Page 25 of The English Billionaire's Obsession

“Nobody,” I growl, looming over her. “Are we clear?”

She touches my chest and gasps softly. “Your heart is beating like crazy.”

I take her hip and hold it possessively. “Are. We. Clear?”

She shudders against me. “Yeah, nobody else. Just you.”

CHAPTERTWELVE

Amelia

“I honestly don’t know what he’s going to tell me,” I say to Emma as I wait for the car to pick me up, “or if he’ll tell meanything.”

I’m sitting in the main lobby of the building, the street thick with pedestrians and cars through the rain-streaky window.

“He said I can’t be with anybody else. Just him. It was so intense like he would hurt Freddie just for making me laugh.”

“Whoa, jealous, much?”

Her response is justified, but it still annoys me. Fine, hewasbeing jealous, but I kind of liked it. Heck, more thankind of. It’s funny. If she told me about a guy she was dating acting the same way, I’d one hundred per freaking cent tell her the same thing. He’s being jealous, red flags, all that jazz, but it seems somehow fitting with Thomas.

Maybe it’s the dreams that came to me last night while lying in the most comfortable bed in the universe. I didn’tcheckif it was officially the most comfortable, but if there were a prize, I’d nominate it. As I drifted into that in-between space, half asleep and half awake, I imagined Thomas holding a big towel. He was kneeling as he swept our children, wet from the pool, into his bear-hug embrace. Then he was in the kitchen, humming as we prepared dinner together.

Another flash had him walking up the aisle toward me. I saw his hand cradling my belly with our children giggling and playing in the yard.“Do you really think we can have another one?”

In the fantasy, he kissed me on the cheek.“I could have a hundred children with you and still want more.”

“Ami?” Emma says, jolting me from my thoughts.

“Yeah, sorry. I was in the clouds.”

“I said to be careful, okay? You don’t know what this guy wants with you, and it sounds like he’s getting super possessive, super early.”

“There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that.”

I try to keep my voice casual, nonconfrontational, but I can’t completely mask my anger. It’s even worse because the anger is unjustified, and Emma is totallyjustifiedin warning me.

“Huh?” she says.

“Being possessive early. If both people want it, then I don’t see the problem.”

“Youwanthim to be possessive?” When I don’t answer, she says, “And anyway, you don’t know what he wants.”

“Hopefully, that’s about to change. My driver’s here. I’ve got to go. Love ya, Ems.”

“Love ya.”

I hang up, tucking my phone away, and then wait for my driver. I couldn’t keep talking to Emma about this situation. I’m tempted to tell her she doesn’t understand, but that doesn’t mean much whenIdon’t understand, either.

Soon, my driver is here. Sitting in the back of the chauffeured car, I watch the city of London roll by, distorted with the hammering rain. My heartbeat hammers relentlessly as I remind myself that Ideserveanswers. He can’t keep stringing me along, and if he tries to turn things intimate again, I’ll have to resist him… somehow.

The driver stops outside a large apartment building. There are black cars parked in a row opposite it, all of them with tinted windows.

“Ma’am,” the driver says. “It’s the first car at the top of the row.”

I’m about to ask what he means when the door opens, and Thomas steps out. He doesn’t seem to care about the rain as he walks across the street, the downpour making the silver in his hair glisten more than usual. When he reaches the car, he opens his umbrella and opens my door for me.

“Thanks,” I say as he offers me his hand and helps me to my feet, “but you could’ve opened the umbrella sooner. You’re soaked!”

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