The rest of the evening passed without incident. They’d reheated their food and eaten while Dimitri started working on signing all his preorders and Becca went through his email, answering what needed to be taken care of, then working on his new book’s teasers. It released next week, and she’d been remiss in working on the project.
Not that she really got much done. Her thoughts were too screwed up. Never had she expected him to declare he had feelings and in the same breath admit he wanted to tie her up and fuck her. She wasn’t that girl. But…
Yes, but. There was the crux of it. She had liked it, way too much. Enough to think about letting him do it.
Could she really let him do that?
Maybe.
Did he really love her, though, or was it his lust talking? That was what worried her. He’d found a bright and shiny new toy to play with. Once he got bored or too frustrated, he’d toss her aside. That was why she demanded no sex. It would only complicate matters. If he still felt the same way about her in a few weeks, then she’d know it was real, that it wasn’t only a lust induced declaration. She had to be sure.
Finally done with Dimitri’s stuff, she opened her own Facebook page and wasn’t surprised by the messages waiting. Was she going out with Dimitri, what happened with Dimitri and Henry, and finally Henry demanding to know what was going on. So much drama. This was why she kept her personal life off Facebook.
She answered everything as best she could then left Henry a message explaining her anxiety and why she’d reacted the way she had. Normally, she wouldn’t have explained, but he was a good friend, and he’d not blab about it to everyone.
Dimitri’s phone rang, the noise harsh in the comfortable silence. He looked up and motioned for her to grab it since it was next to her. How it managed to find its way to the couch, she had no clue.
“It’s Mason.”
“Answer it for me, please?” He kept signing, and she shook her head. She’d never met Mason.
“Hello?”
“Oh, hello.” The younger version of Dimitri’s voice sounded confused. “Ah…sorry, I think I have the wrong number.”
“No, you don’t.” Becca chuckled. “This is Dimitri’s phone. He’s just busy at the moment.”
“Umm…I’m guessing I don’t want to know what he’s doing?” The hesitancy gave way to flirtation. “But you can tell me what you’re doing.”
She got up and walked over to where he sat in the floor. “Your brother is cute.”
“He’s a brat.”
“Yes, he is your brother.” She remembered the word meant brother.
“No, I mean brat in the American sense of the word.” He reached for his phone, and Becca laughed. She knew Mason gave them all a hard time.
“What?” Dimitri barked into the phone, irritated. He was almost done with this shit. Couldn’t Mase have waited until the morning to call?
“What put a bee up your ass?”
“You don’t want to know.” He watched Becca flop back down on the couch, her very braless boobs bouncing. Shit, why the fuck had he agreed to two weeks with no sex? It was going to kill him. He already had a serious case of blue balls. Two weeks of that? He’d be hospitalized.
“Anything to do with that sexy as sin voice that answered your phone?”
“Keep your fucking thoughts off her.” Dimitri almost snapped the Sharpie he held. “Got it?”
“Fucker, I wasn’t trying to move in on what’s yours. I was just asking a question.”
“Yeah, my mood has everything to do with her. Now, what the hell do you want at two in the morning?”
“Viktor called and told me about your stalker. I didn’t get a chance to look her up until about an hour ago. I was finishing the IT setup at Conner’s new club.”
“What club?”
“He didn’t tell you?” Mason yawned. “He’s opening a new club in New York. Since all you fuckers seem to be migrating there, he wanted to be close to family and bought some property in the city. He should be set up to open in a few months. He just wanted the IT stuff done first, for security purposes.”
“No, the motherfucker didn’t tell me he was opening a dance club.”
“I never said it was dance club.”
The mirth in the boy’s tone set Dimitri’s teeth to grinding. “Then what kind of fucking club is it?”
“Sex club.”
“The fuck?” Conner owned a sex club? What the fuck? Did Viktor know? They were twins, after all. Something he’d ask him later.
“Yeah, well, take it up with him. I only set up his damn computer system and the security. We need to talk about your stalker, one Miss Charlene Moyer.”
“What about her?”
“You have no idea who she is, do you?”
“A woman I fucked regularly for a couple months, that’s about it.”
“Well, she has a history. She seems to like to attach herself to rich boyfriends. There have been some issues. I’m still digging, but it’s enough for me to tell you to change all your passwords for everything, and I mean everything. Block her on all your social media.”
“Becca already did all that for me, at least the social media stuff. I’ll change my passwords for everything else tonight. Why is this so urgent?”
“She can get a little too clingy. Nothing psychotic, at least not that I’ve found.”
“But?”
“But she has caused some serious fallout for these guys. Ruined images, she even got into the online banking of her last boyfriend and emptied out his accounts. There’s an actual arrest warrant out for her in Philadelphia. She knows her way around a computer.”
