Gaige

It had taken everything I had in me to keep my hands off Arabella and get her settled in bed last night. I’d wanted nothing more than to rip off all our clothes and climb in beside her, but I’d managed to hang onto my control for two reasons. The purple smudges underneath her beautiful green eyes were visible proof of how badly she needed sleep. Plus, I didn’t want to run the risk of her thinking that I only wanted sex from her. After spending two years thinking about her, I knew this was going to be more. My gut told me that she was my chance to have what Vaughn had found. That Arabella was the woman with whom I’d build a life. And another thing my experiences in the Army had taught me was to trust my instincts, even when they were telling me something that most people would think was completely insane.

“That’s the last of my stuff,” Arabella called out from the bedroom.

I wandered into the bedroom and shook my head at the two suitcases at the foot of the bed. The rose gold colored, hard-side pieces were an exact match to the four other pieces waiting at the door. “How many days were you planning on staying in LA?”

“Ten,” she admitted sheepishly. “I guess it’s too late for me to hide that I’m a little high maintenance?”

I looked her up and down, taking in all the beauty standing in front of me. “You don’t need to hide anything from me, sweetheart. I can handle high maintenance.”

“Good.” She beamed at me. “And luckily, I can handle bossiness since you’ve got that covered in spades.”

I chuckled, knowing she was right. I’d always been someone who liked being in charge. But with Arabella, it was a necessity that went to a whole new level. It could have been because she was in danger, but I was fairly certain I would have been the same way with her without the circumstances that led to me finding her again. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t use her mystery admirer as an excuse to get her to follow my orders, just like I’d done when she woke up this morning and I’d told her we needed to check out and switch to a room under my name at a new hotel. She sighed in agreement without arguing, and it had made me want her even more.

“Can I get that in writing?” I teased, moving towards her and pulling her into my arms.

“Why? Do you plan on being this bossy after you figure out who’s behind all of the gifts?”

“Damn straight.”

She beamed up at me, looking impossibly beautiful with her blonde hair falling in curly waves down her shoulders and her green eyes shining up at me. “Good.”

“Good?” I cocked my head to the side, confused by why she was so damn happy about that when it should have irritated the shit out of her.

“Yeah, because it means that you think you’re still going to be around.”

“Oh, I don’t think it. I know it,” I corrected her.

Her smile grew wider, and I was driven by the need to feel it against my lips. I cupped her cheeks in my palms and bent my head low to give her what I’d intended to be a quick kiss. It didn’t turn out that way, though, and I didn’t lift my head again until the bellhop knocked on the door to help us with the luggage. I had them load it all into my rental and called to have Arabella’s returned. If the person sending her the gifts knew where she was staying and what she’d ordered for dinner, then it only stood to reason that they also knew what car she was driving.

My first goal was to limit this guy’s access to her as much as possible, and the second was to do some digging and figure out who the hell he was. We left the hotel with the taste of her in my mouth and her laughter ringing in my ears. It set the tone for the rest of our day, even with that task hanging over my head. When we got to the studio, I did a quick check of Arabella’s dressing room while she waited in the doorway, and a much more thorough one while she got ready. Then I spent the day making calls and searching for information on the internet, all while keeping Arabella in my line of sight.

I hadn’t gotten very far, and it worried me. Whoever was behind it all had covered their tracks fairly well. The chocolates and flowers had been handed off to different production assistants when they’d been dropped off. They hadn’t come with cards, and Arabella hadn’t kept them. Neither of the assistants remembered much about the deliveries since they worked their asses off for hours on end each day. The flowers were a dead end for sure, but I was hoping to be able to track something down on the chocolates since their only location in the United States was in Hawaii. Odds were good that they’d been shipped to LA, and if so there must be a record of it somewhere. I just needed to hunt it down.

By the time they were almost done with taping for the day, I was beyond frustrated with my lack of progress. My mood wasn’t improved in the least by how closely she worked with her fellow judges, both of them men. The Italian one was a terrible flirt, but he was old enough to be my father. So I didn’t worry about him too much. But the blond one everyone seemed to defer to in the kitchen? I kept my eye on him.

They were a perfectly matched pair, standing side-by-side as they talked to the remaining contestants. They would have made a striking couple, with their made-for-television looks and complementary skills in the kitchen. The same couldn’t be said for Arabella and me. We were total opposites. She was super girly, and I was all man. Her world was filled with decadent desserts, while mine had been all about danger for too many years. If I was a better man, I’d leave her to someone like Owen Walker. But there was no way in hell that was going to happen. I wasn’t willing to walk away from the undeniable chemistry between us.

Arabella finished demonstrating a technique for the chocolate soufflé that helped her win the show when she’d been a contestant, and Owen beamed at her in approval. I wanted to storm over there, get between the two of them, and beat the bastard’s pretty-boy face into a bloody pulp.

“Don’t worry. He’s not flirting with her.”

I shifted in my seat at the amused feminine tone. I found a dainty brunette standing a couple of feet next to me, staring at the same scene I’d been avidly watching.

“I wasn’t—”

“Oh, please,” she laughed. “I’m way too familiar with the expression on your face to not know exactly what it is. The guy you’re glaring at?” She pointed at the tall, blond chef standing too damn close to Arabella. “That’s how he looks whenever another man gets too close to me.”

I glanced back and caught the dirty look he was sending my way. Any guy who was that territorial about their woman wasn’t going to be interested in mine. I chuckled and relaxed back into my chair. “Okay, maybe I was.”

“There’s no maybe about it. You definitely were.” She laughed softly as she dropped into the seat next to me. “How come Arabella’s never mentioned you? I don’t know her that well since we only met this week and things have been insane since we’ve been here for filming. But girls tend to chat about the men in their lives, and it’s a little odd that she hasn’t said a word about you. I got the impression that she was single.”

“It’s a relatively new development,” I answered, mostly in the hope of stemming the flow of words from her.

“Ah, I’m familiar with those.” She wiggled her left hand, showing off a huge diamond engagement ring. “Owen had me moved into his house and sleeping in his bed the night we met, and three weeks later he was sliding this on my finger.”

“Hmm,” I murmured, my gaze sliding to Arabella again, easily picturing my ring on her finger—marking her as mine to any man who got too close.

“Why do I feel like I just sparked a competitive streak in you?”

I shrugged non-committedly.

“I did, didn’t I?” she laughed, drawing both Owen and Arabella’s attention our way. I enjoyed the flare in those green eyes I’d become fascinated with as my girl noticed who was in the chair next to mine. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.

“You might have,” I admitted as I got to my feet. I was a man of action. If a celebrity chef could bag his woman that quickly, then I damn well could too.