Relentless (Fractured Farrells: A Damaged Billionaire Series Book 5)

by Mallory Crowe

  “And leave you alone? No. I’m taking option C.”

  “There is no option C!”

  “Option C is where I remind you that I’m your boss. And if you call the police, the local police who all know you personally, I’m just going to tell them about our...relationship.”

  Her face paled and she took a step back. Her words belied the blow he’d just landed. “So what? This isn’t the dark ages. I don’t need to walk around wearing a bright red A because I slept with my sleazeball of a boss.”

  “You’re not perfect, Katy. I might worship the ground you walk on, but your damn pride is going to get you killed.”

  “My pride!”

  “If you would’ve accepted all the help that came along with having a filthy rich family, you’d never be in this tiny, unprotected house all alone with a guy you can’t stand.”

  “And now my house is tiny? Fuck you, Nathan. I worked my ass off to get this house and it’s perfect and it’s mine and I’m not going to let you walk in and insult me.”

  “I’ll stop insulting you the second you listen to reason. I’m staying, Katy. And if you think you can make me leave, then you have no idea what a Farrell is capable of.”

  “That’s it.” All the sudden, Katy ran for the living room. Nathan didn’t really know whether she thought she’d pull one past him, but it was no struggle at all to reach a hand around her waist as she ran past and pull her back against him. Unsurprisingly, that only pissed her off more; she scratched at the arm holding her against him and kicked at his shins.

  Nathan grunted but didn’t let her go. After a few moments, she seemed to calm down and he waited until she was still before he spoke again. “Now are you going to listen to reason?”

  “I’m not the one being unreasonable!”

  Well...yeah. But he wasn’t about to admit that. He looked around the house. There wasn’t much to see from where he was. The living room, the bathroom, the kitchen behind them and then, of course, was the little bedroom where they’d spent most of their time while he’d been here earlier. But there was one more option. A set of stairs that led up. The bedroom on this level had no personal effects at all, so Nathan figured her bedroom was upstairs.

  “I know you’re tired, so let’s just—”

  Katy slammed her head back and Nathan only just avoided it. “Son of a—” He twisted her around and before she had a chance to go after any of his vital organs, he bent down and pushed his shoulder into her stomach and stood.

  He carried her like that up the stairs as Katy screamed out a list of threats at him, getting more and more graphic with every step he took.

  Her loft bedroom didn’t have a door and, like the rest of the house, wasn’t large, but it was decorated with a light, beachy vibe. He almost felt as if he’d stepped into another room at the inn. Except this would be the White Room. The walls, closet, curtains, and bed were all white, with only the barest hint of patterns on anything. The vaulted ceiling was wood grain but had been stained with a light gray to go along with the theme. Nathan liked it, but he figured this wasn’t the time to give her compliments on interior decorating.

  Instead, he crossed over to the bed, where he bent forward and plopped her down. Katy bounced once and a piece of her blonde hair fell out of her ponytail and into her face, making the effect a thousand times sexier.

  He forced himself to look away and did one quick scan around the room. The lack of a door made his job infinitely harder.

  “If you even think about touching me, I swear—”

  “Too late.”

  “What?”

  “I thought about it. So...too late.”

  “You’re a pig.”

  “Yeah, well...” Nathan bent forward and set an arm on each side of Katy.

  She stiffened but didn’t back away. Instead, she crooked her jaw and met his eyes.

  “You weren’t complaining last weekend, were you?” he asked quietly.

  “If I remember correctly, I complained a lot. Constantly, in fact.”

  When he bent in until her lips were just an inch away, he kept on waiting for the punch or kick or something, but all Katy did was stare at him in an anger he’d never seen from her. “I seem to remember a few nicer words. Oh, wait. Not words. You weren’t capable of speech at the time, were you?”

  Katy sucked in a breath, but before she said anything, Nathan reached over and snatched up a pillow before he pushed away. He saw the confusion pass over her face as she sat up and followed him with her eyes as he set the pillow on the floor and laid down.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m being a gentleman.”

  She snorted as she backed up on the bed until she sat against the white headboard. “That ship has sailed. How long do you expect to stay there?”

  Nathan adjusted himself so he could pull his cell phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen as though he was seriously considering his answer. “Well, it’s nine o’clock now so I suppose...all night.”

  “I don’t need or want a babysitter.”

  Nathan didn’t respond. Instead, he started a fruitless attempt to get comfortable as he kicked off his shoes and pulled off his belt. The jeans were not going to get any less restricting, but he figured Katy wouldn’t appreciate him taking off his pants. And he hadn’t grabbed a blanket, so he’d probably need the extra clothing.

