Page 22 of Runaway Bride for the Boss

I’m only human, and he’s an attractive man. So I reacted, so what? Kissing him is a religious experience. Which makes it so hard to deny and impossible not to want to repeat. I try to comfort myself. I’m only human.

Stay away from my brothers.

Oh, God, what am I going to tell Andrea? My first and only friend, and I’ve managed to break her trust by completely disregarding her one request; her brothers are off limits. Howwill she ever trust me again? I’m about to start hyperventilating when the door slides open and Alex slips in.

“Put your seatbelt on,” he says shortly as the car starts to move. I open my eyes to glance at him, and my heart starts pounding when he’s nothing but a blur. I can feel my eyes widening as I look around the vehicle, but I can’t focus. My glasses!

“Your seatbelt, Autumn,” he repeats, but I don’t pay him any mind, as I quickly get on my knees in the car. I turn so I’m facing the seat and stretch my hands out on the blurred leather seat as I try to look for the damn glasses.

“What the hell are you doing?” A pair of strong hands grips my arms and heaves me up onto the seat. The seatbelt is aggressively stretched out across my chest and clicked into place.

“Stop!” I shout, slapping his hands away. “I can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see.” My voice progressively gets louder, and my breaths are coming in harsh gasps as I tip dangerously close to a full on panic attack.

Alex curses. Cool metal kisses the shell of both my ears, and the vehicle comes into blessed focus. Alex is seated in front of me, his hands holding the glasses in place. I’m still in the throes of anxiety though and gasping for air.

“You’re having a panic attack,” he says calmly even though his eyes are anything but. He looks furious. He grips my right hand and puts it up against his chest. His heart beats in a steady rhythm.

“Listen to my heartbeat. Watch me breathe and do the same. Inhale when I inhale. Exhale when I exhale.”

I do as he says and the steady thump thump thump of his heart begins lulling mine into a somewhat calm rhythm. We breath together slowly until the irrational fear abates, and I slump into my seat.

Alex’s hand is still holding mine over his heart; his grip tightens briefly before he drops my hand. He settles back into his seat. That’s when I notice the car has stopped moving. I glance around, sitting up straighter when I realize that we’re parked in front of Alex’s mansion. We’re here already?

“Why did you bring me here? Andrea is expecting me at the bar.”

He doesn’t even spare me a glance as he checks his watch. “It’s barely five PM. I’ll have George drive you back before you have to be at work. You need to change out of your wet clothes.”

Are we not going to talk about what just happened? Not that I mind terribly. I can’t believe I had a panic attack in front of him. I sneak glances at him as we enter the house, waiting for something. Is he really not going to say anything? I sigh heavily as I make my way to my room. My clothes are no longer dripping wet, thanks to the heater in his fancy ass car, but they’re still damp. I take everything off and throw them at the hamper in the bathroom. I take a hot shower, which I regrettably can’t linger in.

I dry my hair as much as I can with a towel, wishing like hell I had a blow dryer. Whatever. It’s been air drying for the past week anyway. I can’t believe I’ve only been in Brattleboro for a week. It feels like months. I’m already so distant and detached from my life in Manhattan.

I miss Mom, but otherwise, I love my new life. Larson had me completely under his control. I wore what he chose. His friends were my friends. His hobbies were my hobbies. I was no one without him. And now for the first time in years, I get to decide who I want to be. It’s exhilarating…and terrifying.

I throw on a pair of thick wool leggings, a bohemian, off the shoulder top, and a leather jacket – which was such a find when Andrea and I went thrifting. Then toss on a pair of tall socks and boots and some dangle earrings. Glancing at myself in the gold-framed full-length mirror and feeling content with what I see, I head out.

By this time, my hair is sufficiently dry, so I run a brush through it and pull it up into a high ponytail. I glance at my chipped nail polish and wince. There’s nothing I hate more. Damn, I should have at least bought acetone to clean off this mess. I’ll ask Andrea when I get to the bar if I can use a shot of vodka; that should do the trick.

I have no bag or purse so I walk out of my room, wondering if George will be waiting for me outside, or I’ll have to seek Alex out. I seriously need to fix my car. That being dependent on the Beauforts good graces isn’t something I relish in. I walk down the stairs and nearly scream when I see Alex leaning on the open doorway that leads to the breakfast room. This man is otherworldly in his ability to appear seemingly out of thin air.

“We need to talk,” he growls and walks away.

CHAPTER 14

ALEXANDER

“We need to talk,” I tell Autumn, not waiting for her response as I walk into the breakfast room.

“What is it? I need to get back to Liquid Elixir; the bar opens soon,” she says hesitantly, but her soft footsteps follow me like I knew they would. I lead her to the kitchen and nod at the island where a mug of hot chocolate is sitting.

“Drink.”

Her eyes narrow, and she stares at me like I just spoke a foreign language.

“You were soaked earlier. You need to warm up,” I say a little too abruptly. “But you don’t have to drink it if you don’t want to,” I add, doing my best to act nonchalant when all I desperately want to do is take matters into my own hands and warm her up myself, in my bed. I can’t have her catching a fucking cold. A small smile flits over her lips.

It doesn’t skip my mind that this is the first one she’s willingly directed at me. A rush of satisfaction fills me as she walks to the mug, lifts it, and closes her eyes to take a drink. The satisfaction rapidly changes to lust when her pink tongue darts out to lick off some excess chocolate on her upper lip.

My obvious reaction to her is difficult to hide, so I opt not to and notice that her eyes flit down to my now tight pants. Hunger burns through me when she recognizes her effect on me, heat covering her cheeks. That’s one way to warm her up.

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