my fingers slide free. The knot in my neck returned as tension began to spread through my shoulders and down my spine.
“It was years ago,” she said, shifting around in her chair. “I was on a photo shoot in Puerto Vallarta. We’d wrapped things up early that day, so some of us went out for drinks. I’d been posting pictures of us on Instagram all night, tagging every bar we went to.” She huffed humorlessly. “I was young and stupid.”
Anger simmered just beneath the surface, making it difficult to push words out. “What happened, legs?”
She was purposely avoiding eye contact as she looked over the wall out at the water. “Some guy had been watching my feed closely all night. He eventually tracked me down at the last bar we went to and followed me back to our hotel.”
My fists clenched on the table when she stopped again. “Finish the damn story, Lexi.”
She exhaled a frustrated breath. “He tried getting inside my hotel room, okay? He’d even brought bolt cutters with him to cut through the security chain.”
I gnashed my teeth, an involuntary response. I’d react that way hearing about any man who tried to attack a woman. It certainly wasn’t because this particular woman had been in danger.
It wasn’t.
“Did he?” The question cracked like a whip through the air. “Did he get inside?”
She swallowed thickly. And nodded. “I was huddled in the corner across the room when he broke through. He stopped when he saw the gun in my hands. But I couldn’t pull the trigger for some reason. Even as he was professing his love for me and spouting his crazy all over the place, I hadn’t been able to do it. Luckily, hotel security burst in before he could call my bluff. But I swore after that day that I’d never hesitate again.”
I needed a name.
I needed a name and an address so I could track the motherfucker down and feed him his own dick, right after I cut it off with a rusty blade.
Fuck.
I hadn’t felt rage like this in a long time.
All it took was picturing Lexi cowering in the corner of her small hotel room as some psychotic twat—who had fuck knows what planned for her—broke down the door and scared her half to death. I could picture her hand shaking as she pointed her gun at him, not knowing what to do. I could see the tears in her eyes, her lower lip trembling. She had more strength now, I could tell. But any woman in that situation, no matter how tough she was, would have been terrified.
“Was he arrested?” I bit out. “Charged?”
“He was arrested. But I didn’t hang around long enough to hear if he was charged. I got out of that city as fast as I could. I haven’t posted anything online in real time since. I’ll wait two or three days before posting anything that would point to my actual location.”
Which was why she hadn’t posted any of the pictures she’d taken that morning.
“I’m guessing you never got his name.”
Her attention jerked back to me. I was nearly shocked out of my chair whenever the corner of her mouth tipped up in what could have resembled amusement. “Why? You going to defend my honor five years later?”
Absolutely, I would.
And I’d do a hell of a lot more than that.
“Maybe I just don’t appreciate it when justice isn’t served,” I hedged. “Especially when it involves a man hurting a woman.”
Her eyes turned assessing, her fingers drumming against the table’s surface. “I didn’t peg you as the hero type.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what are you? The villain?”
“Depends on the story.” I nailed her to her chair with my intent gaze. “And the rest of the cast.”
She paused, acting as if she wanted to stop this line of questioning but couldn’t force herself to. “What about our story?”
Emotional distance. Always.
I was basically an impenetrable fortress on a deserted island. No woman had breached my walls in thirty-three years because I never lowered them, never raised the gate, never showed any weakness. Lexi was going to stay on the other side of that wall if it killed me. No matter how curious I was about the woman, no matter how intriguing I thought parts of her personality were. There was no point in getting too close when our story was going to end without a satisfying conclusion.