Claim Me (Stark Trilogy, #2)(83)

But they have. And as variations of the same questions are thrown at me—as I try to get to the stairs but can barely move even an inch—I know that I’m going to scream soon, just for the shock of it. Just so I can get away.

A loud squeal cuts above the din, and for a moment I think that I have screamed, because suddenly the crowd is parting, and I look up and gasp.

Damien. He’s running toward me from the street, his black Ferrari left idling in the road. And if I have ever been uncertain about Damien’s capacity for murder, I no longer am. I see it in his eyes. In the line of his jaw. In the tenseness that fills every muscle of his body. Right then, in that moment, he would kill to protect me.

He reaches out and grabs my arm, and I’m so relieved he’s here I almost cry. He pulls me roughly to him, and hooks his arm around my shoulder, holding me close as he shoves us through the crowd toward the car.

He tosses the groceries onto the floorboard, then gets me settled in the passenger seat. As he straps me in I see something break inside him. “Baby,” he says, and though the word is barely loud enough for my ears, I hear the apology and the bone-deep regret.

“Please,” I whisper. “Let’s get out of here.”

He’s in the car and accelerating toward Ventura Boulevard before my mind even catches up. His right hand is on the stick, but once we’re on the freeway, he reaches for me. “I’m so sorry. The painting. The money. I never thought—”

“No.” The word comes out sharper than I intend. “Later. Right now, I want to pretend that it didn’t happen.”

The look he gives me is heartbreakingly sad. For a moment, we are silent. But the stillness is broken by Damien’s single hard smack of his hand against the steering wheel.

“Who did this?” he asks. “Who the f*ck leaked this?”

I shake my head. It still feels like cotton. I realize from somewhere outside of myself that I am not coping well.

I slide my right hand down so that it is between my body and the door, and then I clench it tight into a fist, letting my manicured nails dig deep as I squeeze and squeeze.

I bite my tongue, drawing blood.

And I wish—oh, how I wish—that I still had that tiny knife I used to keep on my keychain.

“Look at me,” Damien snaps.

I comply. I even smile. I’m starting to get some control back.

I take a deep breath, relieved that I’m functioning. But oh god, oh god, this isn’t going to stop. It’s out there, and they’re going to keep coming, and it isn’t going to stop.

“Carl,” I whisper. “This is what he was warning me about.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so.”

“Who then?”

“Does Ollie know about the painting?”

“No!” The word comes fast and hard, but then I immediately falter. Could he have found out somehow? “No,” I say again. “And even if he did, he’d keep quiet. I’m not the one he wants to hurt.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Damien says darkly.

I swallow, because Damien has to be wrong. Even if he’s right about Ollie being in love with me, surely Ollie wouldn’t do this just to get back at me for being with Damien. Would he?

I close my eyes because I can’t stand to think about it. “Who doesn’t matter,” I say, tightening my fist again. “It’s out there.”

Damien doesn’t answer, and we drive toward downtown in silence, Damien’s anger so thick it fills the car.

“How did you know?” I finally ask.

“Jamie. She’s home. Apparently she had to push through them, too, and they were asking her about the painting. She pretended not to have a clue, then called you.”

“My phone’s dead,” I say numbly.

“I know. She called me when she couldn’t reach you, and I tried you, too. When I couldn’t get you on the phone to tell you to stay away—”

“You came to rescue me yourself.”

“Fortunately I was in Beverly Hills and you made a stop before going home.”

“Thank you,” I say.

He turns just long enough to glance at me, and his smile is sad. “I will always protect you,” he says. “But this—”

He cuts himself off sharply and I see his knuckles turn white as he grips the steering wheel. I understand. He can’t protect me from this, and he hates that.

Frankly, I’m not crazy about it, either.


Damien stays quiet until we enter the apartment. But the moment we do, he lashes out. In one fluid motion he grabs and hurls the ornamental vase that holds the floral arrangement that is the focal point of the foyer.

“Goddammit!” he shouts, the crescendo of his voice underscored by the tinkle of shattering glass hitting the floor and the splash as water flies everywhere.

I do nothing but stand there. I know how he feels. I want to lash out and break something, too.

No, that’s not true. I don’t want to lash out, but I desperately wish that I did. I wish that I could grab a glass trinket and throw it hard against the floor and take comfort in the fact that it is my hands and my power that have caused it to shatter.

But that is not what will satisfy me. Those shards of glass would not be an end for me, but a means to an end. And I would not be comforted until the glass is cutting a line in my flesh, and I have latched on so tight to the pain that it erases all the other horrors around me. Those horrible camera flashes. The jeers from the reporters. The embarrassment, the humiliation, and the knowledge that no matter what, for the rest of my life, this is never going to go away.