Page 18 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
Her jaw tightens. "I'm not sure I'm available—"
"I'd pay double your usual rate. Triple, if the work is exceptional." I pull a card from my pocket—heavy cream stock, embossed lettering, just my name and a phone number. "Think about it. There's no pressure."
I hold out the card. She doesn't take it.
"Mr. Ambrose—"
"Gabriel, please."
"Gabriel." The name seems to cost her something. "I appreciate the offer, but I don't think I'm the right fit for your... events."
"Why not?"
The question hangs between us. I watch her struggle with it, watch her search for an answer that won't give her away. She can't tell me the truth. She can't saybecause I saw you kill a manin the middle of a crowded flower market.
All she can do is stand there, trapped, while I smile at her.
"I just don't think I am," she says finally. "But thank you for thinking of me."
"The offer stands." I tuck the card into the pocket of her sweater before she can stop me. My fingers graze her collarbone through the fabric, and I feel her whole body stiffen. "Take some time. Consider it. I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of each other, Poppy Rivers."
I let her name roll off my tongue like a promise. Like a threat.
She doesn't move. Doesn't breathe. Her eyes are locked on mine, and I can see everything in them—the fear, the anger, the helplessness. The desperate, futile wish that this wasn't happening.
And underneath all of that, something else. Something I've been looking for since the moment she appeared in that doorway.
Recognition.
She sees me. Not the mask, not the public face, but the thing underneath. And some part of her—some small, dark part she probably doesn't even acknowledge—isn't running from it.
Not yet.
Then I step aside, clearing her path to the exit.
"Have a lovely day," I say. "Be careful with those flowers. They're fragile."
She doesn't respond. She walks past me, clutching her bouquets, her spine rigid, her steps just slightly too fast. She doesn't look back.
I watch her go. Watch her push through the exit and disappear into the gray morning light. Watch the door swing shut behind her, cutting off my view.
Then I allow myself to smile.
The encounter lasted less than five minutes. To anyone watching, it was nothing—a polite conversation between strangers, a businessman complimenting a vendor's work. There's nothing she could report, nothing she could point to as evidence of threat or menace.
But she felt it. She felt me.
And now she knows that there's nowhere she can go, nothing she can do, that will put her beyond my reach. I can find her in her home. I can find her in the market. I can find her anywhere.
She belongs to me now. She just hasn't accepted it yet.
I leave the market and step into the cold morning air. My car is waiting a block away, my driver patient and discreet. I could go to the office, attend to the work that's been piling up while I've been distracted. Josiah has been handling things, but there are decisions only I can make, meetings only I can take.
Instead, I pull out my phone and dial.
"Sir?" Hutton's voice, flat and professional.
"She's leaving the market now. Follow her. I want to know where she goes, who she talks to, what she does for the rest of the day."
