She didn’t respond right away, and I looked back to see her still standing by the couch, watching me like I was a puzzle she was trying to solve. I thought she might push for a real answer to her question, but after a moment, she shook her head and followed me into the kitchen.
“Do you have any wine?” she asked.
“There’s a bottle of white that Ronnie opened a couple of days ago to use in a sauce or something.”
Sarah smiled as she leaned an elbow on the kitchen island and watched me pull the wine out of the refrigerator and pour her a glass.
“I like Ronnie. She seems like a good person.”
“She’s one of the few people I fully trust,” I said, pouring myself a drink.
Sarah wrinkled her nose as she looked at my glass of whiskey.
I grinned. “You don’t like whiskey?”
“Even though we met in a bar, I’m not really a big drinker.” She lifted her wine glass and swirled the liquid around. “The occasional wine or a mixed drink is good enough for me.”
I remembered her asking the bartender for something fruity and sweet in the bar four years ago. That was the first time I heard her voice, the soft tone of it punching me in the chest and making me take notice of her.
I took a sip of my drink, getting lost in the memories of that night. My erection ached as it pressed against the front of my pants, and I watched her over the rim of my glass. Sarah fiddled with a necklace hanging around her neck, an emerald pendant that matched her eyes.
“I should probably let you know I have to go somewhere tomorrow,” she said. Her voice was strong and her eyes defiant, as if she were daring me to try to argue with her. “I take a spin class every Sunday.”
I considered that as I took another sip of my drink. My reflex was to forbid her to go anywhere until I figured out a way to deal with the Italians. They were obviously following her if they ambushed her outside of the grocery store, which meant that they probably knew her routine.
But Sarah stared right into my eyes, spine straight and chin jutted out in defiance. She wasn’t going to take it well if I told her she couldn’t go. I might have been able to force her to stay here by locking her in and posting a guard outside, but I didn’t want to do that. I also didn’t want to take the risk that she’d find a way to defy me anyway.
My woman was a spitfire.
My woman?
This was the second time I thought of her like that, and it felt so natural, but I knew it wasn’t true. No matter how badly I wanted her, she wasn’t mine. Sleeping together once and feeling a strange possessiveness over her didn’t change that.
“You’ll take one of my men with you to the gym.”
Sarah cringed. “A big Russian guy like you? No way. It’ll freak out everyone at the gym if I have a scary guy shadowing me like that.”
“Would you rather by cornered in the parking lot by men in masks again?”
Sarah’s face drained of color, and I felt like a complete asshole, but I needed to get my point across. If those men were watching her, they would know that she was with me, and they might hurt her next time. I couldn’t let that happen, and I didn’t give a shit if having someone follow her around freaked out everyone at the gym or not.
Sarah’s shoulders slumped. “Okay, fine. But I want whoever you have watching over us to prioritize Alexis.”
I blinked, having trouble processing that request. “What?”
“The gym I go to has a childcare center. That’s where Alexis will be, and I want the bodyguard to watch over her.”
“He’ll watch over both of you,” I said, feeling a swell of affection for her over the way she prioritized her daughter.
“Good.” She took another sip of her wine, then set it down and tilted her head to the side. “You never did tell me how you know about what happened to me at the grocery store.”
“I suspected you might be in danger,” I said, deciding I might as well come clean. It had to be obvious by now that I was having her watched. “So, I sent my brother to watch you.”
She frowned. “Iknewit. I saw that guy from the courthouse in the store right before I left.”
“Maxim saw what happened. That’s why I came to get you last night.”
Running the tip of her finger over the rim of her wine glass, Sarah bit her bottom lip. “That’s… well, it’s creepy. You had someone stalking me?”