“Yeah. Cold, unfeeling, shallow.” She snatches the rose from my hand and tosses it to the Carrara marble floor. “The personality I used to have.”

“I’d reason you still do,” I say, setting aside the shears, “seeing as you stone-cold left me this morning without even a Dear John letter.”

“This isn’t a game, Alex. You involved my mother.”

I wipe my hand over my mouth. I hadn’t planned to involve her to this extent, but turns out Vanessa Vaughn knows more about her daughter than Blakely realizes. Once the call was made on the spoofed number, Vanessa couldn’t be placated by simply having Blakely diverted for one day.

She legitimately seemed to care about her daughter’s welfare, a detail Blakely led me to believe was the opposite. Truthfully, I wasn’t prepared for the authority Mrs. Vaughn commanded over the situation. But, seeing as Blakely’s plan has been effectively thwarted, and her mother has entrusted her into my care, it seems to be working out for the best.

“I told you, turning yourself in wasn’t an option.” At her incensed silence, I assure her, “She’ll be safe. The sooner we resolve the issue, the sooner your mother’s worries will be assuaged, and her involvement won’t have to go any further.”

Her features draw together as she steps toward me. “Are you threatening her?”

The insult smarts. “I know trust is difficult, but after last night, you shouldn’t question my motivation. I would never intentionally hurt you, Blakely.”

“Trust?” She narrows those sea-green eyes on me. “You put spyware on my phone. How’s that for trust?”

A desperate measure I had to take. I sensed her uncertainty last night. With her volatile emotions, I couldn’t risk losing her again. And I couldn’t risk she’d do exactly what she attempted to do this morning, not with a deranged serial killer threatening us.

“I will do whatever it takes to protect you,” I say. “Even from yourself.”

She closes her eyes and shakes her head, aptly displaying her frustration. “What are you wearing?”

Her segue throws me, and I look over my dark-gray Versace suit. “Dress for the job you want, or the job you want others to believe you have. Something to that vein. I’m your lawyer now.”

“You’re so delusional, you don’t even know who you are anymore.”

I step around the bench, reaching her before she can recoil. I cup her face between my palms, ensnaring her eyes with mine. “I’m the man who burned his life down for you. I’m the man who will take a life without question if it means keeping you safe, and I will have no measure of guilt or regret, because I’ll stop at nothing to keep us together.”

Her gaze flits over my face searchingly, a flicker of panic present in the depths of her eyes. “And you’re still just as insane.”

My mouth tips into a crooked smile. “Love is madness, baby.”

I was crazy for her the moment she stole my breath at the bar, and every action since has been a battle within myself to accept that she owns me.

Why else do we take and steal and covet, if not to possess the person who torments us?

I took. I stole. I coveted her.

In trying to set her free, I only discovered what a greedy monster I truly am. After experiencing her give herself over to me last night, to keep her in my world, I’ll pillage and destroy like my neanderthal ancestors.

I will be the villain she needs.

I feel the force of her swallow against my palm, and my thumb runs the length of her neck, admiring the bruises I put there. She felt that passion between us, and even now, in the light of day in her mother’s garden room, she can’t deny it.

“I want you to let me go,” she says.

I breathe a light curse. “Or I could take you right here on this bench.” I move in closer and feather a kiss along her delicate skin, inhaling her arousing scent that goes straight to my cock.

“You’re so fucking crass now,” she says, though I can feel the tremble of her body.

I smile against her neck. “Starve a man, and he becomes a wild beast.” I drop a kiss to the hollow of her throat before I straighten and meet her gaze. “Tell me you want me.”

She releases a soundless laugh. “Never happening.”

“Tell me you love me,” I demand.

“In your sick fucking dreams.”

I collar her throat, feeling her pulse kick against the web of my hand. “Then the more you starve me, the more depraved I’ll become.”

Her eyes flare, and I can sense she’s about to spit in my face, so I open my mouth to catch the insult, then capture her lips, sinking my teeth into the kiss. She groans and pushes against my chest to break free.

She wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing a red stain. I touch my lip, realizing it’s my blood. She bit me back. Harder.

“Let’s get this over with,” she says.

I suppress a smile. It wasn’t my intention to manipulate her, but leveraging her erratic emotions does get her to focus.

“It’s easier to let yourself feel only one emotion,” I say, as I pull out my phone. “When you start to sense any loss of control, anger subdues the fear, doesn’t it?”

She smirks knowingly. “Actually, it works great. All I have to do is think about smashing your face, and I’m in complete control.”

I hold her livid gaze, my body heated as I’m tempted to make good on my threat to bend her over the bench. I reach down and shamelessly adjust my hard cock.

Blakely’s eyes never leave mine, but the quick rise and fall of her chest reveals her arousal, and I smile before lowering my gaze to my phone screen.

With a deep, calming inhale, I check the latest update on Brewster. He’s scheduled to fly to Canada in five days, not leaving us a lot of time. I flip the phone around to show Blakely the itinerary.

“We’ll start with Brewster,” I say. “He has a deadline.”

“Fine.” She wets her lips, trying to destroy what fragile restraint I possess in this moment. “Right after I buy another burner phone and get Vanessa out of the city.”

She’s still worried about her mother, even though she’s masking that fear by directing her anger toward me. Some part of me may be a tad delusional when it comes to her, but she was so close last night…so close to accepting us.

The greatest love stories are born of fire.

Tragedy. Cruelty. Passion.

I wasn’t searching for love; my analytical mind never believed in the concept, nor did I think it applied to my life. A romantic partner would be a burden, would prevent me from achieving my goals.

But Blakely has always been different. She’s unique to me, my other half. Now that I’ve found her, I can’t simply return to a gray existence with no purpose.

She’s my future. Whether we’re making love or trying to kill each other, obsession presents as love and grips you whole.

I have no choice but to keep her.

Whoever claimed love should be healthy is a fool who believes in fairy tales.

All love is selfish and feeds ego. Our mind’s way of keeping us relevant in a world that doesn’t care if we jump off a cliff.

As such, I did what I had to do today to prevent the woman I love—that I need—from jumping off her cliff.

I slip my phone into my pocket and cock my head. “This morning, you needed incentive,” I say. “Do you think Grayson or Brewster or any of his thugs will stop with just you? They’ll come after your family to get what they want.”

She levels me with a fierce glare. “Which you made sure of by implicating my mother.” She grabs the shears off the workbench and approaches me. “Chicken or egg, Alex. Which came first?” She takes hold of my tie, drawing me closer. “Would anyone be in danger if I’d never met you?”

She snaps the shears, cutting my tie off below the knot.

Tossing the garden tool on the bench, she turns her back to me and heads toward the door. “Grayson gave you two weeks. I’m giving you five days. Then I want you out of my life forever. Or else next time, it won’t be your stupid tie.”