By the time I walk past a nervous-looking Mary at the front reception, my adrenaline is spiking so high I know I need to find a way to burn off my aggression. Unfortunately, how I would like to do that isn’t an available option. Sure, I could pick any one of my old New York ‘friends’ and spend a day fucking this out, but fuck me—until I have a taste of the one who tempts me, no other * will do.
With no other options, I have Cam take me back to the penthouse, and I spend the next four hours working my body to the point of exhaustion in my home gym. It’s time for a new plan, but fuck if I know how to get what I want now. Willow is clearly more fragile than I had counted on and challenging doesn’t even come close to scraping the top layer.
A woman like her isn’t going to give a shit about the public Kane. If anything, that might be the biggest hurdle I have to overcome.
Fuck.
The way Willow, a complete stranger, can completely unman me makes me feel like the biggest fucking *. I’m protective to the point of madness over someone who has mumbled a handful of words to me. That’s it. I know nothing about her besides what I’ve learned the two times I’ve been stuck watching her fight and struggle through impossible situations.
Pussy or not, I would be a fool to give up on what I feel shooting straight down my spine when my eyes locked with hers. Stupid man, I’m not.
Willow will be mine. I just have to make sure I don’t harm her further just by being me and everything that comes with being by my side. It takes a strong woman to be able to handle being in the public eye. Most of the fiercest women I know couldn’t even hack it when the media started to have a field day picking apart every single fiber of their life. I don’t even have to know Willow to see that she is as far from fierce in nature as it gets.
I sigh deeply with the direction of my thoughts. Fuck. Fuck! For the first time since I decided she would be mine, I’m unsure if capturing my scared little doe would be the best thing for her or the most selfish thing I could ever do.
I’M JUST IN DENIAL … RIGHT? Surely, that’s why I haven’t broken down after everything that happened yesterday. I’m not losing my shit further than I did in the office yesterday. I mean? it’s not the end of the world that I’ve lost my job and what was left of my dysfunctional family. I’m better off. I know that. I shouldn’t be embarrassed at all that a mega movie star watched me go insane and toss a computer through a glass wall. Okay, well … maybe I should be slightly embarrassed with that.
Crap.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to block out the memories of yesterday that have been assaulting my mind. Everything keeps playing over and over in one heck of a humiliating display of my madness.
The clamoring of my phone vibrations on my nightstand pulls me from the mortification replay. Reaching a blind hand out, I keep my belly on the mattress and my head buried in my pillow. Knocking a few things to the ground in my refusal to just roll over and grab my cell phone only adds to my frustrations.
“Hello,” I mumble into the receiver after successfully tagging the annoying device off my nightstand and looking at the screen long enough to see Eddie’s name on the display.
“Well, aren’t you Sally Sunshine this afternoon,” he quips.
“I love you, Eddie, but right now, I’m really not in the mood for your ridiculously happy disposition.”
He huffs out a breath. “Sweetheart, everyone needs a little of Eddie’s happy disposition.”
“Not me,” I declare.
“Pfft.”
He’s silent for a moment. Long enough for me to wonder if he’s been disconnected. Quiet and Eddie just aren’t two things that go together.
“Why didn’t you call me last night, Will?”
Ah. Looks as though Kirby’s been busy today.
“Willow,” he warns.
“Look, it wasn’t a big deal. Kirby brought me home and supervised while I polished off the rest of that bottle of Jack Daniel’s you left here last month. I just needed to forget. I forgot, and now, I’m over it.”
“You aren’t over it, honey,” he softly says.
He’s right. I’m not. I had to call on all my therapeutic tricks not to revert to the old Willow, who would have plopped her butt on the floor of my pantry closet and ate everything within reach. Getting drunk isn’t any healthier in terms of a coping mechanism, but considering my past of binge eating, it was a better choice for me. Another sign that despite the crushing disappointment around me, I’m stronger. It also helped that Kirby stayed by my side until she helped me stumble to bed.
She must have left afterward because she wasn’t here when I woke up at eight this morning puking.