Page 16 of A Billionaire Dom

“Yourgut?” Detective Hacker smirked.

“Yes, Detective.” I kept my voice even. “Normal people do occasionally get flashes of intuition. Especially when it concerns a pair of men following a woman down a shadowy sidewalk.”

The smirk disappeared, and the detective clearly wasn’t pleased with my response. Mitchells, however, just made a motion for me to continue.

“Before I reached them, she turned around with what I thought was a flashlight and pointed it at them. They talked. I don’t know exactly what was said, but I assumed it was something along the lines of her telling them to leave her alone. She then used a taser – what I’d thought was just a flashlight – on one of them. He hit the ground, and she tried to leave. The other guy grabbed her arm. She told him to let her go. I was close by then, and when he didn’t let her go, I hit him.”

Detective Mitchells raised an eyebrow.

“After that, Linsey and I went home.” I purposefully kept the statement vague.

“Linsey.” Detective Hacker said. “That would be the young lady you rescued?”

“I don’t think ‘rescued’ is the right word,” I said, wanting to smile at the thought of what Linsey would say if she heard him say that. “But, yes, Linsey was the young woman who was almost assaulted by the two men in the hospital.”

“Does Linsey have a last name?” Detective Mitchells asked.

“I’m sure she does, but I don’t know it. We didn’t exchange last names.” We did, however, exchange some other things…not that I planned on telling them aboutthatpart of my night. “Do you really need to talk to her? I mean, they identified me, right? Not her.”

My desire to protect her surprised me. I wasn’t going to hide what I knew, but if I could handle this situation, I would.

“Mr. Holden, I hope you understand that we need to talk toeveryoneinvolved to get a clear picture of what happened.” Detective Mitchells’ expression didn’t change, and I found myself unable to read what she was thinking.

Interesting.

Or it would have been interesting if I hadn’t been focused on Linsey.

“I drove her home,” I said. “Before I went back to my place. I can give you her address.”

“Thank you,” Mitchells said after I told her where Linsey lived. “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Holden.”

I smiled as they left my office, but it faded as soon as they disappeared. Linsey hadn’t wanted to call the cops last night, and I was starting to regret that I hadn’t talked her into it. What we’d done had been self-defense, but not having called the authorities made it look like we had something to hide.

I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. I didn’t have any way to warn Linsey, and it wasn’t like I really had towarnher. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Neither of us had. But I didn’t like the idea of her being blind-sided.

“What’s going on?”

I opened my eyes to find my father standing in my office. “Dad?”

“Why are there police here?” He wasn’t yelling. He actually sounded like he was trying to keep his voice quiet, as if no one would notice that the cops were here if he didn’t say it too loudly.

“They just wanted to ask me a few questions.” Dad knew I wasn’t a saint, but if I kept things quiet, he usually didn’t bug me too much. Being at a BDSM club was not even close toquiet.

“What could you have done that would warrant them to come to our business in the middle of the day?” His cheeks were red.

He wasn’t going to let this go until I explained, so I did it quickly – and without mentioning Euphoria. Or the sex with Linsey. With each word I said, I watched his tension ease. When I finished, he let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m glad you wanted to help this stranger, but I’m even more glad that it’s all over, and you’re done with it.”

“I hope so,” I said. “Once the detectives talk to Linsey, it should be an open-and-shut case.”

“Whatever it is, we can spin your part if we have to.” Dad shook his head. “You’re the good guy, no matter what. Coming to the rescue of some girl wandering the streets in that part of town at that time of night.”

I resisted the urge to remind him that it had barely been nighttime. As if that mattered.

“Girls like that.” Dad shook his head. “They’re just asking for something bad to happen.”

“Excuse me?” My full attention snapped back to him. “Asking for it? She was walking down the street. What about that isaskingto be attacked? And even if she had been doing naked cartwheels, it still wouldn’t mean she deserved it.” I shook my head this time. “Damn, Dad. I thought you were better than that.”

As soon as I finished, I waited for him to explode at me. I didn’t regret a single word of it, but I never talked to Dad like that. I was a diplomat, calm, and cool-headed.

Judging by the expression on his face, I’d surprised him as much as I surprised myself. The thing he didn’t know, however, was that my outburst wasn’t entirely about general misogynistic victim-blaming.

It was abouther.

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