Page 49 of The Right Woman

My jaw sets. Not this again. I thought she was with me. “You’re scared. You’re trying to hide from me. You had a great day with my family and saw how your life could be and think you don’t deserve it. That you’re, what,damaged?”

With a toss of her pink hair, she faces me and narrows her eyes. “Iam, Adon. You’re just too horny to see it.”

“Is that what you think this is? That I’m just pussy whipped?”

She doesn’t say anything, just crosses her arms, but her attitude makes me angry.

“Maybe it’s best you head home tonight, then, if that’s what you think. You think so little of me. I’m in love with you, Piper. I want you to move in with me and share a life with me. But you’restillhiding parts of yourself. I want all of you.”

Heated emotion clouds my face as I realize…NowI understand exactly what Emily was talking about all those years. Piper is me. I was this way in my first marriage, and now I’m begging my love to talk with me, open up, just communicate what she’s feeling. I guess she’s as confused about her soup of thoughts as I was all those years. Everything seems so clear to me now.

Piper doesn’t say goodbye, just spins on her heel and heads out the door. I let her go to cool off, hoping we can talk again later. I could explain that I understand how difficult it can be to talk about something you can’t figure out.

I did want to give her present to her, but I guess that will have to wait for another day.

An unfamiliar ache pulses in my chest. I don’t like arguing with her, or even being away from her. I get panicky. Things seemed to have settled since the last time something happened, but it’s always in the back of my mind that someone could try to harm her.

To distract myself, I clean up the kitchen from the party and then take my time getting ready for bed. I stare at my bookshelves far too long trying to decide something to read, then pull out an old sci-fi novel, hoping I can get lost in a different world.

Just as I think about texting her, my phone rings. It’s Piper.

“Rosy? You okay?” I’m already on high alert. The last time she called me, she’d been in a car accident.

“Adon, no.” Her voice shakes with a cry that has my stomach dropping to my feet. “Someone followed me all the way here. I think he’s outside. Please come over. Hurry!”

“I’m on my way.”

Chapter

Twenty

PIPER

I hatehow he can read me so well. Everything he said was spot on.

With a bat in my hand, I wait on the other side of my apartment door, worried the hooded figure will get clever and bust in.

I can’t make out anything other than his height and build, which is tall and lanky. Broad in the shoulders. But he hovers just outside of my peephole view finder until Adon’s truck pulls into the parking lot. As soon as the loud muffler roars, the guy takes off down the stairs.

I fling my door open and chase after him screaming, “Stay away from me!” With a wild swing of the bat, I try to find him, but he’s nowhere to be seen when I run out the back door of the building.

Adon rushes toward me and grabs my shoulders. “Rosy. I told you to stay inside, little girl. Upstairs,now.”

Hustling back to my place, Adon lingers to grab his overnight bag from the bed of his truck and scours the tree line behind us. His hand brushes against my lower back as I open the door.Freckles pounces on him like an attack kitty, but Adon bends down to scoop him up and gives him a few love strokes.

After relaying a detailed recount of everything that happened, I yawn heavily. “I have to work in the morning, and I know you hate it here. If you want to go back home?—”

“Absolutely not. I love being wherever you are.”

We settle into my sofa bed, and I turn off the lamp, then press my cheek against his bare chest. “You were absolutely right, Adon. I’m scared. And feel unworthy.”

His deep bass rattles in his chest as he murmurs, “I love you. Just the way you are. Perfect for me.”

He’s like jazz. Smooth, comfortable, and makes me feelsafe. When I think about him and what he’s done for me, who he has been for me, such a patient man by my side, I get tears in my eyes. The chaotic storm in my head grows silent when I’m with him.

“I love you, Adon.”

Voice deepening with sleep, he tugs me tighter. “I love you, Rosy.”

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