Page 27 of Brutal Obsession

I suppress the urge to grab her face and pull her lips to mine. “Aggravating, but cute.”

Harper readjusts in her seat and leans her head against the window.

“Once upon a time, Harper Brennan decided to run away to a faraway island kingdom called Hawaii and become a new person named Elena Dane. You couldn’t have been a little more inventive and not use your middle name?”

Harper throws me a queasy look. “Why do you know my middle name?”

“I know more about you than you think.”

She scrunches up her nose. “Well, that’s horrifying.”

“Too bad.” I clear my throat. “And your pseudonym doesn’t suit you, by the way. I think you’re better off being yourself.”

Clicking off the hazard lights, I ease back onto the road.

The navigation says we’re only fifteen minutes from the address. I follow the directions in silence until I can’t handle it anymore.

“WhyElena,though?”

“Since you know so much about me, why don’t you ask yourself?”

At this point, I’m just fucking rambling to keep her talking. Which sucks, since Harper would clearly rather stick pins in her eyes than hold a civil conversation with me.

Several silent minutes unfurl between us.

I steal glances at Harper’s defeated face, but she doesn’t glance back.

Not even once.

This is what I hate about her. She’s my arsonist, setting me on fire inside, then disappearing and leaving me to burn alone. The contrast between how she affects me and how I don’t register for her makes me want to throw back my head and howl.

Not that Icareabout her. I’m just saying.

She holds herself a little tighter. “Is…Finn with you?”

She’s asking about Finn?

Possessiveness flares to life in the pit of my stomach. Don’t tell me she’s upset because I was assigned to come after her instead ofhim?

Her question irks me too much to merit a response. She waits a few seconds before asking another.

“Who else came with you?”

“I came on my own.”

She regards me with suspicion. “You expect me to believe that?”

“Shane and the others know I’m here to protect you, but that’s all.” Not entirely true, but she doesn’t need to know that.

I don’t know if she believes me, but she stays quiet until I’m coming to a stop outside a gated beach house somewhere along Oahu’s North Shore.

When she speaks again, the panic in her voice has risen a few notches. “How dumb do you think I am?”

“Considering you ran away from the mafia? Pretty dumb.”

When I put the window down and punch in the code, a tropical sea breeze fills the car. The sounds of the ocean flow from the back of the property like a lullaby, but the rhythmic crash of waves fails to soothe Harper.

The gate rolls back, allowing our entry and striking both of us mute.

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