Billionaire Romance Boxed Set (9 Book Bundle) (126 page)

I fell to the ground, scrambling forward, trying to
crawl beneath the door. It was a tight fit—too tight—but this was a
matter of life or death. If I could escape, if I could…

“Do you really think it’s that easy?”
Solomon asked.

He pointed the gun straight at me with his finger
poised next to the trigger.

“Please,” I said. “Please don’t
do this.”

Solomon’s finger pulled back, slow and steady.
With the gun aimed at my head and with me an easy target, prone on the ground,
there was no way he could miss me. I closed my eyes, felt the
helplessness of my feet dangling in the air. My futile escape amounted to
nothing, because now I was dead.

A heavy crack rippled through the air. That’s
it, I thought. He’s fired, and in half a second I’m dead. Half a
second passed by, but I still felt alive. And another, then a few seconds
more, and…

“Are you going to stay down there or what?”
Jeremy asked.

I blinked, once, twice, and opened my eyes.
Solomon lay crumpled on the ground, his body lying in an unnatural pose, limbs
akimbo, head twisted and looking up at the ceiling with his eyes glossy and
disoriented. Behind him, standing, was Jeremy with a half-broken piece of
plank in his hands; apparently the remnants of a bookcase shelf.

“Where’s Asher?” he asked.

“Jeremy, help, please. I need to… I’m
stuck. Jeremy!” I clawed at the floor, trying to free myself
from being stuck under the loading dock door.

Exasperated, nearly crying—why was Jeremy crying?—he
ran over and pulled me loose. He helped me stand and hugged me tight.

“Jessika, where’s Asher? He sent me a text
that said ‘help.’ I went around back and saw this door and figured… well,
I figured I’d pull a you and sneak in to see if I could help, but then I heard
you screaming and saw Solomon chase you. I hid and waited and thank God I
did because… I just can’t even believe this. This is too crazy.”

“Asher,” I whispered. “Jeremy, he
shot him. Solomon shot Asher. I was trying to get help and I heard
it and…”

“Let’s go,” he said.

I nodded and ran, trying to explain to Jeremy where to
go. I didn’t even know where, barely knew how to navigate the bookstore
storage warehouse, but Jeremy seemed to get the hang of it. He knew
something, maybe a sixth sense? I don’t know, not exactly, but we rushed
back to where they were and I saw Beatrice kneeling at Asher’s side.

He was dead, there was blood, and…

“I don’t hate you,” Beatrice said, pushing
back his hair. “I never really hated you, Asher. I wish we had
talked more. Maybe… I just don’t hate you. I don’t know why
Solomon did that. I don’t want you to die.”

“Step back,” Jeremy said, fording his way
through and reaching Asher’s side. “What did you do? Is he
dead?”

“He’s not dead, you idiot!” She glared
fiercely at Jeremy, but upon seeing us both, seeing me, she softened.
“He’s not dead. I… I pushed Solomon aside before he shot.
Asher fell, though. He scraped his hand. It’s only a minor cut,
it’s not deep. It all happened so fast and Solomon left so I don’t think
he really understood what happened. You’re alright, though,
right?” She looked down at Asher, touching her fingers to his cheek.

Asher croaked, his voice coming out in dry, harsh
sounds. “Is Jessika alright?” he asked.

Beatrice frowned, just for a second. “She’s
fine. Jessika is fine. She came back for you. Jeremy is here,
too. Everyone is fine, Asher.”

“I’m going to call the police,” Jeremy
said. “Don’t think you’re off the hook, Beatrice.” He
looked at me and added, “Jessika, watch her.”

“I won’t go anywhere,” Beatrice said.
She shuffled to the side, leaving me a space next to Asher. “Go
ahead.”

Jeremy left, running through the backroom to the store
to Robert. I wandered over to Asher, still scared, but so very
happy. He wasn’t dead, he wasn’t…

I knelt next to him and sat on the backs of my heels
and thighs, smiling.

