Page 152 of The Bad Wedding Date

“Hey,” he whispered in that usual way of his.

“You’re… here,” I rasped, my throat dry.

“Is that okay?”

My breathing turned quicker, and all the emotion I’d tried to suppress for the last two months rose to the surface, overwhelming me until those stupid bloody tears formed in my eyes and spilled over the edge without even a moment’s notice.

“Hey,” he said, wiping one side of tears away with his thumb. “Don’t cry. I hate to see you cry.”

“But… you’rehere,” I said again, unable to believe this wasn’t just a figment of my imagination.

His flat smile grew as he stared into my eyes, refusing to look away. “Do you know where here even is right now?”

Right on cue, a flash of blue and red light had me scrunching my eyes together before a commotion brought my attention to the fact that we weren’t as alone as I’d thought. My stomach twisted, a sick feeling clawing its way up my throat as a nasty taste lingered there.

“I feel sick,” I whispered. “I need to sit up.”

Sitting me up in his lap, Fraser pulled me against him, curling his arms around my waist as my groggy mind struggled to catch up to what I saw in front of me.

There, on the floor of the bar I’d been in for Emmie and Lucas’s party, laid Matteo Vega and two other men, their hands behind their backs in handcuffs, with my father standing over them, talking to the police.

Fraser’s chin rested on my shoulder, his mouth close to my ear. “It’s over,” he whispered.

“What happened?”

“We got to you just in time… before he—”

“Took me,” I finished for him, the memory of the moments before I fell unconscious coming back to me.

Matteo’s threats in the corridor when no one else was around.

The car pulling up to the kerb.

The man with the cloth over my mouth.

The strong arm that caught me before I fell.

Fraser.

“He said he was going to kill you,” I told him. “That’s why I went outside, to try to call you. I had to stop him.”

“I was on my way, baby. We all were. We could see you. You were right there, I just…” He trailed off, and I heard the blame he placed on himself in his voice. He hated that he didn’t get to me in time to stop them completely. “I should never have left you.”

“You’re not the kind of man to stay after I pushed you away, Fraser.” I turned back to meet his gaze.

“No,” he said softly, offering me a sad smile that tore me in two.

Wherever he’d been and whatever he’d gone through, it had been an ordeal. Fraser still looked broken, and I wondered how often he thought of me and how much he’d had to resist the urge to come back sooner, even though he thought I didn’t want him.

“You came back, and you saved me,” I said, still trying to clear my foggy mind and catch up with reality. “How did you know?”

He shook his head. “Not now. I’ll tell you everything once we’re home and you’re rested.”

“Home?” I asked, searching his eyes. “Where is that for you?”

“Wherever you are. That’s if you’ll have me.”

* * *

---