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Kidnapped by the Billionaire(123)

By:Jackie Ashenden


There was a buzzer off to the side, so she pressed it then waited. But nothing happened. She tried a couple more times with the same result. Okay, so crap. He wasn’t there. Which meant she either had to wait here for him or find somewhere else to go.

She turned around, scanned the street up and down a couple of times, some part of her hoping that he’d magically turn up right about now. But the street was empty, no sign of him.

Well, she could go home or go to Honor’s, it wasn’t like anything was forcing her to stay here and wait for him.

Yet she didn’t move. Because she didn’t want to leave. She wanted to stay here, wait for him, be there for him when he came home, whenever he came home. And whether that took a couple of hours or whether that took all night, she knew that’s what she was going to do.

You’re crazy. You might freeze to death out here.

Well, yeah, she might. But how else was she going to find him?

She let out a small breath and sat down on the icy stone steps, wrapping her arms around herself. And prepared to wait.

The sound of footsteps brought her to consciousness, making her aware suddenly that she was cold, so cold it felt as if she was encased in solid ice. She opened her eyes, unable to remember when she’d closed them.

It was fully dark, the cold, clear light of the street lamps shining on sidewalks sprinkled with a dusting of fresh snow. A black shadow of a man stood on the steps in front of her, looming like a mountain.

The cold must have somehow frozen her solid because she couldn’t move and she couldn’t speak. She could only stare up at the shadow, her heart beating furiously as his features began to come clear.

Black eyes. A twisted, scarred mouth. Blunt, brutally handsome features.

Elijah.

Relief burst like fireworks, surging through her blood, making her feel weak and trembly and pathetically like crying.

He didn’t say anything as he looked down at her, and she couldn’t have said what was going on in his head. His expression was absolutely opaque.

Then abruptly he bent down and scooped her up in his arms, his warmth, after so long sitting in the cold, almost making her gasp aloud. His hold was gentle and she allowed herself to rest against his chest, looking up at him as he unlocked the door and got them both inside, heading toward the elevator.

He stayed silent as the elevator came and they went up. And she felt no need to say anything quite yet, content just to rest against him and absorb the heat of his body, letting the familiar scent of him surround her. She had no idea what he would say when he got her into his apartment, but of one thing she was clear. She wasn’t going to leave. She wasn’t going to leave him ever again.

He got her into the apartment a minute or two later, kicking the door shut behind them, and she thought he might carry her over to the couch and put her on it, but he didn’t. He set her back on her feet the moment the door closed, then he leaned back against it, folding his arms.

The look in his eyes was the one she knew so well, cold, hard, sharp. Glittering with all that icy anger he carried around inside him. “What the fuck are you doing here, Violet? I thought you and your monster brother were sticking together?”

She swallowed, her throat suddenly thick because she’d known she’d hurt him back there in that apartment. She just hadn’t realized quite how badly till now. “Well, I thought so too. And then I thought that perhaps I’d made the wrong choice.”

He stared, his dark eyes roaming over her, giving her back nothing at all. “Why? You think I’m any less of a monster? I’ve spent seven years in hell, princess. I’m not coming out clean.”

She still felt cold, the feeling settling down deep into her bones, even though the apartment’s heat had obviously been on. But she ignored the sensation. She didn’t matter, not right in this moment. Only he did. “I know that,” she said clearly. “And I don’t care what you’ve done or where you’ve been. I’m not here because you’re less of a monster than Theo. I’m here because you don’t have anyone who’s there for you but me. You need me, Elijah. So that’s why I’m here.”

He watched her, his gaze completely cold. “But I don’t need you, Violet. Not anymore.”

It might have hurt if she hadn’t realized then that his whole body was taut, a leashed and furious energy radiating from him, like the wash of a stormy ocean contained behind a high seawall.

She knew what that energy was: the force of his emotions, the press of them, and he was trying to hold them back the way he always did, encasing them in ice. Imposing on them his usual savage control. And he wouldn’t break—he’d been containing them too long to let them crack now.