Page 236 of Never Fall for an Angel

It has to be done, though.

I press my lips to the side of her face over the tears streaming down her cheeks. My arms tighten around her as if I can shield her from whatever happens tomorrow.

“I’m going to fix this, Mila.”

“Just come to me,” she whispers, burying her face in the crook of my neck.

“Always.”

MILA

When I wake in the morning, I’m alone in bed.

The house is quiet, save for the tap of Phantom’s paws on the hardwood floor when he follows me out to the kitchen to start getting ready for the day.

I don’t know how to navigate this . . . ache in my chest.

The uncertainty of not knowing whether or not he’ll come home. I feel empty.

He held me while I cried last night and then let me get lost in him until the first light of dawn hit the horizon. He was different,like he needed to brand himself on me before he left and that scares me.

I may have marks from his hands, his teeth, his lips . . . I may have a delicious ache between my legs, reminding me he was there.

Hell, I even have his last name.

—None of it makes a goddamned bit of difference if he’s not here.

They can have the money, the house, and the cars. I just need him, Phantom, and maybe our little island. Everything else is material.

I go through my morning, getting ready for work. I apply makeup, hoping it will give me a pick-me-up.

It doesn’t. I still look as miserable as I feel.

I do my hair, though I know it will be frizzy and a wild mass of curls as always by the time I come home.

And then it strikes me.

When will he come home? A few hours? Days?

“God, this sucks, Phantom,” I grumble through the toothpaste in my mouth.

The cock of his head tells me he agrees.

By the time I make it to the lodge, I’ve thought of every possible outcome of today’s events, and I’m numb to everything but the anxiety swirling in my stomach.

—A feeling that’s made worse when I walk through the back door to the lodge and find Paulina running around like doomsday is upon us.

“Wherehaveyou been?” she snaps, her eyes flaring with that fiery temper she conceals so well.

“I, uh . . . wasn’t due in until ten.”

She pauses, guilt flashing across her face.

“Right. I’m sorry, Mila. Have you seen Bella?”

“Bella? No. Not since last night.”

“She isn’t in her room, and she didn’t come in this morning. I’ve been trying to juggle everything, but Ineedher.”

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