Love Found Me (A City Love Novel, Book 1) (15 page)

She gave a sensuous smile and licked her lips before she said, "Oh, and one more thing..." she paused before saying, "You should've realized-- I'm not a woman to be screwed with."

The relationship never officially began, but she knew that it was over. She knew that was the real moment when it had all slipped away.

Roman leapt toward her pace already several yards away. Stumbling into a cluster of vine, he'd nearly rattled the arched arbor, peppering a trail of violet petals behind him.

He was still panting when he'd managed to catch up with her. Groping her arm just above her elbow, his voice was beseeching when he said,  "I can't explain but I--"

Earlier she'd felt like she could've stayed out there for hours, savoring the scenic bliss to her senses, but now all she'd wanted to do was get as far away from him and the gardens as she could.

Danielle squirmed as he cradled his grip around her. The instant he'd uttered, "What about--" she pulled out from him with an incredible strength in her body and jolted from his grasp. In the next beat she frowned, "Whatever game you're playing," she caught a breath, "I want no part of it."

But at that moment, with London's sun muting golden amber and baby blue over the horizon on broken hearts and prickly meadows of evergreen precision. There was nothing left to say-- Not even goodbye as far as she was concerned.

He was still silent when she could feel his gaze breathing down her back. When his breath caught in his chest, he'd had to watch the impossible. His body felt like it had transformed into a lifeless skeleton. 

No matter how intelligent, attractive, rich, charming, fascinating, and maddening Roman might have been, Danielle wanted to absolve herself of the nightmare she'd become victim, rather than continue whatever game he was playing.

She wanted nothing more than to conquer it all with him by her side-- Even if he was one of the few men who ever really interested her. But, in her eyes he'd crossed the point of intolerance.

He paused, a weighty silence.

A long strand of her hair magnetized a curl around a prickly pyramidal hedge before it snapped back into place.

With a dismissive toss of her head, she turned toward the trail and bolted as fast as her pencil tips could carry her.

He'd started to run after her, but knowing Danielle, all she'd give him was the cold shoulder. He knew she'd needed time alone. Time to settle her thoughts-- about him... about everything... and their so-called relationship. He knew she'd had a lot going on in her mind, and enough battling her insides and emotions about where she'd had left to go from this point on.

A few seconds later, she'd stopped cold in her tracks, noticing he'd retreated back to the deck chair. She'd had one more thing to do.

Danielle whisked toward where she'd sat with him earlier. And at that instant, she'd met the face she'd sought never to see again, when suddenly she'd frisbeed her hotel key onto the shellacked deck chair. The heavy force straddled the key on edge of his seat just before it slid to the grass.

His expression blank, Danielle peered up from beneath her lashes, using the opportunity to see him one last time. Amazingly, their first touch just days ago, had her sucking in his spicy redolence. But at this point, she could not have gotten away faster from what had grown stale and familiar. And
this time
, she spun sharp and fast without a backward glance, before she turned to leave and walked away forever.

He knew what she was asking. It was the risk she'd had to take to know whether he'd felt the same feelings as she did. 

Unfortunately monophobia or the excessive fear of solitude hadn't eliminated her wistful regret for what she lacked. Even the backbreaking years on the farm and her acceptance into university hadn't prepared her for a broken heart.

Neither a word was spoken, as she and Roman parted in silence.

Roman watched as her jeans sweetly rounded the curves of her body. Piercing her pencil tipped heels through the grass, she glided toward the trail like a swan across a pond with slender grace and beauty.

Slipping his hands into the pockets of his jeans, he found his gaze drifting to her long curls whisking her shoulders as if she were caught in a hyperactive wind tunnel. His eyes widened, and then he suddenly drew a long and wistful breath. Even still, he couldn't take his eyes off her.

He felt a chill settle his scalp as the trimmed hairs feathered above his brow with the ensuing breeze, as the sun spilled across her white leather fading into the windswept horizon. Her poised silhouette never left his sight, up until the moment she was gone.

Chapter Thirteen

Before Danielle had even made it toward the end of the trail, that was when-- Life threw another curveball at her.

Suddenly, she'd felt a thick, clammy muscle had flung a searing bar of heat across her throat. Before she'd even realized what was happening, her eyes widened in alarm when the meaty arm clenched tighter around her throat, and then all she heard was a raspy voice that said, "One word and it's all over."

His gravelly voice shrewd with anger repeated, "Come on, move it," he said, muscling her along with his beastly body shadowing her svelte poise.

