Page 19 of His Public Claim
“Dad, you’re not going to just let this happen, are you?” David demands.
“No. I’m not going to just let this happen.” Mr Highbury shakes his head slowly.
Nicole lets out a distressed squeak.
With deliberate steps, Mr Highbury crosses the space between us and clasps me on the shoulder, looking into my face. “Thank you, Lev. Thank you for bringing her back safe. I trust her to your care, and I’m certain you know the consequences if she were ever unhappy.”
“She won’t be.”
“This is crazy,” David grumbles. “Breaking the bro code of not touching a little sister. He stalked her. He’s too old for her.”
“You’re my son,” Mrs Highbury says, beating her husband to it and slipping her arm into his, linking them. “And he’s your friend. Nicole is my daughter. You’re all the same age, more or less.”
David splutters something about being thirteen years older than Nicole and three years younger than me, but none of us are listening.
“It’s late. It’ll be dawn soon. Let’s all go home,” says Mr Highbury, and exchanges a tender look with his wife. I wonder how they got together, and what their story is and how the powerful kingpin of Highbury ended up with a beauty like his wife, all those years ago. Because they’re still in love now, clearly. They head towards their car.
David huffs and clenches his jaw. “My best friend.”
“We’ll always be friends,” I reply, and the suspicion in his eyes as he shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels reveals this was something he doubted.
“You’d better take care of her,” David mutters as he walks away.
I grin. It will be my pleasure. “You’d better be my best man at our wedding.”
Nicole’s head snaps around to look up at me. “What?”
8
NICOLE
“Our wedding. It’ll be soon,” Lev replies calmly.
I stare after my family driving away, leaving me here with my stalker. With my crush.
With the man I love.
With my fiancé? Maybe? I’m not sure declaring that we’re going to have a wedding quite counts as a romantic marriage proposal.
We’re left in the dark of night, outside his house. Lev has my hand clasped with his, stroking my thumb. His brows are low as he waits patiently.
I take a deep breath. Tonight has been a lot. But despite what I said—and meant—I need to know the whole truth. I look into Lev’s grey eyes.
“Show me the room.”
He nods grimly.
My heart is vibrating as he leads me into the house, not letting go of my hand as we go right into his inner sanctuary. The room he opens has no windows. No light. No hope.
“My dirty secret,” he mutters, almost to himself, flicking on a tablelamp.
My mouth drops open.
Photos. On every wall there are photographs of me, piled on top of each other and overlapping, as though he can’t get enough. Candid shots of me smiling or serious or relaxed. Many of them, most perhaps, I have my camera in my hand, or at my eye.
Close-ups and full-length. Of my face, mostly. Lots of profile images, or of me looking away. But a few looking into the camera. Somehow.
This is an obsession on a scale I hadn’t anticipated.
