Page 199 of If Our Hearts Collide

I quiver back and feel my shoulders curling forward as I take in the scene. Adrenaline races through me, as I struggle to try to deescalate the testosterone showdown happening before my eyes.

Again.

It’s like I’m living some Groundhog Day alternate reality—where Collins fights men but doesn’t fight forme.

Wesley looks like he might pee his pants.

“Sir, I didn’t know she was?—”

“She’s mine,” Collins says with unwavering certainty.

He almost sounds like my boyfriend and not just my bodyguard, and that is playing tricks with my head and my heart.

Wesley turns back to look at me with horror. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were Mr. Stone’s…” His words trail off, with an unspoken expectation for me to complete the blank.

Mr. Stone’s what?

My eyebrows move inward at his sudden turn in personality.

“Okay,” I whisper.

Turning back to Collins, he looks like he might throw up on his shoes. “I have a wife and baby at home. Please don’t hurt me.”

“Then go the fuck home to them and stop prowling for young girls here.”

He’s married? Ew, gross! Then why is he here?

Wesley glances at me and quickly diverts his attention. “I’m sorry about Penny. I’m really sorry. I’ll never approach her again.”

Does Wesley think I’m Mr. Stone’s property? It feels that way in this moment, and yet knowing what Daphne slipped telling me earlier, I know that it isn’t even remotely close to being the truth.

I am Collins Stone’s nothing. At least not anything of importance.

I’m not his girlfriend.

I’m not his side chick.

I am just a girl he happens to guard without my permission.

If I didn’t love my brothers as much as I do, I would have put a stop to this a long time ago. However, I understand that they are still healing from what happened to me when Mark Tanner drugged and almost raped me. My entire family is still healing from that trauma.

And no matter how many sessions I’ve had of private and group therapy, I’m still trying to heal as well.

Without another glance, Wesley exits the dance floor, leaving me with an angry Collins. Actually, angry seems too mild to be the accurate description.

Livid?

Furious?

Murderous?

Damn. How do I keep finding myself in horrible positions yet again?

And if looks could kill…

“All the trouble of scaring off a man just so you can dance with me?” I say sarcastically, trying to lighten the mood. Clearly, he doesn’t have a joking bone in his body right now. “Was that even necessary? I mean, really, Collins. It’s not like you are”—I gesture to his immobile body—“trying to act normal.”

“I don’t dance.”

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