Page 122 of The Bad Wedding Date

41

Charlotte

I’d scrolled through every part of my phone a thousand times over in the four hours that passed. My stomach rumbled, though I had no desire for food. The only thing I wanted—desperately needed at that point—was Fraser to walk back through that door and tell me that everything was fine.

The ridiculous truth was that no matter how many scenarios I conjured in my mind, none of them would be even close to the truth. For the last ten days, I’d buried my head in the sand—or rather, in Fraser’s body—not allowing myself to be honest about how little I knew him or what he was even capable of. Despite the few things he’d told me about his life and his job, I had no idea what that man could or would do to the men who’d been inside my apartment.

Just when I thought my mind would explode, the click of the door had me sitting upright on the bed and watching it before Fraser walked through, as serene as ever. Dressed from head to toe in black, he looked like the devil in human form until he lifted his head and our eyes connected. His small, seductive smile rose, lifting his cheeks, and he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

He took me in dressed in my light blue jeans and my baggy grey jumper. The sleeves pulled down over my hands as I stared up at him, waiting for… something. Anything.

“Well, I can’t see any blood. I’m assuming that’s a good thing.”

He raised his brows.

“But that look on your face tells me there are some bad things to follow.”

He closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to think.

I wanted to go to him. To throw my arms around his neck, press my cheek to his chest, close my own eyes and tell him everything would be okay. No matter what he had to tell me, everything would work out in the end, because that’s what I needed to happen deep down inside.

I wanted everything to be good again.

Instead, I stayed on the bed and waited.

“How bad?” I eventually whispered, needing to break the silence.

Fraser opened his eyes again and took me in. “We found out who was behind the break-in,” he answered quietly.

“Matteo?”

He shook his head, and I thought I saw a touch of disappointment there. It would have been easier to be Matteo, I supposed. He was already on Fraser’s kill list, and it would be another reason for him to go ahead and strike him off it once and for all.

But if it wasn’t him, then that meant somebody else was after me. Us. Both.

“Tell me, Fraser.”

Rubbing his lips together, he took in a breath and said, “Penn Ridgely hired them.”

It was sometime after that moment that I found myself unable to breathe.

* * *

“Charlotte,” he said, trying to bring me around as he sat on the edge of the bed and gently gripped my arms. “You’ve got to say something.”

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that one spot on the wall in front of me. It wasn’t anything significant. Just a small chip in the white paint. A scratch, even. Or maybe a small piece of lint that had got caught beneath the brush when they’d decorated the room. Whatever it was, that small imperfection held my attention as those four words rattled around in my brain, trying to make sense.

Penn Ridgely hired them.

My stomach rumbled for an entirely different reason: nausea.

I guessed I had about thirty seconds to make it to the bathroom before I threw up.

Penn Ridgely hired them.

Without looking his way, I shrugged Fraser off me and slid from the bed before I raced to the bathroom just as my body tried to reject any food or drink that I’d had in the last twenty-four hours. I pushed through the door, grabbed hold of the edge of the sink, and I threw up, right there in that gorgeous hotel room with all the nice, bright white, modern fixtures and furnishings. I threw up with Fraser not far behind me, the noises I made turning my cheeks red with embarrassment… just not enough to stop me from retching again in front of him.

This had to be marked down as a low point in my life, surely.

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