Page 31 of Reluctant Surrender

She froze for a moment, then looked up at me with ice in her glare. “Lower my voice?” she asked. “You barged into my boss’ office, threw him up against the wall, embarrassing me, ready to hurt him, and you’re concerned with my voice?”

“You also hit me while we were in there, but I’m letting that slide.”

“Letting that slide—” She grabbed her purse from the drawer and slammed it shut. “You are unbelievable!” She flicked off her desk lamp and shouldered her way past me. She was lucky I was feeling accommodating since she did have a small point about what just happened, otherwise I would have hauled her sweet ass over her desk and reddened it for being so bratty.

I followed behind her to the front of the office. Patryk had already left, so it was only the two of us standing in the hallway waiting for the rackety elevator.

“You can’t just do things like that, Lukas. He’s my boss. I need this job.” Her voice was strained, her eyes locked on the numbered lights over the elevator.

“I thought he was being disrespectful. From the way it sounded, he was being a dick,” I explained, slipping my hands into my pockets. Even pissed and brooding, the woman looked tempting with a flush on her cheeks. Her attitude all riled up made me only want her more.

“I can take care of myself, Lukas. I don’t need a knight to come riding on his big horse to save me,” she said, fixing the strap on her purse.

I reached over to her, gliding my finger across her cheek to push her hair behind her ear so I could better see the flush of her skin. “I won’t ever let anything bad happen to you, Maggie. Need me or want me, you have me.”

The elevator dinged and the doors slid open in front of us. She opened her mouth, ready to say something, to hurl an insult maybe, to throw my words back at me, but she pinched her lips together and stepped onto the elevator in silence.

I stepped on beside her, uneasy with the way the elevator dipped beneath my weight.

“Why did you tell him you’re my boyfriend?” she asked with forced lightness.

I hit the button for the lobby. “It sounds cheesy, boyfriend, girlfriend, but the meaning is there.”

She looked up at me with confusion in her eyes. “And what meaning is that?”

“That you’re mine.”

Chapter 15

Maggie

“Ijust need to grab a few more things.” I jogged ahead of Lukas toward my apartment.

“Wait,” he commanded, but I already had my key out and aimed for the lock. The pit stop at my place would only take five minutes. I needed to grab more clothes and then I wanted to get back to Lukas’ house. I wanted to sink into the gigantic whirlpool bathtub in the bathroom attached to his room and try to pick apart everything Lukas had said at my office.

He’d claimed me, and while a part of me wanted to smack the Neanderthal out of him, another part—a part I’d locked away a long time ago—wanted to replay the words over and over again in my mind.

The door to my apartment was slightly ajar when I reached it. I froze for a moment; hadn’t I locked it when I left with Lukas the other day? He’d been so damn pushy and bossy, I’m sure he wouldn’t have let me walk away without locking up. But it wasn’t locked now.

I gently pushed the door open while Lukas was cursing beneath his breath at me. He cursed in Polish, maybe because he thought I couldn’t understand him. But I’d learned plenty over the years eavesdropping on my father’s meetings.

“Don’t you dare take one more step.” He grabbed hold of my left arm and yanked me back. He went in first, but there was no way in hell I was standing out in the hallway.

A chill streaked down my spine at the sight before me. The entire place had been destroyed. My couch, one of the few items I’d been able to take from the condo when I moved out, had been slashed. Every cushion was torn, and the stuffing pulled out as though someone had been searching for something.

And they had.

Me.

I walked through the tiny kitchen while Lukas checked the bedroom. The dishes were smashed, glass littered the floor. There was no reason to destroy those things except to send a message.

“The bedroom’s just as bad.” Lukas tucked a gun back into the back of his slacks. I hadn’t even noticed him pull it out. The scene in front of me had absorbed all my focus.

“Sammy Bertonelli?” I asked softly, picking up a picture frame from the small shelf in the kitchen. A picture of me and Amelia when we were in college. The glass was shattered, the frame broken at the edges.

“That’s my guess.” He took the frame from my hands. “The picture can be saved. We’ll get a new frame.”

Tears filled my eyes as I looked at everything I owned, my paltry belongings smashed and strewn about as though they had no worth. I understood his message loud and clear; when he found me, Sammy would do the same to me.

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