Page 35 of Regally Binding

“She’s driving within the speed limit,” Liss replied in defence of the stranger.

“Don’t you dare talk to me.” He turned to stare at her before yanking the steering wheel and turning left. Cars beeped at his lack of indication. “Why would you go to the pub because Steve messaged you? How little do you care about your safety?”

Liss stared at him. Occasionally, he’d glance at the road before returning to face her.

“Well, answer me then!”

Liss folded her arms and huffed exaggeratedly. “You told me not to ‘dare talk to you,’” she replied curtly and looked away.

“Don’t play games with me, Liss,” he said through gritted teeth. “You won’t win.”

Her head snapped back to scowl at him as he parked in the hotel’s secured car park. “Says the man who one moment gives me the greatest kiss of my life and the next is shouting at me like I’m a child.”

She threw open the door and ran for the stairwell on her shaky legs. She wouldn’t get the lift with Bear. She pushed open the door to the stairs and ran up them, but he wasn’t far behind, and with his long legs, he was taking them two or three at once.

Suddenly, he caught up as she turned between flights of stairs. He walked her backwards until her shoulders hit the wall. Cold air breezed through the stairwell, but her body burnt against the fire radiating from him. Her limbs shook as he stood in front of her. Their toes touched, and he held his hand out, desperate to touch her but too scared to do it.

“What did you mean about that kiss being the greatest of your life? I thought you said it was a mistake,” he growled.

Suddenly, Bear’s phone rang, and his eye twitched. The tune was familiar. It was a song by Mazdy.

Liss set her jaw and replied between gritted teeth as Luke’s words returned to her like lava from a volcano, “It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake. I’m not another client who you fuck with.”

Chapter Eighteen

Bear recoiled at Liss’s comment as if slapped. His brow furrowed as he stared at her, and he stepped away like she’d accused him of something hideous.

The temperature change left Liss shivering. He turned and walked down the stairs, slower this time. He grabbed his phone and cancelled the call. Silence filled the stairwell.

“Why are you going down the stairs?” she stuttered.

“Because we can’t get directly to the suite via the main stairs, and the lift is safer.” Bear didn’t hold the door open for her at the bottom, although he waited for her to get in the lift before he joined her.

As the lift rose to their floor, she uttered, “I went to the pub because I thought something had happened. I messaged Isla earlier as I needed to talk to someone. She didn’t reply, but Steve messaged and said something had happened at the pub.” She didn’t owe him anything, yet the need to stop him from hating her was like a banshee wailing in her stomach. She couldn’t ignore it.

Bear kept his back to her as she talked. At Steve’s name, he bristled, but he remained silent. “I got Isla’s number by calling the pub. I wasn’t trying to risk my safety, but I needed to check everything was okay.”

“But you did,” he replied flatly.

“I did what?”

“You did risk your safety.”

The lift pinged, and the doors opened into the suite. Bear walked out, and she followed behind him. Liss kicked off hershoes and let the carpet squidge around her toes. It was the only comfort she was going to get. Bear strode around the suite. His hands shook as he checked all the rooms and any place considered a safety risk.

“Could you strap up my arm now?” she asked when he turned on the television and flicked through the channels, eventually picking a music one.

He stared at her blankly, and she prepared to fight him, but instead, he walked across the room and grabbed a green box. “Sit,” he barked toward the chair in the corner. The fight was leaving her, and she sat obediently. It seemed like a lifetime ago when she was starting her last shift in the pub, and since then, everything had transformed, including her attraction to Bear. It came from nowhere, and she couldn’t control it.

He knelt beside her and fashioned the sling to fit her arm.

“I risked it for my family,” she said quietly.

His face was unreadable, but his words cut her with the edge. “Steve isn’t your family.”

“Everyone at the pub is my family. They’re the only family I have,” she justified, wincing when he touched her arm. “When my mum got ill, I had to leave university and care for her. But I needed to pay for food and bills, so Hugo, the owner, let me have a job. He even gave me shifts that fit around caring for my mum.”

She spun her ring as Bear continued to work on her sling. He tested the knot at her neck and worked it more. “And then your mum died,” he said. Not “then you lost her” or “when she passed” or the other things she hated people saying if they said anything at all.

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