“Jessika,” Asher said. “Oh God,
I’m so sorry. I didn’t think something like this would ever happy.
I just… I don’t even know. I shouldn’t have put you in danger like
this. We should have called the police. We should never have come
here.”

“No,” I said. “It’s fine. I
understand. You wanted to settle things without resorting to that.
You had hope.”

Asher nodded slightly from the ground, his cheek
shifting across the tile floor. Then he closed his eyes and remained
silent.

“Did he hit his head?” I asked.

“Maybe. I think so,” Beatrice
said. “He must have. I’m not sure. I didn’t see it
happen exactly. Everything happened so fast.”

“He tried to love you,” I said.
“He really did.”

“Yes, well, I never tried to love him,” she
said. “Maybe I should have, but I didn’t. You’ll think that’s
mean, but I’m just telling you the truth. I was too angry to love
him.”

I tousled Asher’s hair. If he had a concussion,
he needed to wake up, and soon. As reluctant as I was to do it, I knew I
should shake him awake and keep him aware until medical help arrived.

“I think he loves you very much,” Beatrice
said. She looked sad and alone and I felt a little bad for her, but she’d
brought this upon herself. She knew full well what the consequences to
her actions were before she started this. “He kept asking about
you. I didn’t know what to tell him.”

And then, as I shook Asher’s shoulder to make sure he
was awake, Beatrice whispered, “I’m glad Jeremy came. I’m glad
you’re alright. I never wanted Solomon to kill anyone.” She
held Asher’s cell phone in her hand, squeezing it so tightly that her knuckles
turned white.

…

When we arrived back at the Landseer estate after the
police showed up, I immediately went and sat on the couch in Asher’s guest
home, slumping onto it. I was so tired, physically and mentally
exhausted, and I wanted to go to sleep. But, no, I couldn’t. I had
things to do, and I needed to do them soon before I changed my mind.

Asher was alright. He’d declined going to the
hospital. After the paramedics checked him out, they said he should be
fine to leave, but to take it easy and be careful. If anything happened,
anything at all, they wanted him to rush to the emergency room. Jeremy
practically had to force him to agree while I stood and watched on, too shy to
say anything.

The truth of the matter was, I didn’t belong
here. I knew that before, but I knew it even more now. With all
that happened, this wasn’t the right thing to do. Not just for me, but
for Asher, too. I’d caused him so many problems, caused him so much
grief. He’d say that it wasn’t my fault, and I understood that it wasn’t
entirely my fault, but to some degree it was. I could have gone to the
police myself, could have prevented a lot of this. I could have…

I don’t know exactly what I should have done, but
there were a lot of things I could have done, and almost every single one of
them seemed better than what I had done. I wasn’t the sort of person
Asher needed in his life, whether he thought he loved me or not. And, it
didn’t matter if I loved him, because that was beside the point. If I truly
loved him, then I’d do whatever I could to make him happy, including leaving so
he could move on with his life and become a better person without me.

I waited, laying against the couch, staring up at the
ceiling. I saw the slight gap where the projector came out and pointed to
the screen that descended above the fireplace. We’d watched two movies on
it—his favorite movie, and mine—but no more. I teared up a little
thinking about that. I’d see plenty of movies in the future, but none of
them with Asher. I couldn’t. It was impossible.

I stumbled off the couch and staggered towards the
stairs. Shuffling up to the second floor, I went into the master
bedroom. Neither of us had bothered to make the bed after we left it this
morning, so it was still a mess. The silken shirt Asher had used to tie
me to the headboard lay in two ragged pieces on the floor, and he’d tossed the
blankets into a pile by the foot of the bed, too.

We left a stain, I noticed, smiling. Nothing too
obvious, but I knew where and what to look for and saw it immediately. I
laughed thinking about it, thinking, and…

I burst into tears. This was really too much and
I needed to stop doing this to myself. I ran into the bathroom and
grabbed my things, then ran out just as quickly and shut the door. Making
a beeline for the bureau, I held my hand up to the side of my head to block my
view of the bed. I only had a few of my own belongings here and I
snatched them up from the bureau, then stuffed them into my empty duffel bag
laying limp near the bedroom door.

