Page 40 of Stealing His Cupcake
Amy surprises me again. “I know,” she says. “I should be afraid of you but I’m not. It probably makes me a bad person who does bad things, too.”
“It doesn’t.” God, I want her to like me, but not if it burdens her with such guilt. “I forced you. Threatened you. You have no choice but to be with me.”
Shaking her head, she raises her beautiful, tear-stained face to me. Her expression is serious as she says, “I had a choice. I chose you, Wyatt Archer.” A smile shines through her tears. “Is that your real name?”
“I-I…” Now it’s me stuttering and grasping for words as a swarm of butterflies flutters around my chest cavity. She chose me. Me! I can’t fucking believe it. “Yes.” I finally find my words. “That’s the name my parents gave me when I was born.”
“Really? It’s just so…normal.”
I laugh. “What did you think my name was?”
“I don’t know,” Amy replies with a shrug. “Something ominous. Like Damon or Noctis or Terminator or something. Not Wyatt.”
“Cupcake, I don’t think my parents had my hitman career in mind when they were picking baby names.”
“Oh. Right, that makes sense.” She curls against my chest again, sighing contentedly, and it’s the best feeling ever. “I’m so tired. Can we go somewhere with a bed or do we have some more surprise ‘appointments’? Some funerals or baby showers or human sacrifices to alien gods?”
Kissing the top of her head, I open the passenger car door for her. “No more appointments. We’re going straight home.”
“Home,” Amy muses. I wait with a bated breath for her reaction, warmth spreading through me at her careful smile. “Okay. Let’s go home.”
Chapter 29
Amy
I’vecriedmoreinthe past week than in my entire life combined. At this point, it’s a miracle my body still retains the ability to form tears. Or that Lucifer,Wyatt, isn’t fed up with me constantly slobbering all over him. Craig hated it when I cried. All of my previous boyfriends did, not that I’d been with most of them long enough to show such vulnerability, but I’m certain that their brains weren’t equipped to deal with female tears. I wonder if I’ve simply been choosing the wrong men or if Wyatt is some sort of miracle of nature. Probably a bit of both.
He doesn’t turn on the car’s navigation this time, so I don’t know how far we’re going, but I find that I don’t care that much. The car is comfortable and warm and I feel safe. Safe with my husband. Damn, that’s going to take some major getting used to.
“Does he know about you?” I ask, curious to find out more about my— Nope. Not gonna say it again. About Wyatt. “Lockley,” I specify, responding to his raised brow. “Does he know what you do? Is that why he was so terrified of you?” To me, it doesn’t seem smart to walk aroundflaunting your criminal career, but what do I know? Perhaps that’s how it’s done.
“Oh.” Wyatt laughs. He has a great laugh. Deep and sort of rumbling, reverberating through his chest. I regret not being curled up against him when he laughs like this, because the vibrations are extremely soothing. “No, he doesn’t know,” Wyatt explains. “He is on the local mafia’s payroll, though. I’m on friendly terms with the boss, so I namedropped a little to get the marriage ceremony arranged this fast.”
My eyebrows shoot up to my hairline. “There’s ‘local mafia’ in rural Minnesota?”
“Cupcake, organized crime is everywhere. Turf wars are just more visible in big cities because they usually involve dozens of deaths. Here, a house burns down, one or two people mysteriously go missing, and things are settled.”
“Right.” My head spins. This is not an area I ever expected to get educated in. Mafia. Jesus Christ. “So he thinks you’re mafia?” That doesn’t sound so good either.
“Affiliate, yes.” Wyatt shrugs, glancing at me before returning his eyes to the road. “I kept my legal name mostly clean until now, though, so most townsfolk won’t believe it and Lockley won’t babble. He wouldn’t stay alive this long if he didn’t know how to keep his mouth shut. At least now he won’t bother me when I’m late with my garbage collection fees.”
I don’t know if I should laugh or gawk at him with my mouth wide open, so I do both at once, which results in an undignified snort. “You don’t pay garbage collection fees?”
“I do!” Wyatt sounds affronted by my suggestion, but then he cracks a smile. “I just forget about the deadline sometimes. You can be in charge of it if it irks your law-abiding soul,wife.”
Wife. Oh, god. My heart flip-flops, warmth spreading through me. How’s him calling me his wife even hotter than calling me a good girl? It’s wrong, so wrong, but I don’t have the decency to feel bad about it. “I don’t have much money saved, but I’ll pay whatever I can.” I look at the manyrestaurants, shops and bars we pass. “I’m sure I could get a job here too, if you—” If you let me. I let the ending of the sentence hang between us, not sure where we stand at this matter. Am I still his captive? Remembering the chain he used on me just this morning, it’s doubtful he’d just let me walk around freely.
We stop at a stop sign just by the town’s border. There’s no traffic in either direction, but the car’s not moving. Wyatt is watching me with an intense expression that’s difficult to decipher in the near darkness of the car. “Just what are you talking about, cupcake?”
He doesn’t sound angry, more like genuinely confused, but my body still reacts with panic, expecting him to yell at me and insult me. Not because he’s a killer and my captor, but because that’s what I’m used to from partners. That thought is something to dissect for later. Right now, I cower, afraid of his reaction. Not of violence, but of sharp words. Of being called stupid and useless like I’ve been so many times before. “I’m sorry.” The apology leaves my mouth before I even know I’m opening it. An instinctive reaction. “I didn’t—”
“Amy.” Wyatt’s hand comes to rest on my cheek, his thumb brushing against my lips, silencing me. “Breathe.” I do. “Good. Now, tell me. Please.”
The words spill out in a rush. “The money. I don’t have any so I thought I’d work but of course that’s stupid since we are, well, what we are and I’m sorry, I just didn’t think and I’m sorry, I’ll—”
He silences me again, gently but firmly. “Amy. I was just joking. I didn’t say it to make you feel bad about money or to force you to pay my bills or anything. Besides, what you said is not true.” He grins. “You’re a millionaire, Amy.”
“Eh?” My brain stalls. The first thing coming to my mind are my childhood fantasies about being adopted. Were they real? Am I a long-lost child of some super rich people? A crushing weight lands on my chest. Is that the real reason why Wyatt married me?
