Page 41 of Under My Skin

And apparently it wasn’t enough for her. No, she had to do one more thing to terrorize me. She had to take one more thing from me: my sense of security in my own home. The one place where I had the right to feel safe.

But none of that was what had me an inch away from having a coronary right now.

There were certain perks to being a celebrity, and one of those perks was that it was more difficult than normal to locate personal information like my phone number and address. So if this woman had been able to getmyphysical address rather than the publicly available fan mail address or my manager’s office address…well, there was no way on earth she hadn’t also been able to find Dani’s.

Snatching my phone off the side table by the door, I pulled up her contact profile and hit call before I even registered that I’d done it.

“Braden?” came her sweet, angelic voice, snapping me out of my terrified daze.

Just the sound of her voice made my hands stop shaking and the room stop spinning, though I still felt like there was a hippo sitting on my chest.

“Da-Dani,” I choked out. “Are…are you home?”

“Yeah…” she trailed off. “What’s going on, Braden?”

“Are you okay? And Isaac?”

“We’re both fine,” she said slowly.

“Thank fuck,” I said on a trembling breath as my knees buckled from the relief.

She was okay. Her baby was okay.

“Braden, you’re starting to scare me.” There was a panicked edge to her voice now. Panic I’d put there. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Something happened,” I managed to tell her, then took a shaky breath in an attempt to slow my racing heart. “The stalker. I need to see you. Can I come?”

Yes, I knew I had no business driving right now. But I didn’t care. All I cared about was getting to her. Seeing that she and Isaac were okay with my own two eyes.

Dani took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “I can’t let you drive like this, B. How about I come to you?”

B.

She’d just called me B. She’dneverdone that before. She’d always used my full name.

She probably didn’t even realize she’d done it. And she definitely didn’t realize that something so simple would be all it took to ease the weight on my chest. But it did. Because it gave me something else to focus on: the hope that maybe, just maybe, she was starting to care about me the way I cared about her, even just a little bit.

“I’m okay,” I said, blowing out the first full breath I had been able to take since I’d opened that fucking box. “I can drive. I’ll see you in half an hour.”

She sighed. “Okay. I’m trusting you. But if you’re not here in one hour, I’m sending out a search party.”

Despite still feeling like every cell in my body was buzzing on a different frequency than my brain, I smiled. “You won’t have to. I promise. I’ll see you soon, beautiful.”

After ending the call, I took another shaky inhale as I grabbed the godforsaken package off the floor and opened the door. Because I damn sure wasn’t going to leave it here, where my stalker could break in and make it disappear, along with whatever evidence Bobbi or the police might have been able to find.

But the moment I stepped outside, the panic seized me again, stronger than it ever had before. I double and triple-checked my doorknob to make sure it was locked before forcing my feet forward toward my Escalade, which now looked too small. Too vulnerable. The same way I felt right now.

My eyes kept darting all around me, glancing at the hedges on the edge of the property and the flowerbeds full of azaleas on either side of the front door. Checking behind the huge old southern magnolia tree in the front yard. Looking for any possible place this unhinged woman could be hiding, just waiting for the right time to catch me off-guard. I even checked the backseat and back hatch of my vehicle before finally getting into the driver’s seat.

After I locked the car door and knew I was safe and alone, I was finally able to take a breath. Inhaling deep through my nose, I held it for a count of four before trying to let out a slow, controlled exhale for a count of four, just like my anger management therapist had taught me. I only made it to two, so I did it again. And again. And again. Until my breathing was even and controlled and I felt like I could think clearly enough not to be a hazard on the road. Only then did I start the ignition and back out of my driveway.

But even as I made my way through the side streets of Orlando, grateful that I didn’t have to get onto any of the main roads or highways that were always crawling with tourists who had no idea where they were going, that spine-tingling fear never quite left me. I kept checking the rearview mirror, looking to see if anyone was following a little too close. If anyone was staying on my tail for a little too long. I even made a couple of wrong turns along the way and took the longest route possible just to make sure I wasn’t leading anyone straight to Dani’s apartment.

I pulled into the parking lot of her complex at the forty-five-minute mark, but waited for a couple of extra minutes and watched as the driver of a beat-up old Corolla parked and entered an apartment on the ground floor of Dani’s building. Nowhere near her unit.

Then I clocked the Hummer that was sitting in the second row of the lot. With two of the security guards I’d specifically requested for Dani’s detail sitting inside, watching every vehicle that pulled in. And I immediately felt like a prized idiot.

I let out a loud groan as I banged my head against the steering wheel. How hadn’t I remembered that I’d set up 24/7 security for her at the beginning of last week preciselybecauseI’d been worried about this exact situation?

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