Page 9 of Breathtaking

Lennon Windsor, that’s who.

After a few more minutes, Doc picks up the cup of hot tea from the end table and hands it to her. Lennon’s hands shake as she accepts it, but she sips it like a good girl.

Doc looks satisfied before he catches my eye and nods his head toward the door so I’ll follow.

I rest my hand on the door, making sure he understands he’s not leaving until he fills me in. Pretty sure he already knew that though. “Is she okay?”

Doc’s glasses slide down his nose as he looks back at the couch and grins.

Yeah... Lennon has that effect on people.

She pulls you in and charms the hell out of you without even realizing she’s doing it.

“The princess is shaken up, but she’s fine. I’d feel better if she’d let us get a scan, just to be safe, but that’s just my old age wanting to make sure a young woman is fine. Do I think it’s really needed—no, I don’t. My professional opinion is that poor girl has had a hell of a night and a hell of a scare. Just watch her tonight, and if anything changes, call me.”

The knot in my chest loosens with his words, and I offer him my hand. “Thanks for coming out in the snow.”

The old man smiles. “I wondered what it would look like when the Beneventiprincipefinally fell. Guess I’ve seen it now.”

“Whatever, old man. Don’t fall on the ice and keep this between us, got it?” I pull his hand in and squeeze a little harder than necessary, and that fucking grin grows.

“No one but your dad will know, Maddox.”

I drop his hand and open the door. “Understood.”

My father’s already aware. I learned a long fucking time ago it was better to clue Sam Beneventi in before he found things out from other sources. And when your dad runs one of the most powerful crime families in the country, there’re always other sources trying to use your information to get on his good side. He may not have raised my brothers and me to take over the family business, but he raised us to respectitand its ways.

I lock and bolt the door behind Doc once he’s gone, then cross the room until I’m in front of Lennon and Meatball, who’s now curled up next to her with his brown and white bowling ball of a head resting in her lap, sleeping peacefully. Lucky fucker. “How are you feeling,piccolo principessa?”

Long black lashes kiss her cheeks as she blinks up at me with wide eyes that would put the greenest emerald to shame. “I feel like I’ve told you about a hundred times I hate when you call me that.”

She has... but she lies. She loves it. Always has.

I ignore the taunt and sit next to her, careful not to get too close, even if I want to. A part of me wants to do more than that, but I beat that motherfucker back and lock it away in a basement. She’s probably scared and tired, and somewhere packed away in my cold, dead heart, I know that. “So you wanna tell me why you’re really in Kroydon Hills?”

“I already told you?—”

“Yeah, I heard you. You’re here to see Gracie. I call bullshit. If you were just here to see Gracie, your trip would have been planned. Maria would have been with you, and Grace’s husband would have picked you up from the airport. Do they even know you were coming?” I stretch my arms along the back of the couch until my fingers hover over her soft, red hair. “What’s got you running, Lennon?”

“Who says I’m running, Maddox?” She sips her tea, and my jaw clenches as her engagement ring catches in the light.

“I didn’t hear a denial...” Fuck, this would be easier if I wasn’t focused on another man’s ring on her fucking finger. If a diamond can cut glass, I wonder if it could slit another man’s throat...

“Whatever.” She rolls those pretty eyes and turns her body to face me, leaning more into my hold than she probably meant to. And a years’-old spark of electricity hums to life between us. One that’s spent half a decade lying latent. “I needed to get away for a little bit, and I haven’t met the babies yet, so I thought I’d come surprise Grace. There. I admit it. I’m a shitty friend.” She throws her hands in the air and blows out a breath of frustration and maybe guilt. “Happy now?”

“You’re not a shitty friend. You could have flown to a private island and hidden out with a margarita in your hand and no tan lines for a few days.”Now that’s a pretty picture I’d like to see.“And there wouldn’t have been snow or deer either. But you didn’t. You came to see Grace.” I give in to the urge and wrap a lock of soft hair around my finger, tugging gently. “What had you running, princess?”

“A lot of people call me that, but the only time it sounds like a sneer is when it’s falling from your lips,” she counters. “And I wasn’t running. I just didn’t feel like dealing with everyone for a few days.” She holds up her phone, and her lips tilt up, and the power behind her pretty smile nearly takes my breath away. “And I just convinced Maria to give me three days without saying a word to my family, so there’s that.”

“She’s probably scared she’ll lose her job.”

Lennon’s fingers dig into Meatball’s fur as she scratches behind his ears, and I swear the dog smiles between snores. “Maybe. But I wouldn’t let that happen.”

I watch as she rubs her hand over my lazy dog’s head, and that damn ring might as well be bathed in a neon fucking light. “You’re still wearing his ring.”

Her beautiful face flames a crimson red as she looks at her hand with devastation locked behind her eyes, and fuck if that doesn’t do some serious damage. I can handle tired Lennon and annoyed Lennon. I can even handle scared Lennon. But broken... I haven’t left her alone for years to see her broken. Not when I would have done anything in my power to have kept her whole. “I don’t have a choice.”

She’s a goddamn broken record. I’ve heard that same sentence so many times.

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