Page 43 of Twin Deception

ISABEL

“Get down!”

Miguel forced me off of him so violently, I held my breath. He didn’t just push me aside. The big man rolled over with me, smashing me down to the sand.

What the fuck?

He wasn’t being playful. This wasn’t more of that dominance he exuded when we’d had sex. Nothing was sexy about this.

Not the order in his tone. The stark fear in his eyes. Nor the strength and bulk of him covering me. This time, he wasn’t lying over me to cuddle. Tucking down, his shoulders hunched as he curled over me, he shielded me.

I coughed once at the blur of motion. My heart jackhammered so fast. My pulse hadn’t slowed at all yet from coming. I had yet to come back down from that rush, and now?—

A whistling sound pierced through the air.

“Fuck. Fucking—” Miguel gathered me up in his arms. “Let’s go!”

I scrambled up with him, confused and panicking primarily becausehewas. Together, we got to our feet. With him hovering over me, blocking me, he hurried us over to a beach stand across the sand.

“Stay down,” he ordered as more of those whistling sounds shot through the air. The thunder had faded, but past my fast breath, I couldn’t really understand what he was rushing us away from.

His big hand stayed on my back as he urged me to crouch with him under this wooden stand. As far as shelter went, it didn’t seem that strong. I’d follow his lead, though, because as I turned back—instinctively—to look at where we’d had sex on the beach, another sound came. With it, a spot of sand burst up.

“Is someoneshootingat us?” I gaped at Miguel as he scanned the buildings along the street.

“Not us.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“You,” he clarified, making eye contact with me. “When you sat up, I saw a sniper sight lining up with your head.”

“What… I…What?” I couldn’t think straight, much less speak. “Someone wants to shootme?” It was ludicrous, so far out there, I failed to comprehend. I was an artist, a mural painter who minded her own business. Just an ordinary woman who…

Happened to be the daughter of Louis Flores.

I hate you. Ihateyou.

While he’d taught me how to hide and blend in, that sneaking around business, I never, ever thought someone would actually come after me like this!

“Take my card.” Miguel didn’t look at me as he grabbed his wallet, still glancing up over and over again to watch the distance while we hunkered down under this beach stand. “Go to my room and wait for me.”

“No, I?—”

He thrust the card in my hand. “Listen to me, Isabel.”

I detested being told what to do, but I was also scared of what was happening. I still couldn’t believe we’d had sex. Like that. So fast and so primitively wicked. I’d never had sex in the wide open public, where anyone could see. No one was out, but it wasn’t a private spot in the dark of the storm on the beach. I’d never just let a man tell me how it’d be and then have him prove to me just how good it was.

But being shot at? This trumped it all. My options to this danger were to fight or flee. Running was the wiser choice, because unlike Miguel as he got a gun out from the back of his shorts, I was unarmed and unprepared to fight at all.

But that meant?—

“No. What do you mean, wait for you?” I grabbed his forearm. “Where the hell areyougoing?”

“Go to my room, Isabel. And wait for me.” He looked at me expectantly, counting on me to listen and obey. Disobedience was more my style, but having sex on the beach with a stalker, then getting shot at, was definitely not my style at all.

“Go!” he yelled, holding his gun and volleying his gaze toward where he must have assumed the shooter had aimed from.

“Stick to that retaining wall and go.” He urged me to walk out, near the structure he referenced. As I went, with him backingup and still covering me, I swallowed hard and willed myself to just trust him, to believe that he’d know what he was doing and would keep me safe.

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