Page 105 of Burned

I had too much time to mull.

My empathy for her begins to wane.

I just want her anywhere but here.

We are moved from the private tarmac to what looks like a bulletproof fleet of SUVs.

The interior is quiet and dark and plush, smelling of clean leather, and with Lucian’s protective arm around me and my head on his chest, I begin to drift off.

His chest rises and falls with a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“What?” He strokes my hair, leaning closer. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because I know how hard this must be for you. You’re having to relive the pain from your past.” I take my own deep breath. “And I’m sure it’s hard, confusing even, seeing her again.”

“It’s not,” he says in his very Lucian way.

I smile with my cheek against him. “Okay. But if there is anything I can do to help make things easier…”

“There is no ‘easy’ in this life.” His arm tightens around my shoulders. “Be with me. That’s all I want from you. Stay by my side.”

“I will,” I promise.

As long as he’ll let me.

My new prison does not look like a safe house.

It looks like a rich man got paranoid at the edge of the world.

It sits on a shelf of black basalt cliff jutting over the North Atlantic, the rock beneath it jagged columns that look intimidating enough to scare off predators.

Below, the beach is volcanic sand the color of char, packed hard and glittering, and the waves geyser white water thirty feet up the cliff face before the wind snatches it sideways.

And the house is glass. Black steel framing holds vast panes that make it intimidating and strong, daring the ‘bad guys’ to try and come. From the outside, looking in, the glass has a hazy tint. From inside, you have a clear view of your entire surroundings.

Honestly, it reminds me of him. Dark. Dangerous. Beautiful. At least, the first version of him I met that night.

He’s getting softer.

The icy air is salt and grit, the mineral, sulfur-edged smell of the volcanic ground beneath everything. To my left, a black-sand beach stretches into fog, and the sea beyond is dark, the water and sky blending into one in the distance.

A private road curls up through a stand of birch and rowan, all bent permanently sideways, their trunks shaped by years of wind coming off the water from one direction only. The kind of place that would be beautiful if I weren’t being delivered to it in an armored convoy, with Lucian’s hand locked around mine like he could keep my pulse inside my body by force.

The wind up here is brutal as we walk the path to the house. It’s cold enough to strip the air from my lungs.

Lucian’s eyes are on me every second, as if he’d carry me if I let him. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine,” I manage between chattering teeth, despite the face he’s forced me into, many layers of high-tech all-weather gear his brother suggested he buy when he brought the store to Red Shutters. I look behind me, grateful for his purchases, when I seeRyan wearing his heavy red down coat and matching knit cap and scarf, as snug as a bug in my sister’s arm.

“It’s not meant for winter,” he says. “I built it as a summer house, a place to come when the city gets hot and overbearing. Then I thought, why not add a war room and some extra tech so it could double as a safe house for the family.”

And I remember just how rich my billionaire boyfriend is.

No one speaks for the first five minutes after we arrive.

Not because there is nothing to say, but because everyone is desperately busy.