Page 88 of Beautiful Enemy

Then he presses between my thighs, lifts my skirt.

My mouth falls open as he runs his hands up my thighs. It’s confident, competent, not meant to arouse but to assess.

“Stop,” I whisper.

The backs of my eyes burn. Outside, I’m as frozen as the moment the man came at me. Not in fear, but in shock.

“Harrison, don’t touch me.” I want to scream the words but when they come out, they’re barely audible.

It takes everything in me to grab his face and force his attention up even as his hands linger under my skirt.

His jaw clenches as he leans his forehead against mine. “I need to know you’re all right.”

I’m not.

I don’t say it, but I might as well have.

The shaking starts somewhere in my chest and radiating out to reach my fingers, my toes, my lips.

Without warning, his arms are around me.

He lifts me, carrying me through the crowd before I can protest.

Leni grabs him on our way past. “Harrison, the police need to talk to you!”

“Tomorrow.”

Then we’re through the door and outside.

He settles me into the Ferrari, and I yank at the pins securing my wig with shaking hands.

Then I throw all of it on the floor and stare at the pile the entire way back.

* * *

“I can walk,” I murmur when Harrison opens my car door at the villa.

He loops an arm around my waist, unwilling to let me support myself.

We step inside and Barney trots sleepily to the door, whining when neither of us reaches down to pet him.

Harrison helps me out of my shoes and up the stairs, but when I try to turn toward my room, he pulls me gently the other way.

“I have first aid equipment in my bathroom.”

Of the ways I imagined seeing his space for the first time, this never entered my mind.

There’s dark wood furniture, a dresser and night tables without photos or adornment. A tufted area rug that’s soft beneath my bare feet.

My brainpower is limited, a highway reduced from four lanes to two for some unauthorized repair.

Harrison seats me on an enormous bed with navy covers. “Don’t move. Don’t think. Don’t… anything.”

He disappears, returning a moment later with ice from the kitchen. I shift over to let him on the bed, but instead he kneels on the floor, lifting the ice to my cheek.

The cold burns my bruised flesh.

I take the ice from him, and he gently slides the jacket off my shoulders, then reaches around me for the zipper on my dress. I suck in a breath but don’t argue as he drags it down.

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