“Well, fuck.”
“Yeah, fuck. I did some preliminary digging and found she’s posting all kinds of stuff on her page about you. Nothing I can really do there unless you want me to hack her?”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Oh, the usual spurned lover shit. How you are horrible, selfish, tossed her aside for some new whore. By that, I think she means the woman you’re with?”
“The woman I’m with is Becca. She came down to help out with the book signing.”
“Your PA Becca?” Mason asked, surprised. “She sounds hot as fuck.”
“She is, and get your mind out of her pants. Charlene isn’t…”
“What the hell?”
Becca’s shout yanked his gaze over to her. “What?”
“Your ex-flavor of the week is posting shit about me.” Her brown eyes were almost black with anger. “People are sharing her posts on my page, Dimitri. I don’t do this drama crap. She’s calling me a sixpence whore.”
Dimitri snorted, trying to keep from laughing. Sixpence whore? Leave it to Charlene to try to sound smarter than she was. “That is kind of funny.”
“It is not funny!” Becca screeched, shoving her laptop aside to jump up and start pacing. “People are going to read this shit, Dimitri. They’re going to believe it, and then they’re going to start asking me questions, all of them everywhere, crowding me…”
She bent over, her face going red. “Let me call you back, Mason.”
Becca heard him hang up with his brother, but barely. The thoughts of everyone talking at her, surrounding her, it was too much. She couldn’t breathe, her lungs constricted, black spots appeared in front of her, and she couldn’t stop shaking.
“I’m here. Calm down, sweetheart.”
“Don’t touch me!” She pulled away when he tried to comfort her. “This is all your fault.”
It wasn’t his fault, not really, but her brain needed to blame someone for this, and he was the obvious choice. Her teeth started to chatter and she fell down, her arms wrapping around her legs to try and to the uncontrollable shaking.
Faces swam up, faces from the signing, Henry hugging her, Sara Jane moving closer, Dimitri telling her she had to go. No, no, no, no. She couldn’t do this. It was too much. She wheezed, trying to pull air into her lungs.
Her inhaler was thrust into her mouth and she did her best to inhale as the medicine sprayed. Please, just breathe. Four puffs and she started to feel the effects of the life-saving medicine. She didn’t need it, but her brain thought she did. It was a trick to fool the body. Air filled her oxygen-starved lungs.
Dimitri pulled her into his lap and started to rock her. Her panic was so severe, she barely registered it or the way he spoke to her in Russian. All she could think about was what people would think, how they’d react, how they’d make her talk to them, crowd her…
It was the humming that finally broke through her panic-induced haze. It was low and right by her ear, broken and horrible, but it was a constant. The melody started to edge out the mind-numbing paralysis that was her personal brand of anxiety.
Dimitri. He was rocking and humming, his arms tight around her. Her breathing slowed, her heartbeat stopped its rapid staccato. He patiently rocked her, humming while her body relaxed, the panic receding. No one, not even her brother, could calm her panic, make it completely dissipate.
But Dimitri could.
“Better?” he whispered, the warmth of his breath tickling her ear.
She nodded, not trusting her voice. Music played in the background, so softly she couldn’t even make out the lyrics, but the tone was definitely country. So much for his hating on the genre. The thought tugged a small smile from her, and she went from hunched in on herself to relaxing against him, her ear pressed to his heartbeat, which was slow and steady.
“It’s going to be okay. I promise. I’ll deal with Charlene. She’ll never bother you again.”
His ex-flavor of the week had already done the damage. There were people calling her a whore, a homewrecker, a slut…she buried her face in Dimitri’s shirt, trying to not think about it.
“People believe her, D.” She sniffed, trying to hold back her tears. “They are calling me all kinds of awful things.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” He stood, picking her up with him, wincing. His legs were on fire, but he ignored the pain. “Let’s get some sleep and deal with this in the morning, okay?”
“No sex,” she mumbled.
He laughed and strode into the bedroom. Pulling the blankets down, he put her on the bed and climbed in behind her. She rolled into him like she’d done it a thousand times before, and Becca closed her eyes, letting the sound of his heartbeat alongside the gentle rise and fall of his chest lull her into sleep.
Dimitri waited until he was sure she was sound asleep before he left the bed. Finding his phone where it had dropped, he opened up Facebook and navigated to Becca’s page. What he saw made him see red. That fucking bitch. She was saying some truly awful things about his woman.
He called Mason.
“Yo?”
“Shut the bitch down.”
He hung up and crawled back in bed. He had to meet Viktor for breakfast in a little under three hours.
Then he’d get this damn signing out of the way and they’d be on the first train back to LA, where he could have his woman all to himself. He just had to get through tomorrow.