Page 120 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
"Come in," she says quietly. "I think it's time you knew the truth."
Chapter 30 - Gabriel
The text arrives at 7:43 AM.
I need to see my mother. I'll be back in a few days. Please don't follow me.
I read it three times, each word landing like a blow. She's leaving. Not permanently—she said she'll be back—but she's leaving, and she's asking me not to follow.
Asking. Not demanding. Not threatening. Asking.
Please don't follow me.
My fingers move before my brain can catch up, typing a response:Poppy, please. Let me explain—
I send it and wait. One minute. Two. Five.
Nothing.
I try calling. The phone rings once, then cuts to voicemail. She's turned it off. She's shut me out completely.
I stand in the middle of my study, phone in hand, and feel something I haven't felt in years: helplessness. Complete, utter helplessness. The woman I've been trying to hold onto is slipping through my fingers, and there's nothing I can do to stop it.
No. That's not true. There are plenty of things I can do.
I can have Hutton track her car. I can send a team to follow at a distance, to monitor her movements, to ensure she doesn't disappear. I can show up at her mother's apartment uninvited and demand she listen to me. I can use every resource at my disposal to keep her close, to prevent her from making any decisions without my input.
That's what I would normally do. That's what the old Gabriel would do—the one who saw obstacles as challenges to be overcome, who never let anyone slip beyond his control.
But something stops me.
Please don't follow me.
She asked. And if I ignore that request—if I prove that her wishes mean nothing when they conflict with my desires—then I'll confirm everything she accused me of yesterday. That I don't trust her. That I only know how to possess, not to respect. That whatever we have is just another form of control.
Is that who I want to be? Is that the man I want her to see when she looks at me?
I sink into the chair behind my desk, the phone still clutched in my hand, and try to think clearly.
She said she'll be back. She didn't say she's leaving forever, didn't say she never wants to see me again. She said she needs to see her mother, and she'll be back in a few days.
Maybe that's true. Maybe she just needs time and space to process everything, and when she's had that, she'll come home.
Or maybe she's lying. Maybe "a few days" is a polite fiction, a way to escape without triggering my pursuit. Maybe she's already planning to disappear—to take Zach's offer, to vanish into whatever network of safe houses he's prepared.
I don't know. That's the hell of it. I don't know what she's thinking, what she's planning, what she'll decide. For the first time in my adult life, I'm completely in the dark.
And I have to stay there. Because if I chase her, I lose her for certain. But if I let her go...
I might lose her anyway.
***
The morning passes in a haze of whiskey and silence.
I don't go to the office. I don't take calls. I sit in my study and stare at the walls, replaying every moment of the past few weeks, cataloging every mistake I made.
I should have told her immediately. The moment I learned the truth from Bryan, I should have sat her down and explained everything. I should have trusted her to understand, to see the situation clearly, to make her own judgments.
