The Dangerous Thief (Stolen Hearts #3)(8)

“Is the bed a problem?” He didn’t have any thousand-thread count sheets or anything, but they got the job done. Maybe she needed the luxuries to sleep?

“Never mind.” She sighed.

Normally he’d be more than happy to let that slide, but if she wasn’t sleeping, he’d have to worry about her running off again. “Is there anything I can do to help you sleep?” There. Now he was being the nice host she wanted.

“Unless you know a way to stop nightmares, I think I’m SOL.”

Nightmares? He wanted to ask what the nightmares were about, but he thought better of it. They weren’t at the point where they were sharing any personal details, which was where he wanted things to stay. Besides, he knew more than most that no matter how rich someone was, it didn’t keep their life from being nightmare-worthy. Sure, his past would’ve been a hell of a lot easier with an influx of cash, but he hadn’t had those problems in a long, long time.

“How much are you getting for this?”

“What?” It was as if she knew what he was thinking about.

“You said you were getting paid for this. So how much does my protection cost?”

“I’m technically getting nothing.”

She stopped and looked over at him. “Why am I a freebie? You don’t like me.”

He sighed. He didn’t want to reward her for fishing for compliments, but he didn’t want her to keep thinking that. “I don’t hate you.”

She raised a skeptical brow. “Okay. You don’t hate me, but you don’t like me. Which is fine, because I don’t like you either. We can agree to mutual dislike. But that still doesn’t explain why you’re helping me.”

“I’m with you right now because I made a mistake.”

“And I’m your penance?”

“Because of me, Melody’s mother died.”

Willa’s mouth dropped open and she averted her gaze. She obviously didn’t know what to say and he kept going before she started to nervously try to fill the silence. “I was working a job for Melody’s mother. A simple recovery mission. I was too late and while I was distracted, Isobel Murray was shot and killed.” The Murray women—Jennifer, Melody, and Toni—had never blamed him for what had happened, but it had been as if he were right back in Afghanistan. Not only had he been there as the three sisters had to stoically take in the news of their mother’s murder, but he was the one who offered to go back into the building and remove the body.

It was only a few days later, during the small, covert funeral, that he had promised to himself that he would make sure that the man responsible for this, Jonathan Sterling, would pay.

Sterling had gone into hiding after learning that the Murray women and Scott Hart had it out for him, but he couldn’t stay in hiding forever. And Jadon Belli, Willa’s father, happened to be one of the only people in the world who could locate Sterling.

“I—” Willa bit her lip, not finishing whatever she was about to say. Then she shook her head and started to walk quickly back to the house. This time when he let her have a few feet in front of him, she didn’t protest. She seemed to have had enough talking for one night and he was more than happy with that.

Because in a few days, she would be out of his hair forever and he could go back to his life before there were any women to mess it up.





Willa was going to go insane. It wasn’t going to be her father who killed her, or even a late night of too much drinking. It was going to be pure and utter boredom.

Give her cable. Give her a book. Any book. Even one of those boring tearjerkers she’d avoided her entire life. But there was absolutely nothing to do here.

She couldn’t even go for a walk without James Weston stalking alongside her to make sure she didn’t go running off. She’d be more upset about it if she didn’t know that she’d given him plenty of reason to think that she was a flight risk.

She wished she could take back her late-night excursion, but it was what it was. She was a runner. It was what her best friend back home, Stephanie, loved to point out every time she’d broken up with a boyfriend or turned down a ring.

And not just with men. Anytime anything got too serious in her life, be it an apartment or major at school, she’d take off. Maybe what was bothering her even more than the boredom was her inability to run. There was no way out of this little safe house until James Weston decided to let her go.

“James...” she said out loud. No, that just didn’t seem right. It was too normal. Too subdued for the caveman. “Weston,” she tried. That fit him more, but she’d never been one to call someone by their last name. Maybe he would be the exception? He was probably the exception to a lot of things.

She padded to the kitchen but didn’t see a single drop of liquor in the cabinets. Damn it. She had to settle for a bottle of water as she went back to the mostly empty living room. She did a little circle and imagined what she would do with all this space. With the hardwood floors and tall ceiling, it would make a really great dance studio.

She tapped her foot as she remembered back to the dance lessons she’d taken. One more thing she’d run from. Because dancing was fun, but making a career out of it was hard. And she ran from hard things.

Suddenly she got an idea and rushed to her room. Her cell phone was in her bag and powered down. Willa had watched enough television to know that cell phones could be tracked, but she could turn off anything traceable, like internet and service.