Page 116 of Never Fall for an Angel

Telling him now just rehashes old wounds that are finally starting to scab over. I’m not sure I’d survive ripping them open again.

“Talk to me, little devil. What’s on your mind?” he asks quietly, studying my eyes as if they’re a window to my thoughts.

God, I hope not. I’d hate for him to see how fucked-up my mindactuallyis.

“Do you . . . you don’t think anyone will recognize us . . . right?”

It’s been weighing on my mind since I woke up this morning, and he told me we were going into town over the French toast I’dmade us for breakfast. The possibility of someone recognizing us.

I don’t know anything about the area, but Christian says the town is small. Filled with happy people who are none the wiser that we’re hiding out here instead of just keeping up with the lighthouse. I also haven’t been out since that single time he took me to Home of Hope, and that was just a there-and-back trip. I barely got to see the outdoors.

Christian reaches up, brushing a curl from the scar on my forehead, and my toes curl at the touch of his fingers against my skin. Then, like it always does, my anxiety rears its ugly head, and I can’t help but picture the day this will all come crashing down around me.

The day he sends me back to LA or wherever he plans to get rid of me.

“I’ve been checking around. I wouldn’t take you out if I thought there was even a possibility of someone finding us.”

I let out a shaky breath, nodding.

I can do this. It’s just a trip to town, right? Just a little trip to town with Christian, who may as well be four secret service men in one. Nothing bad will happen . . . right?

“Mila.”

I hadn’t even realized I was spacing out, imagining the bus stop in Arizona all over again.

“Sorry,” I breathe, wiping my clammy palms on my jeans.

“You’re safe.”

“Easy to say when you aren’t the one kidnapped.”

“Don’t think of it as kidnapped. Think of it as spontaneous relocation.”

I can’t help but roll my eyes, a chuckle sliding through my teeth.

“Don’t think of us as fake husband and wife, then. Think of us as mutually hostile sexual partners.”

He cocks a brow, stepping back from me and holding out a hand to help me hop down from the table.

“So . . . husband and wife.”

“You’re impossible,” I say to the back of his head when he leads me toward the door.

“You’re beautiful.”

It’s just a store.

Just a store with people who sell store things.

“Mila.”

“What are we doing?”

Christian looks down at his giant T-shirt I’m wearing and my worn and tattered jeans.

“You need clothes, little devil.”

“I like wearing your clothes,” I murmur, and when something sinful passes through his gaze, I realize what I just said and have to explain. “You know . . . because they’re baggy and comfortable.”

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