Suddenly, an average man wearing a dark pinstriped suit and meticulously polished brown wing tipped shoes stepped in their path at the edge of the cobblestone trail. The man wore an expensively tailored double-breasted jacket with a pocket square and a gold leaf crest adorning his lapel. His voice was gruff and commandeering, when he sharpened his eyes as he spoke. "Bring her over here."

Danielle was quickly shuffling closer not by her own choosing, as his beastly body jumped the moment he'd heard the order, instantly muscling her onward.

"Unhand me," Danielle gasped, clearly not intimidated. A strange choking sound escaped her lips, drawing the attention of a nearby flock of birds that instantly sprinted into midair.

With a scowled expression, she feigned a cough and returned her attention to the meaty arm pulsing her throat to struggle for a breath.

"I have to talk with her," the man continued, as his slick bottomed shoes glided towards her cutting their tracks near the curb. His wing tips surfed a few curbside pebbles as the specks of gravel prickled and bounced off the glitter of her gold metallic heels. He pulled forward and looked her straight in the eyes, "What made you pry into the affairs of Bartlett Enterprises," he hedged, "You couldn’t leave it alone… You
had
to stir things up."

Flinching in his meaty grasp, the burly man daggered her back with a sharp instrument as warning, tightening his grip around her throat, the moment she bit back a scream toward the garden.

She suddenly stiffened, and then moments later, her gaze strayed back to his pinstriped jacket when he demanded, "Answer me."

His gruff and curt statement was masked by the gold adornments boasting his fortune-- A man obviously intent on amplifying riches and luxury.

"What are you talking about?" she gasped in a choked voice that quite naturally revealed suspicion, although her expression was quizzical.

Danielle remained startled as he continued, "What do you take me for-- a
fool
? You know
exactly
what I'm talking about."

He was of medium height and medium build, in a plaid overcoat and a pair of unfortunately expensive diamond encrusted rings on both pinky fingers. His hair was light brown, but his eyebrows and eyelashes were so pale and wispy that they were practically invisible.

"Do I know you?" she countered. She could see her curls feathering her forehead in his daggered stare, as the wind barely whipped his lashes, moderating its stir.

She grimaced when she saw his smirk roll toward her, thinking quickly to gauge the situation. What was he doing here? What did he intend to accomplish with his accusations?

Danielle could barely take in a breath, as the burly muscle strong-armed a seesawing grip in his suffocating chokehold that was beginning to take more than its toll. Her legs bowed at the knee, quivering against the brink of collapse and every muscle in her body felt like a rubbery mired mess of tendons.

As his gruff voice swelled annoyance, her eyes narrowed sharply on him as she contemplated his foolish claims, not in panic-- but an ensuing rage and puzzlement.

But that evening, suddenly she could remember all too vividly why she couldn't stop remembering the night they'd met. How he, Finch and herself, met for cocktails to take on Barton Industries as
Finch Young and Prentiss, CPAs’
new client.

She managed a shrug. "Well, now I ahh..."

Despite the grip taking its toll further, she struggled and reacted with a nod in defiant accord. She could barely shake her head in the heavy grip wrenching her throat tighter by the minute. All she'd seem to focus on was that gold leaf crest that kept peeking in and out of his overcoat as he'd moved, catching auburn and cobalt shadows.

But as the wind started parting through to his double breasted jacket more and more, she could see the figure that kept pushing her subconscious to recall what she didn't care to summon. Even though as best as she could remember-- was more than she'd wanted him to know.

Danielle stuttered, "B...Barton." She could feel herself stalling, she struggled with the fact that she wouldn't have been in this mess if she'd hadn't gotten into the thick of a biased blame game with Roman... but what she was feeling now couldn't trump the emotions she'd yet to get over.

She was still gasping for a breath to finish her sentence. The moment the meaty arm let up some slack she'd managed to squirm between coughs, "Craig Barton... of Barton Industries."

Barton stood silently watching her squirm, with a crooked grin chiseling his features. His eyes watched intensely at her feverish struggle, as her jacket fringe shimmied and twisted against the wind, her hip ties slapping the denim riding her thighs.

There was silence for a minute. Her metal buckles clanged, paralleling an echo of
Big Ben
’s bell toll clocking a remote distance away. 

Danielle's gaze followed the winding jaggedness of the cobblestone path until her eyes finally snapped shut for a few seconds.

Feeling the old frustration over her, she could remember all too vividly that she wasn't fond of the acquisition when Finch insisted she plunge into the paperwork. She was a junior executive at the time, working under the direction of Oliver Trumball, former managing director of the Fraud department.

They ran a secure operation. Their mission was to expose the hoax of some of the best cover-ups and massive embezzlement schemes that led a backdoor unveiling to some of the world's most insidious covert actions. Trace the funds. Recover the assets. Bring the bad guys to justice.

