smoothing over her hair. Her movements are slow, methodical. How many of these showers have I missed?

Don’t go there.

I’ll drive myself crazy wishing for two things at once. Wishing I could change the past.

I open the shower door a few inches. “Hey, gorgeous.”

She stiffens, hands stilling at her nape. Then her shoulders tremble as if she’s fighting a sob.

Alarm blares through my veins. What is going on? If one of those fuckers hurt her, I’ll end them, dreamy cock or not.

“Hey.” Her chin lifts. “I ordered Chinese from that place you love.”

Her words are breezy, meant to deflect.

I kick off my shoes and step into the steamy cocoon. “What’s wrong?”

I don’t care that my clothes are getting soaked. Hell, my phone’s still in my pocket, but it’s waterproof to thirty feet, so we’re good. The only thing that matters is her.

I close my hands over her shoulders, and she relaxes into my touch as she shakes her head.

“I’ve had better afternoons. That’s all.” She turns, and her eyes widen at my soaked shirt. “King!”

“They’ll dry,” I say, reading her mind.

She sinks against me, arms tight around my waist, cheek burrowing against my chest. Her skin is warm and wet. All those naked curves press against me, but my ardor is firmly in check.

“Talk to me, Wildfire. What happened?”

“My mom.”

I take a deep breath and hold it while I count to five. I hate that Katherine grew up with everything except a loving mother. That she pretty much raised herself and Ford. She was a big sister and mother to him. From the stories she’s told me, her father was around, but her mother spent long hours traveling and at the office.

It’s amazing that my Wildfire has any sweetness in her.

“What did she do?”

She shakes her head.

My muscles tighten as rage drips through my veins, my brain going straight to the worst-case scenario. I press her back to the wall.

She gasps as the cool tile connects with her heated skin.

Holding her in place with my hips, I press one palm to the wall and lift her face with the other. “I’ve wanted to get you away from her for years. I know I shouldn’t.” I close my eyes against the surprise in her gaze. “I shouldn’t come between mother anddaughter, but I’ve hated not being here to protect you. To hold you. To support you.”

“You’re here now,” she says, her voice so soft and almost awestruck.

I nod, but it doesn’t ease all the years I missed. “I’m not going anywhere, Wildfire. Tell me what you need. Because I’m not above throwing you over my shoulder and taking you halfway across the world where that witch can’t ever hurt you again.”

My vow rings through the shower. Does she know how fucking serious I am? I’m stepping off the sidelines, and I’m not going back. What my Wildfire wants, she gets. What she needs, she’ll have. If that means getting away from here, so be it. If it means standing up to her mother once and for all, I’ve got her back.

She blinks up at me like she’s seeing me for the first time. There are water droplets on her lashes. It kills me to think they might actually be tears.

I’ve hidden this part of myself since the day we met because if there’s one thing I didn’t want for her, it was to add more stress to the pressure cooker that is her life.

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