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SHE DID AS I asked.
Locked.
Sighing, I pressed my forehead against her door. My fingers trailed from the unturnable handle and up the lacquered wood, wishing it was Pim I touched.
What did I expect?
Three a.m. and I hadn’t been to see her all day. After hours of strategizing with Selix, I wasn’t good company. It was out of chivalry that I kept my distance. She didn’t deserve my strung-out temper.
Were the Chimmoku involved in her selling or had my mind finally cracked—running around a maze with no answers, bumping into theories, ricocheting off dead ends.
I honestly didn’t know anymore.
It didn’t mean I wasn’t desperate to see her, though.
The wood of her door was smooth beneath my fingers as I rested my forehead against it and breathed for the first time all day.
I let go of my stress and worry and guilt and stood outside her room, finding a scrap of peace just by being near her.
Ever since my brain decided to figure out who had accessed her police record, I couldn’t think about anything else. I couldn’t stop searching with binoculars to see if the Chinmoku sailed behind us. I couldn’t stop checking the weapons cache, ensuring guns and other firepower were in good working order in case of an ocean siege.
I was fucking exhausted from patrolling the Phantom and seeking out any weaknesses. The hull was enforced with carbon fibre. The framework with titanium. Bullet-proof armoured plating encased each of the bedrooms, and the missile defense system was top of the line. If it was a war they wanted, my yacht would stand up to whatever weaponry they had. But if it was Pim they wanted, then I would rip them limb from fucking limb.
I would turn savage and not just shoot them as I’d planned.
They’d taken my family.
There’s no way in hell they’re taking her, too.
For the second time in days, I came face to face with the thought of not having Pim in my life. Leaving her in Monaco showed me the agony I would endure knowing she lived in the same world as me, talking to others, smiling at others, falling in love with others.
That was brutal enough.
But the thought of the Chinmoku taking her, selling her, hurting her....It showed me a horror I couldn’t even contemplate, let alone survive. I raged at the thought of them killing her, of her not talking to others, smiling at others, falling in love with others.
Of not falling in love with me.
Of blank eyes and lost soul.
Of death.
And that unhappy train of thought was how I’d found myself outside her door at three in the morning when I should’ve numbed myself with a joint and fallen into a fitful sleep.
I wasn’t here to force myself on her. I wasn’t here for sex period. The images of her dead and broken did not turn me on in the slightest.
I wasn’t here for any of the reasons why I’d installed the lock in the first place.
I was here to stare at her while she slept—to remind myself she was still alive and safe. That she was here with me and not lost in Monte Carlo. I was here to lie silently beside her, to breathe her in, to hold her close, to bury my face in her hair and try to find some sanity.
I’d turned to her and not the weed in my bedside drawer for comfort.
And what had she done?
She’d locked me out.
On my orders.
Fuck.
I could knock.
I could punch the door and wake her up. I could grab her the moment she opened it, all sleep warm and dream fuzzy, and carry her back to bed. I had no doubt she would welcome me with open arms. She’d run her fingers through my hair and be both lover and mother for however long I needed. She would let me hold her until I could breathe again.
But I couldn’t ask her to do that.
I was supposed to be the protector in this world, not her. She was supposed to trust me to stay strong and know what the hell I was doing. I wouldn’t tell her I’d been lying to her all along.
Lying that I had no fucking clue about any of it anymore and needed guidance. That I was willing to try whatever she wanted if it meant I could finally be normal.
Drawing away from her door, I balled my hands.
Earlier today, I’d made the agonising decision not to sail to America—to trust the men I’d put in charge to handle the mess over there and focus on life on this side of the globe.
My business didn’t stop running just because I was having a crisis of identity and loyalty. Pim didn’t stop existing just because I couldn’t get my head on straight.
Life moved on.
I had work to attend to.
Therefore, I’d commanded Jolfer to change our course back to the original one.
We had a few days before we arrived in England. Not only would Pim be my plus one at the Hawk’s Masquerade but she’d also accompany me on a few other visits around town.
But before we docked, I had every intention of finding my way back to being kind and generous. I missed her.
I’d missed her when I left her behind, and I missed her now that she was back in my life.
It’s ridiculous.
Why keep myself from the one person I wanted to spend time with?
Why believe in delusions that the more distance I put between us, the less I’d fall in love with her? That there was some possible way of revoking the fall and returning to stable ground where my heart belonged to me and not a woman who had the utmost power to shatter it?
Stalking down the corridor and back to my quarters, I finally admitted to myself.
No distance or avoidance could cure me.
Because I was no longer falling.
I’d crashed and burned and had no possible way of getting up.