Danielle's face had suddenly become hot as hell. Her voice pierced the element of his sneer when her breath suddenly roared a spitfire to his pocket square.

"Is this some kind of joke?" she said. At the same time she thought to herself,
You sick nut job
.

Barton clenched his jaw and grabbed her arm. His silk handkerchief was dragging a drippy trail of wet saliva already beginning a path towards his arm, when he told her, "Shut up."

He'd carefully folded the silk handkerchief on its underside as he'd frowned and stuffed it into his inner overcoat pocket.

Danielle was still talking as he'd dealt with the slimy remnant of what was a taut and spotless expensively handspun adornment. She had to tell him again, "How 'bout you let me go and I won't have you brought up on charges of assault." A weighted tension drew to Barton's expression, out of his pale that had completely turned nearly a shade lighter.

Danielle shifted against the curb, surfing her own little wave of pebbly gravel. Her voice held a beseeching tone, which had begun to lower itself the moment she'd felt a sharp instrument press with heaviness into her back, when she said, "I'm not--"

The second she'd felt the sharp instrument suddenly dagger its jab again, her pitch lowered even more, when she continued, "I'm not supposed to be here."

Barton stepped even closer toward her, looking impatient and snarled. She could feel his warm breath brush her lashes. Flinching, she turned away from him. Either he'd missed his morning ritual or he'd been swimming in oral garbage a mile high.
This man could really use a mint right now... Phew
. She twitched her nose as her eyes narrowed. 

"There," Barton said, shoving past Danielle, pushing her heel off balance. She teetered and fumbled for footing, salvaging her shoe as she poised and nudged her foot back into its golden luster. He took a gold lighter and flicked a bursting flame as he saddled back toward her.

Barton gestured to the burly man as he loosened his grip on Danielle, still shoving the sharp instrument with a greater driving force that was starting to dimple her leather.

"This is a mistake," Danielle grimaced as she cradled her stomach, taking an extended breath of momentary liberation. She swallowed hard as she smoothed her hand over pebbled leather and stuffed her hands into her asymmetrical breast pockets.

Barton was startled to see she wasn't intimidated. He ignored her and said, "You don't take warnings well do you Miss Prentiss, well this time caution has expired its time."

Danielle's slender fingers gripped her jacket fringe, and threaded the hip ties between her spiny clutches. In a moment of unrepressed panic, her flesh quickly turned a pale crimson, as her fist tightened the leather to wrinkle.

She felt the same meaty arm touch hers, as the smoldering of an engine drew its smoke-filled breath closer. The sound ruffled her flesh to a new level of peril.  As the beastly man cornered her behind, another brute was his splitting image in build and height. All she could see was her windblown gaze mirroring her reflection in his dark glasses, when he'd approached and flung open a door at the curb.

Danielle was ushered into a dark SUV very much like the one back in the states. Only, this one bared little resemblance in the rooftop storage decking sandwiched atop the metal bracing.

The driver pulled around the curb and headed west, spiraling a vapory trail of smoke into lush countryside. Sandwiched between the two husky muscle made her every breath struggle for air in the packed SUV that might as well have been a sardine can.

It was barely twenty minutes before they arrived at the dock. She'd just about burst from the pressure barreling down on her ribs and thighs when they turned down the main boulevard toward the Thames. She saw little of it. The tackle and gear shops, parlor, haberdashery, and city newspaper-- all passed in a blur.

The suffocating air, or lack of it was mangling her nerves. Honestly, eye-opening suspicion and curiosity kept her from throttling their groins and tearing their flesh with her fingers.

A few minutes later, they were barely down the dock when she heard one of the muscle call out, "Hey, boss... want us to throw her over?" they chuckled. Barton daggered his eyes at them and they instantly swallowed and stiffened.

She was barely over the plank toward a small submarine when she cringed. Something was starting to feel familiar. The same thing she was running from, the sense that she couldn't trust a man as far as she could see him.

Lying scum
was all that kept surfacing her mind thinking about the betrayal of her ex-fiancé, Roman and now another man whom she'd trusted had just completely blown her mind. Jaw-dropping. Eye opening was the hoax of her love life, matter of fact
life
as a whole.

She'd been a fool to love. She had the audacity to think she was capable of finding Mr. Right that always seemed to turn out to be Mr. Wrong. Mr. Absolutely Not Her Type Fear of Commitment. Cheater. Wrong.

She'd been nothing but a fool at heart and in love. It had all been a mistake to her. A mistake plagued in ridicule and her stupid choices for men that could and never would live up to nearly half of her standards or expectations.