That was everything, that was it. I left the
bedroom and closed the door behind me, unwilling to look back.

I raced out of the house as quickly as I could, out
and into the open air of the estate grounds. I wanted to ask Jeremy to
drive me home, but I realized I couldn’t. I needed to walk, because
otherwise he’d tell Asher and I didn’t know what Asher would do.

I trekked to the front gates, quick and frantic, and
tried to push them open but they wouldn’t budge. Jeremy always opened
them with a remote on the dashboard of the car, but they should open some other
way. Some button, or something on the inside, right? I dropped my
bag and went to the side of the gate to look for the opening mechanism.

I found it, pushed the button, and the gates began to
open. As soon as I picked up my bag, the gates began to close
again. I dashed towards the button and pushed it once more, but before
the gates even opened an inch, they started closing again.

Off to the side I saw Jeremy, remote in one hand,
phone in the other. He was doing something with his phone while making
sure the gates remained closed. I tossed my bag onto the ground and
stomped over to him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.

“What do you think
you’re
doing?” he
replied.

“I’m leaving.”

“Why?”

“Because,” I said. “I don’t
belong here, Jeremy. I shouldn’t stay here. Asher’s better off
without me. I don’t deserve any of this. This isn’t…”

Asher stumbled out of the house. He wasn’t in
any serious pain, nor did he have any serious injury, but I knew he was more
than a little out of it after what had happened only an hour or so ago.
He sprinted across the grass, along the driveway, towards where Jeremy and I
stood.

“What’s going on?” Asher asked.

“She’s leaving,” Jeremy said.
“Apparently. I don’t know.”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’m
going home.”

“Why?” Asher asked. He looked so
upset. Why was he upset?

“I can’t do this, Asher. I just can’t do
it.” I was crying. Why was I crying? “I want you to
be happy, but I can’t do it! I need to leave before I change my
mind. Please tell Jeremy to open the gate for me.”

Asher grabbed me. He bent down and swooped me
into his arms and I kicked my legs and flailed my hands.

“Let me down!” I screamed.
“You’re going to hurt yourself!”

“If you don’t stop moving so much, not only will
I drop you, but yes, I’ll hurt myself.”

Because he was an idiot and wouldn’t listen to reason,
I stopped moving. Why did he have to do this? It didn’t change
anything. I bawled, tears streaming down my face, completely and utterly
lost in my depression. This shouldn’t happen. It just shouldn’t.

He carried me inside, all pretense of following the
paramedic’s orders gone. He carried me through the hallways, to places I
didn’t even know existed. I hadn’t spent a lot of time in his main house
and it was all so foreign to me, so fancy. Pictures on the walls and
elegant carpets under our feet. Expensive vases on fancy tables sitting
in front of windows as pure decoration and nothing more; no flowers, just
vases. Asher carried me through his house until we reached one large set
of doors, then he kicked them open and marched inside. Only then did he
put me down.

“I don’t understand why you did that,” I
said. “I wish you hadn’t.”

He went back to the doors and closed them, pulling on
the ornate, gilded handles. Clicking a latch shut, he locked us inside.

“Look,” he said.

I looked, for all the good it would do me.

He’d brought me to a library. It was nothing
like the one in his guest home, and yet something like it, too. Entirely
different, but still very much comfortable and cozy. A hearth off to the
side, large enough for four people to lounge in front of it, lay waiting for
winter and a cozy fire, with people sitting in front of it and toasting
marshmallows. The bookcases were different, extravagant, with rolling
ladders perched on the sides like something out of classic literature.
Mahogany tables cluttered with books and candelabras with half-used candles,
and writing pads and old-fashioned quills, plus new pens and a few pencils.