Last Name - Dr. Rebecca Sharp Page 0,53

warm me while I stared out at the undisturbed water.

Sometimes, mistakes are the only way we find something truly miraculous.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the Klutzy Cinderella.”

My spine steeled as Lynn’s voice dragged down it like an acid-covered paintbrush.

I looked over my shoulder, blaming the crackling fire for why I hadn’t heard her slip out the door to corner me.

“Hello, Lynn,” I said tightly. “James is inside.”

“Oh, I’m not looking for James,” she replied. “Though, I have to say I’m surprised he’s not glued to your side like he’s been all night… then again, there is a lot of… side… to be glued to.”

I bristled and glared at her. “Well, I’m not looking for you, so if you’ll excuse me.”

I went to walk by her but her arm came up, though it was her next words that were what stopped me.

“You’re not what he’s looking for, Ms. Bishop.”

“Excuse me?” I snapped, crossing my arms and glaring at her.

Only I was allowed to bring up my own dwindling insecurities about our relationship.

No one else.

Especially this bitch.

“What did you do?” she asked, her head tipping, her snake-eyes gleaming. “How did he have to save you?”

I balked. “What are you talking about?”

She nodded knowingly. “I thought so.”

“He didn’t have to save me.” My lie was too late though, I’d already given away that he had.

“You poor thing,” she tutted. “Let me tell you what’s going to happen.”

She stepped closer to me, but I refused to back away, instead suffering her toxic presence.

“James saved you because that’s his complex. He saved you and now he’s attached to you.”

I drew a shaky breath, feeling the sharp point of her words sliding into my chest.

“But soon, he’s going to realize what this will cost him.” She waved her finger around at me. “And if there’s one thing that James will protect above all else, it’s his family. And, when word gets out that he’s sleeping with an employee he just met, the rumors will start. And those rumors are going to dredge up stories James has worked just as hard to keep a secret as he has worked to bring Arden Corporation back to life.”

“You’re lying,” I charged, hating how she’d managed to reach right into my chest and resuscitate my biggest fear.

She laughed. “I’ve known him for too long for you to really believe that, Little Miss Klutz.”

“But I see the kind of person you are too well for me to think otherwise,” I retorted, watching her smile turn into a snarl.

She shoved her face in mine and sneered. “Those rumors are going to bring up similar ones with his father’s name. Similar ones that his mother and brother have no idea about… ones that will change the fabric of everything they believe. You think he’ll risk that for you?” Her eyes pierced mine, responding before I could. “Could you even think to ask it of him?”

My heart slammed against my rib cage, an animal in peril and frantic to escape slaughter.

“And if you did… if he did, can you live with being the reason for the fallout?”

She reached up and her fingertips, threatening light on my cheek, jarred me back to reality.

I slapped her hand away and stepped back. “I’m sorry he doesn’t want anything to do with you, Lynn,” I told her tightly. “But I’m not sorry he wants me.”

With that statement, I spun and fled toward the door. Only once the cool handle was under my fingers did I begin to gasp… and gasp… and gasp… unable to breathe fast enough to stop my racing heart.

The frightening truth was there wasn’t enough air in the world to fill my chest when it leaked through the gaping hole in the front.

She couldn’t be telling the truth, could she?

“Thank God,” James growled as soon as we stepped back into the quiet sanctuary of his luxurious cabin on the other side of the lake.

My ears still pulsed from the noise level at Lars and Suzanne’s. And my heart still beat like a wounded creature from my conversation with Lynn.

“James—” I broke off with a gasp as he pinned me against the door.

“I’ve been waiting to get you alone in this dress all night.”

I whimpered, feeling the length of him grow against my stomach, making my sex grow wet and sticky with ache.

“Well, it was a good thing you waited,” I murmured. His teeth clamped down on my lower lip and sucked it hard into his mouth.

“You’re lucky I didn’t have the goddamn beret on