Page 183 of The Stalker

He broke into tears and let go of Tatiana’s grasp so he could bury his face in his hands as he cried. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him towards her. He dropped his hands to her waist and cried into her chest.

“We’ll give you two a moment,” Special Agent McGuire said quietly, and Tatiana nodded at her.

The FBI agents filed out of the room, and Tatiana held Hayden while he continued to cry. Her heart hurt for him and the guilt he must feel, as unwarranted as it was. She knew from her own experience that guilt didn’t work that way.

She remembered Ariana telling her she wasn’t to blame, so that she could at least hear the words. “It’s not your fault that she chose to do that, Hayden. I know that you’re probably going to feel guilty for a long time, but I’m just telling you so that you hear it from someone. The only person to blame for this is Sarah.”

He nodded his head but continued to cry into her chest. She held him for a long time, allowing him to release all of his feelings, and eventually, he sat up and swiped at the tears falling down his face. She leaned over and grabbed a box of tissues that were sitting nearby before holding them out to Hayden.

“Thanks.” He took one and wiped his face before taking another and blowing his nose. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Hayden. What you’ve been through…it’s a lot. I can only imagine how scared you were.”

He inhaled a shaky breath and nodded. “I was terrified, Tati. I thought that I’d never see you again.”

“Me, too. I thought that I’d never get to tell you that I want to marry you.”

His eyes widened and his mouth dropped open as he stared at her before a smile finally came to his lips. “Really?”

Her heart felt like it might explode, and she was so happy that there was a tiny bright spark for Hayden amidst his clear misery.

“Yes. Shit. I was going to wait for you to ask.” Tatiana cringed.

He pressed his lips against hers and kissed her passionately. Desire and arousal washed over her despite the situation they were currently in, and she wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss him back.

He ended their kiss and said, “Now is probably not the time or the place for me to ask you again. Let’s get this statement finished so I can ask you somewhere more private.”

Tatiana smiled at him and nodded her agreement. She called the agents back into the room for Hayden to continue his statement, which he did once they were all settled again.

“After the—” Hayden coughed and took a deep breath before continuing in a strained voice, “—after the drugging was when she started stalking me. Unfortunately for her, we got bodyguards after that night, so I was a lot less accessible. She followed me out to Galena multiple times but decided against trying to get to me there. The day of the accident, she realized Jesse was trying to shake her off and apparently ‘lost her temper,’ which she apologized to me for over and over. It was really creepy and gross. I—” he stopped talking and swallowed again before saying, “—I told her that I accepted her apology because I didn’t want her to hurt me.”

Hayden linked his hand with Tatiana’s again before he continued again. “So that was when she came up with the plan to kidnap me on the tour. Some of this I got from Sarah, and some of it I got from Daniel. She decided to befriend one of the roadies on our tour and she hooked up with Daniel a couple of months before the tour started, right after the accident. She had him convinced that she was in love with him. I asked him why he was doing this for her and he kept saying that she loved him. I asked him why she wanted to be with me, and he kicked me in the stomach and told me that I was lucky Sarah wanted me alive. I think that was probably the only time I was scared for my life until—” he swallowed heavily, “—until I thought she was going to kill me when you guys showed up.”

Tatiana’s blood boiled at the thought of Daniel harming Hayden. She raged internally and wanted to break the man in two. She thought of the fun, casual conversations they’d had during the tour, all so that he could get to Hayden. Her jaw tightened, and she took some slow breaths to try and calm down as she listened to Hayden’s story.

“Sarah came back, and she wanted to sleep in the bed with me. I tried to tell her that I didn’t want her to, but she insisted that we wouldn’t do anything but sleep. She kissed me. Twice. She said she wanted to do more, but she was waiting for me to fall in love with her and she wanted me to want it.”

He glanced at Tatiana, and she hated the look of guilt and shame that he wore over what had been done to him.

“I told her that I felt as though it was definitely something that I thought could happen in the future, that she was really beautiful and our relationship would have an unconventional start. I said that I just needed her to give me time.”

His voice cracked, and he stopped talking as he took some more shaky breaths. Tatiana wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him tightly.

She placed her lips near his ear and said quietly, “You came home to me safely. You did the right thing, and it was what I hoped you would do.”

He hugged her back and nodded his head as Special Agent McGuire said, “That was smart. From everything she’d said in her emails, acting as though you wanted a relationship was probably the best course of action.”

“It was hard. I don’t think I slept more than an hour total that first night. I was tied to the bed, which was uncomfortable, and Sarah was cuddled up to me as though she were my girlfriend. I felt sick the whole time she was touching me.”

He stopped talking, and there was silence in the room. Tatiana wanted this to end. She didn’t want him to have to relive this, though she knew from experience that there was a good chance his subconscious would force him to relive it in his dreams.

“The next day was so strange. Sarah spent the day watching movies with me. Daniel moved me at gunpoint to a sofa and we drank beers and ate food while we watched movies on a laptop together. Sarah made lots of sexual innuendos, and I hated it. I was really worried she was going to push me to have sex with her, but I kept telling myself that surely she wouldn’t do that until she felt I could be trusted to be untied. I just kept hoping that Tatiana would come and find me before that happened.”

He looked over at Tatiana and she gave him a reassuring smile. “I was doing everything I could to find you.”

“She even blackmailed us into letting her come with us on the mission to rescue you,” Derek said in an amused tone from across the table.

His boss darted an annoyed glance at him, but Tatiana was relieved when Hayden looked across the table and a smile came to his face.

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