Page 44 of Forever Fake

I should.

Damn it. I stand up so forcefully that the chair legs scrape against the patio as it slides backwards. With measured steps, I go look for her inside.

WhydoI care if she’s intoxicated or not? This thing between us is temporary, so why should I give a fuck about the details? Her pussy should be more important to me than her state of mind. Yet… when I take her body, I want all of her to know it’s me she’s with, without a doubt. I want every part of her involved when I fuck her—her body, her mind, even her goddamn soul.

Pure possessiveness courses through my blood, it clenches my chest and settles in my gut.

Ginevra’smine. I won’t share her with anyone or anything—not even that damn vanilla vodka. Nor the ghosts of her past. I want all of her for myself.

“Gin, are you in here?” I open her closet door. Her discarded bathing suit rests on the floor. So she was here. Where did she go?

“Mr. Baron,” Fleur, my housekeeper, appears in the doorway. “Miss Ginevra left. She took a Lyft, just now.”

“Shit.” I bolt from the closet and make my way out the front door in record time, but I’m too late to see which direction she went.

No matter, I’ll catch up to her soon enough. This isn’t the first time she’s done this disappearing act and I did what I had to do in response. Grabbing my phone from my pocket, I pull up the information from the tracking device I planted in her purse. For good measure, I had one sewn into all of her purses. She owns quite a few and she never goes out without one.

I watch the dot move across the screen—a map of New York City. When it stops I zoom in to find the address of her location.

Got you, little magpie.

When I pull the car up to the address, I’m more than a bit confused. It’s a building full of storage units. You need a code to get in, so after I park I have to wait for someone to exit and catch the door before it closes.

Inside there are three levels of long concrete and steel corridors with units on either side. I start on the main level and work my way up until I find a half open roll-up door. The first two I came across were clearly people moving boxes in and out. But this one’s closed except for about a foot of space at the bottom. Light and soft music spill into the hallway.

This must be her secret den. Does she bring men here?

The very idea has me burning with rage. If she has a man in there, I’ll fucking kill him and ask questions later. Her little ten by ten will become a murder scene. I did warn her not to cheat.

I grip the bottom of the door and shove it up. The metal on metal roars as it glides open, then suddenly stops with a bang and a shudder. What I find inside is not at all what I expected. It looks like a teenager vomited all over this space.

Gin sits, wide-eyed, on a plush pink bean-bag surrounded by stuffed animals, sticker-adorned furniture, and boy band posters attached to the metal walls with duct tape.

What in the actual fuck?

“What are you doing here?” She stares at me, panicked.

“I followed you,” I say absently, taking in every bit of this scene. “What is this place? Besides hell on earth,” I mutter.

Gin stands up, holding a long stuffed snake around her shoulders like it’s a fur wrap. “This isn’t hell on earth. This is my place.” She offers me a watery smile.

My gaze snaps to her. “What do you mean?”

A blush creeps up her neck and she glances down, clearly embarrassed. “When I was thirteen, my parents decided it was time for me to grow up and have an adult bedroom, so this is where they put all of my stuff.” She softly adds, “I come here when I’m feeling sad.”

I assess the storage unit again, with a fresh perspective. This is Gin’s childhood. Every piece of it is crammed in here. Every piece is a part of her and her past.

The back of my neck prickles with anger. This isn’t right. These things shouldn’t be locked up away from her if she still wants them. And she obviously takes comfort in having all of this stuff around or she’d get rid of it.

Nostalgia’s a stronger motivator than most people realize. Some of us crave our connection to the past. Some of us will do anything to hold onto it.

Tomorrow I’ll have all of this moved into the house. One of the guest rooms should be large enough to hold it all without being cramped like this small space. Ginevra shouldn’t be coming to a storage unit in order to feel happiness. She should have that in her own home.

“Can you please leave,” she mumbles, clinging to her stuffed snake. She looks so young, so innocent right now that guilt slithers through my gut. Less than an hour ago I did naughty things to this woman who is really just a girl.

I nod. “As you wish.”

The relief I feel in knowing that she hasn’t been running off to see a lover is palpable. I’d have been less surprised by that than this, but now I don’t have to murder anyone in cold blood. At least not tonight.

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