  He didn’t come here for a good night’s sleep. He came here to make sure whoever was threatening Katy wasn’t going to go through with anything stupid. The less comfortable he was, the more likely he’d be awake if anything suspicious happened.

  “Your car isn’t outside,” pointed out Katy from the spot she hadn’t moved from.

  “If you knew I was here, you’d have your brother kick me out. And you’re mad enough at me now. Imagine how pissed you’d be after I beat up Dean. I parked a block down.”

  She snorted. “You think you’d stand a chance against Dean?”

  Okay, that offended him. Nathan sat up and glared at her. “You’d be surprised what I’m capable of when I’m motivated enough.”

  “Like kidnapping?”

  “It’s your own house.”

  “Holding me hostage.”

  “Hate me if you want. I’m not moving.” Nathan lay back down to prove his point.

  He heard rustling and looked over to see Katy climbing off the bed. Instead of walking toward him, she went in the other direction, toward her closet. He hoped like hell that she was getting ready for bed and not about to grab a gun. She started to unzip the back of her dress and Nathan didn’t look away. At this rate, he was never going to get another chance to see Katy naked again.

  She was still facing away from him when she said, “I don’t get you, Nathan.”

  “What can I say? I’m an enigma.”

  “No. You come here saying you want me and you love me, but over and over again you’re proving my point that we can never be together.” She pulled on an oversized t-shirt and then quickly put her legs into some baggy pink pajama pants. It looked as if she were wearing more fabric than was included in her comforter. That couldn’t be her normal bedtime outfit. Probably extra covered for his sake.

  Joke was on her because he could still clearly make out the outline of her body through the white shirt, which made the jeans suddenly more uncomfortable. “You’ll get over this eventually.”

  He heard her climb back into bed and didn’t bother to look at her expression of disbelief. “I doubt it.”

  “You’ll be alive. That’s the most important thing.”

  “Stop justifying it to yourself to make you feel better. You’re not the good guy here, Nathan. You’re just a pushy rich boy who is throwing a tantrum because things aren’t going his way.”

  Nathan couldn’t hold back his laughter. His head fell back against the pillow, and he covered his eyes as the absurdity of her words hit him.

  “What exactly is so funny?” she demanded.

&n
bsp; He sighed as the laughter came to an end. “You said I think I’m the good guy.” He sat up and met her eyes from across the room. “Katy, I don’t think I’m good at all. And I don’t care if I have to lie to you, buy you, or cheat you. I’m going to do whatever I need to do to make you mine.”

  To say Katy had a hard time sleeping was an understatement. But every time she glanced over to see whether Nathan was awake, it had been impossible to tell. He hadn’t moved from his position in front of her stairs. The only time he’d gotten up was when she had tried to sneak by in the middle of the night.

  She’d figured he’d have to be out cold by then, but as soon as she’d put her feet on the ground, he’d shot up. When she’d said she had to go to the bathroom, the son of a bitch had even followed her downstairs, though she’d slammed the door in his face. She half debated just staying there the rest of the night, but she wasn’t going to let his asshole behavior cause her to sleep on the hard bathroom floor.

  So she’d wordlessly gone back upstairs and tried to get through the rest of the night. She’d thought of all the ways she could keep this from happening again. Maybe she could get her locks changed in the middle of the day. But her doors had been locked. How had he managed to get in? Probably used that stupid hard head to break a window or something.

  The second she saw sunlight creeping through the window, Katy was awake and getting ready. It was much earlier than normal, but she wasn’t spending a minute longer in this room with Nathan than necessary.

  Once again, the second she sat up, Nathan was up too. Did the man sleep at all? Nope. She wasn’t asking. Served him right for what he pulled last night. She turned her back to him as she pulled out the first dress she saw. A sleeveless heather-gray dress with white stripes to soften it up. It had always been a go-to work outfit because the dress had pockets, which always came in handy. Then she grabbed some fresh underwear and shoes from her closet before she took everything to the downstairs bathroom to change.

  Nathan didn’t rush to use the bathroom before her and she took her time while getting ready. Let his bladder suffer. In fact, her main focus of the day was going to be making Nathan suffer.

  After about fifteen minutes, she had changed clothes, brushed her teeth and had her work makeup in place. Nathan took her place in the bathroom while she went to the kitchen and started up a pot of coffee. She glanced around her. There was no sign of an overnight bag or anything.

