Chapter 17

Bastian

 

 

I fucked Joanna Lind.

The statement replayed in the back of my mind as I scrolled through an email sent by Ashton regarding a few other investments I might be interested in. No matter how much I had tried to tell myself to walk away from her, to not fall into temptation because of my own fucked-up issues, I had caved in.

It had been worth it, though. I felt sated in the best way possible, even if I felt guilty as hell for letting myself go there. I actually felt proud of myself for holding out so long after arriving in Park City and that mouth-watering striptease I had stopped Joanna from continuing with.

I got up from my office chair to head downstairs for another cup of coffee this morning. Joanna had taken up residence in the living room as her own personal office, but she wasn’t seated at her usual spot near the fireplace when I came down the stairs. Her guest room door was wide open, but there was no sign of her inside. Her phone and purse were still on the bedside table.

Marcie was sweeping up the kitchen floor when I walked in. She smiled up at me warmly as she paused.

“Morning, Mr. Burke,” she said. “I imagine you’re looking for your secretary?”

“Maybe,” I said. I reached for the full coffee pot to pour myself a cup. “Do you know where she is?”

“She said she wanted to walk the back field,” Marcie said. “Don’t ask me why she thought it would be a good idea. She bundled herself up pretty good, so I imagine it’s going to be a long walk.”

I glanced at the kitchen window in bafflement to see footprints in the snow along the backside of the house that headed in the direction of the forest. I turned to look back at Marcie, who continued sweeping.

“Did she say why she was going for a walk?” I asked.

“Something about needing to clear her head of a few things,” Marcie said, frowning. “I tried to tell her that it wouldn’t be a good idea to go out there. Wolves are coming in, looking for food, but she said she would be fine.”

“How long has she been gone?” I asked, glancing up at the clock. “There’s a storm coming in again. Once it snows, it snows.”

Marcie looked up at the clock as well with a frown. “Maybe a few hours. Two at the most.”

I nodded mutely in Marcie’s direction because I didn’t trust my voice at the moment. Anger tore through me as I jogged upstairs to get changed. Venturing out into the wild and cold did not sound like a clearing-the-head type of walk. It sounded like a subconscious death wish to me.

I knew without a doubt that we needed to talk about what had happened the day before. It couldn’t happen again. Even if I kept thinking about, fantasizing even more about other things, I didn’t want to risk harming Joanna’s already fragile emotional state. I was no different than Sid, besides physically harming another being because I felt angry or was insecure with myself.

Dressed in thick clothes, I grabbed my father’s old rifle from the gun cabinet in my office. I loaded a clip in before hurrying down the stairs to rush out the front door. The snowmobile I kept in the barn for traveling around the property during the wintertime fired up immediately when I turned the ignition. I slid the strap of my rifle across my shoulder so that it rested safely on my back but would be easy enough to pull forward in case I needed to take aim.

I cranked hard on the throttle and darted out across the snow in the direction of Joanna’s footprints. The evergreen pines were covered in snow as I maneuvered through the patch of forest with one eye trained on Joanna’s footprints as they moved farther into the woods.

“Where the fuck are you going?” I asked, shaking my head in disbelief

I finally spotted Joanna’s petite frame struggling through a patch of snow that was nearly hip deep. She twisted around in visible surprise to find me pulling up behind her on the snowmobile. Despite being bundled up in a snowsuit and a thick hat, I could see the blue tint to her lips. Snow clung to her eyelashes as well.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I barked down at her, stopping the snowmobile next to a tree.

Sliding down in the cold snow, I trudged my way through the thick snow and patch of trees to where she was struggling to walk. I paused at the edge of an embankment she had slid down.

“I wanted to go for a walk,” she said, her eyes settling on the gun strapped to my chest. “I thought I was going back in the direction of the house.”

“You’re going farther into the forest, not in the direction of the house.”

“I am?” Joanna twisted about in the snow to fully face me with a frown. “I thought—”

“You thought wrong,” I snapped and crouched down to offer a gloved hand. “Get out of there. Do you realize that you’re asking for death right now?”

She took my hand gingerly. “How am I asking for death out here?”

“There’s a damn blizzard coming and you’re wandering around in the forest, trying to clear your head, with no sense of direction.”

I pulled her up the embankment with a bit of effort because of her thick snowsuit and boots. Once she stood in front of me, I resisted the urge to kiss her passionately to warm her cold lips up.

