Page 7 of The Stolen Dagger
“Please,” he continued, “just let me show you that?—”
I cut him off, already knowing where this was going. “We’ve gone over this, Drew. It won’t work.”
“Why not?” he asked simply. “I know you feel what I feel, Katherine.”
“It doesn’t matter if I do,” I whispered. “It’s not right.”
Drew grabbed my hand on top of the bar and threaded our fingers together. “What about this is wrong? Tell me, and I’ll walk away.”
“I just—” Even though it hurt, I pulled my hand back. “I can’t.”
“I need a straight answer, Katherine. Otherwise, I’m not going anywhere.”
I wanted to tell him. I did. I’d been dying to since I first met him, but then I rememberedthatnight and whathesaid he’d do if I ever told anyone what I saw.
No, it was better—for everyone—if Drew didn’t know.
“Because ...” I trailed off, thinking of a way around the truth. “I just?—”
“Kat?” Sarah approached the bar next to Drew. Her brown eyes shifted between us curiously before she handed me a folded piece of paper. “This is for you.”
Confused, I took the folded note. “From who?”
Sarah shrugged and tossed her wine-red hair over her shoulder. “Just some guy who said he knew you. I think his name was Adrian.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I froze. My heart beat wildly as the blood rushed to my ears and drowned out all other noise, leaving me with one terrifying thought.
He found me.
CHAPTER TWO
FOUR MONTHS EARLIER
KATHERINE
Ishuffled across the padded mat and practiced my jab-cross-hook combination at the back of the training room.
Sweat dripped down my back and made a few of the shoulder-length brown hairs that had escaped my ponytail stick to my neck. The temperature inside the room rivaled the southern summer heat outside.
Each swing of my fist and puff of breath healed a little part of me left damaged by Adrian. Each punch was like a new stitch that helped to close that festering, open wound of the past.
It had been about eight months since the night I ran away.
While it was my first class in this small town in Oklahoma, it wasn’t my first time taking self-defense. Not every class was the same, but this was the first one that I’d felt stronger and more confident in myself than before.
And it was, in part, thanks to the absurdly handsome instructor.
My gaze drifted to him at the front of the room as he helped a teenage girl and her mother with how to hold the right form when throwing a punch.
Vital knowledge every teenage girl should learn.
I paused my own movements and admired the soft, yet determined look on the instructor’s chiseled, sun-kissed face as he talked to them. Not to mention the biceps that practically bulged out of the short sleeves of his shirt.
When he turned and faced the front of the room to show the mother and daughter the correct fighting stance, I had a perfect view of the contoured muscles in his back under the Dri-FIT tee he wore.
Yeah, this man was way too patient and kind for how hot he was. Didn’t he know that someone who looked like him was supposed to be an asshole?
It was like cosmic balance or something.
