Hot and Bothered - Erika Wilde Page 0,69

took a step back, then another, edging closer to her only means of escape—a framed threshold leading to the formal dining room and the stairs that headed up to the second level of the house. She thought of Noah’s revolver in the bedroom upstairs and knew that it was her best source of defense against this deranged man.

But she had to get to the weapon first.

“You’ll always be mine, Natalie,” Chad said possessively, drawing her full attention back to him.

Her chest tightened as his familiar words sank in. They were the same as the words she’d read on the card that had accompanied the bouquet she’d received at the hospital.

Noah hadn’t sent her those flowers, she realized. Chad had.

“You never should have left me,” he chided as he moved around the counter, his steps deceptively slow and unhurried, his gaze dark and direct. “Did you really think that I wouldn’t be able to find you? And I can’t believe that your lover thought that I couldn’t get to you, just because you were locked in his house with an alarm. You’re mine, and this time I’m not letting you go.”

He was too close, too dangerous, and she’d had enough. Taking advantage of the only weapon and distraction she had available to her, she grasped her textbook off the counter and flung it at Chad’s head. The book hit its mark, striking him in the temple. He grabbed his head and howled in pain, and she turned and ran through the opposite doorway and up the stairs, desperate to get to Noah’s gun.

Once she’d made it to the master bedroom, she shut and locked the door. She bolted over to the dresser and rummaged through the drawer where he kept his revolver, her heart beating in time with the heavy, angry footsteps of Chad coming up the stairs.

She tossed Noah’s cotton undershirts onto the floor in her frantic search, and a sob of despair caught in her throat when she realized that the gun was gone. He must have put it on this morning, though for the life of her she couldn’t remember him wearing his holster, which didn’t mean much. She’d grown so used to the weapon being a part of him that she hardly noticed it anymore.

But the fact remained that the gun was gone, and she was trapped upstairs with a crazed man after her.

The bedroom door rattled as Chad tried to kick in the sturdy wooden panel, spurring Natalie to find another means of defense. She’d gone through two other drawers for something sharp or blunt to use when the door cracked and splintered from the force of Chad’s repeated blows, then crashed open.

She jumped back with a gasp, while he stood there in the doorway, the cut near his temple oozing blood down the side of his face. His features were filled with violent rage.

Fear swelled within her. “I’m expecting Noah back any minute,” she blurted out, hoping and praying it was true. Or at least that the alarm company had dispatched the police since she hasn’t answered the phone. “I suggest you leave before he returns.”

Chad strolled into the room, seemingly unfazed by her threat. “Ahh, Noah, your fiancé,” he drawled in a chilly tone, and smirked. “Do you really believe that lie he told you?”

She shook her head in confusion as she backed toward the far side of the room to keep distance between them. Knowing conversation was her best stall tactic until she could figure out an escape, she asked, “What lie?”

“The two of you aren’t engaged.” He waved an impatient hand in the air. “I’ve been watching you long enough to know that the two of you weren’t ever an item, at least not before the night of your accident.”

His comment rippled through her mind, and denial rose fast and furiously. Of course, she and Noah were engaged! They lived together. She’d given him her body, her soul. She loved him.

But along with that denial came snippets of conversations she’d had with Noah, of him skirting the issue of their engagement, no ring on her finger, no wedding date set, and no straightforward answers to the many questions she’d asked about them as a couple.

More vague images appeared in her head…Noah at the bar, talking and flirting with her, walking out with her the night of the accident, and her playfully fending off his flirtatious advances. They’d been friends, acquaintances, nothing more. The memories were fresh and real and gave her no