“Not to mention wolves,” I said. “They come down in the wintertime around here to look for food. Hence the reason why I don’t keep livestock here during the wintertime.”

Joanna’s eyes visibly widened at that. She glanced over her shoulder and then at the surrounding trees and snowy ground.

“I didn’t realize any of that,” she said. “I thought I was going in the right direction. Why did you come out here?”

“To find you,” I replied, shaking my head at her in irritation. “This was the last thing I wanted to do today, you know? Come out here to find you walking around here like your head is cut off.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your morning.”

The sound of wolves howling in the distance cut my response short. I grabbed ahold of Joanna’s gloved hand to pull her hurriedly in the direction of the snowmobile.

“We need to get out of here,” I said. “There are wolves hunting us right now. They were probably tracking you through the snow, too.”

Joanna’s hands were trembling as she grabbed ahold the back of my jacket once we had climbed onto the snowmobile. She cautiously adjusted the rifle strapped to my back so that she could smoosh up against me while I turned the snowmobile back on. We flew through a sea of parting snow back in the direction of the mansion. The howling of wolves grew distant as I sped through the trees to go back up the slope of my property.

I didn’t slow down until we were parked inside the barn. I motioned for Joanna to follow me back into the mansion. It wasn’t until I stepped onto the porch that I saw the pack of wolves sniffing along the fence line of my property.

“That’s why you don’t go wandering around the forest,” I told Joanna, a bit harsher than I had intended it. “You understand that those wolves were following you? You were an afternoon meal to them.”

“I didn’t think—”

“Yes, you didn’t think!” I burst out and turned to look at Joanna standing motionlessly on the front porch. “That’s my point. You didn’t think about a damn thing when you went out there. It’s like you have a weird death wish sometimes. I don’t get what the problem is.”

“I don’t have a problem,” Joanna said, tears welling up in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Bastian. I don’t know what else to say.”

I sighed as I pushed the front door open. “Just don’t do something like that again, okay?” I’d rather not be picking up your limbs off my property.”

“I know.”

“And I need to talk to you about what happened yesterday,” I said, catching Joanna’s eyes as she shuffled inside to unzip her snowsuit. “Meet me in my office in a few minutes. I’m going to get my stuff and put the gun back.”

She nodded while I slipped out of my boots to head upstairs. The heat from the fireplace rolled over me as I walked past the living room. I unzipped the thick layers away from me to toss them back into my closet. I walked back down the hallway to where Joanna was already waiting for me inside my office. Her eyes immediately went to the rifle I held in my hand. Nerves flashed there, so to ease them, I pulled out the clip to set it in the gun safe. I closed it, spun the dial, and turned to look at Joanna.

“What is going on inside your head?” I asked, shaking my head at her. “It’s hard to understand you sometimes.”

Her eyes narrowed a bit. “Speak for yourself, Bastian. I have no idea what’s going on in your head most of the time, or what you even want from me.”

Uncomfortable with the conversation turning back on me, I made a point of walking over to my desk to straighten a few papers there. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I had to do something to save her from having another broken heart. The thought of even committing myself to a relationship terrified me.

“I think you are the most beautiful woman on this planet,” I said. I noticed the doubt creeping into her eyes. “I’m being one hundred percent serious with you. I firmly believe that you are one of the most compassionate people I’ve ever met in my entire life. You’re too good for me, Joanna. What happened yesterday—”

“This sounds like a breakup speech,” Joanna said, crossing her arms over her chest. “What is really going on with you? I can see that something is weighing you down.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but I couldn’t find the right words. I couldn’t describe the surge of pure fear that had gone through me when I’d learned that Joanna was out in the forest alone with an approaching blizzard and a pack of wolves.

“I just don’t want you to think that it’s okay to run off the way you did today is all,” I said. “You fucking scared the life out of me, knowing you were out there running around.”

Joanna frowned at me skeptically. “That’s what you’re honestly upset about?”

“That part I’m upset about,” I said and sat down on the edge of my chair. “The other part I’m not upset about. I just want you to understand that what happened the other night can’t happen again.”

Hurt flashed in Joanna’s eyes as she gazed across my office at me.

“Why?” she asked quietly.

“I want what’s best for you,” I said. “I really mean it, Jo. I respect you, and I want to make sure that you’re always going to be okay. I just don’t want to sacrifice our working relationship because of anything that happens between us. It just needs to be a one-time thing—the other night. I know we are attracted to each other, but that can’t change anything between the two of us. I’m your boss at the end of the day. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”