Page 37 of Unhinged Desires

“Thank you. Dominic, it was lovely meeting you. I’ll see you both next Sunday night.”

“Looking forward to it,” I tell her.

“Dominic, you take the car and drop Lucy on your way home. Your dad is coming to pick me up,” Mum says to me once Mrs Christianson has left.

“Oh no, it’s okay. I can get a town car. I’m fine,” Lucy is quick to insist.

“Nonsense, let Dominic drive you. I promised your mother I’d see you home safely,” Mum says. Leaning in, she kisses my cheek. “Don’t do anything stupid,” she whispers to me.

Like finger-fuck the girl I’m stalking in the bathroom? That kind of stupid?Of course I don’t say that part aloud. I just nod and wait for my mum to walk away.

“Come on.” I take Lucy’s hand. That same zapping feeling—just like the first time—runs right up my arm at the contact.

“Wait, no. Seriously, you do not have to take me home.”

I don’t bother answering her, just continue to lead her out of the building where the McKinley limo is waiting. The driver has the door open. “Get in,” I tell Lucy.

“No.” She shakes her head from side to side while attempting to pull her hand free.

Leaning in, I whisper in her ear, “You can either get in on your own, or I’ll pick you up and throw you in the fucking car while all these paparazzi capture the whole thing on camera.” I stand back and smile like we just shared a personal joke. Lucy’s head pops up as flashes upon flashes illuminate the evening air.

I can only imagine the stories that will be in the gossip rags tomorrow.

“Fine, but if you so much as touch me, I’m screaming bloody murder,” she hisses as she brushes past me to slide inside the car.

I climb in after her, and instead of sitting in the seat opposite hers, I sit right next to her. Lucy scowls at me before she moves to the other side. “You know, I’m probably not going to hurt you,” I tell her.

“Probably? Well, that’s comforting.”

“I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

“And not hurting me is something you’re not sure you can do?”

“What can I say? I’m a complicated man.”

“I bet. Can you ask your driver to drop me at my brother’s penthouse please.”

“Why?”

“My apartment’s getting sprayed for bugs,” she lies to me with a straight face.

I pick up the phone and call through to the driver. “John, my place.” Then I hang up.

Lucy’s eyes widen. “No way. No. OMG, this is the part where I die, isn’t it?”

“You’re not going to die. If you can’t sleep in your apartment, you can stay with me.”

“You’re insane, like full-on straight jacket insane.” She shakes her head at me. She’s not the first and won’t be the last person to tell me that. Coming from her though, I don’t fucking like it.

Even if it is the truth.

I have no idea what I was expecting her to think. She makes me more unhinged than I usually am. I have little control on a good day. But add Lucy Christianson to the equation, and I’m a fucking loose cannon.

“I can’t stay in your house,” she says.

“Why not? I have plenty of guest rooms. You won’t even know I’m there.”

“Just take me home. To my apartment.”

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