  Maybe Nathan hadn’t thought this through. Some spur-of-the-moment decision to come over and bother her for an entire night. While the coffee started to brew, Katy went to the living room, sat on the couch and took her phone out of her purse. It was a good thing Nathan had kept her separated from her cell because she would’ve called the cops on him no matter how bad he tried to make her look. Calling them now would be a bit of a moot point. They’d both be at the inn in a little bit.

  She missed a text from Dean, but it was just a quick thanks for dinner. She should’ve thanked them considering they paid, but she’d remind them how grateful she was later that afternoon. Besides that, she had a voicemail from Levi. Darn it. She’d completely unloaded on him that morning and he’d called to check on her.

  Sure, he was a bit too clingy, but yesterday she’d given him reason to be clingy. She put in the passcode to access her voicemail and listened as Nathan came out of the bathroom. Katy held up a finger to signal him not to say anything as Levi’s voicemail came on.

  “Katy, um, hi. Sorry I missed you. I kept thinking about our talk this morning and I know you are just torn up about all this change at the inn. I want to help and, well, I think I can. Call me back as soon as you get this. I have something I need to tell you.”

  Katy groaned as she hung up and stared at her phone.

  “Everything okay?” Nathan leaned against the archway that led to the kitchen.

  “No. A Neanderthal broke into my house last night and won’t leave me alone.”

  He didn’t take the bait. “What was the phone call?”

  “Not the cops, if that makes you feel better.” She got up and moved to check on the coffee, but Nathan didn’t get out of her way. She glared at him as she squeezed past him in the doorway, the side of her arm and hip just brushing his body.

  She’d made just enough coffee for one cup and it was almost done. So she pulled down a traveler’s mug and filled it up. If Nathan wanted coffee, he’d just have to wait until they got to the inn. So there.

  As soon as her coffee was poured, she flipped off the lights and left the kitchen, once again brushing against Nathan. He followed her as she grabbed her purse and walked out the door, making sure it was locked before she walked to the car.

  “I’ll see you at work,” said Nathan, but Katy ignored him as she got into her car and slammed the door, locking it behind her in case he got any bright ideas about riding with her. He drove to her house and now he could get in his own car and drive away.

  As she finished the short trip to the inn, her exhaustion hit her. She really did need more sleep than she’d gotten. This is going to be a coffee-filled day. The only good thing was that this gave her a good excuse to sequester herself in her office all day and avoid any and all of his family members wandering around. Hopefully they were all satisfied with what they saw and would be on the road sooner rather than later.

  When she pulled into her parking spot, she glanced around but didn’t see Nathan’s car. Of course she parked in the back of the lot, to allow guests closer access, and by the time she was approaching the entrance, Nathan was pulling in and getting out of his car too. Katy carried on with the silent treatment; the second she reached her office, she swung the door shut behind her. For a few moments, she waited breathlessly to see whether Nathan would continue his ridiculous plan to stalk her for her own good, but it seemed as though she had a reprieve for the moment.

  She finally let out a sigh of relief as she fell into her chair and started to boot up the computer. Maybe now she could get a bit of normalcy back. Thanks to the sale and the inn booked full of important people, she’d gotten hardly anything done yesterday, so she had a good reason to retreat into her office and be a recluse for the day.

  As the computer started, she checked her three voicemails on the work phone. Two were from the overnight front desk clerks with some simple things for her to deal with through the day but it was the third voicemail that had her sitting up. It was Levi again. “Hey, Katy. You’re probably not at work. I mean, well, it’s late so you’re definitely not at work, but I called you earlier and you never called me back and I really need to talk to you. So when you get in, why don’t you give me a ring so we can talk about some important things? Very important. Okay, well, I hope you have a great night, I mean, you’ll be hearing this in the morning, so have a nice morning and call me back ASAP. Thanks, bye.”

  Katy stared at the phone for a few long seconds. Well, that was...interesting. Levi was prone to rambling on but that seemed different. He didn’t seem like he was his normal awkward self. He sounded scared. Damn it. Katy pulled up his information on the caller ID. He’d called at eight at night. A little before he’d called her cell phone. She hit the redial button but after a series of rings, it went to voicemail. Katy tried him once more but there was no answer.

  She took a drink of coffee and turned to her computer. She would deal with Levi later. He was probably working and couldn’t take her call right now. But as she pulled up her emails for the day, she kept thinking of the tone of the call. The urgency.

  “Damn it,” she muttered as she pushed away from the desk. It was a short walk to Levi’s house and she could see whether he was there, and if he was, they could clear the air. If he wasn’t, at least she could say she tried.

  Katy took her coffee and her phone with her as she walked out the back door of the inn and started along the path that would lead her to Levi’s home through the woods. Right as she reached the edge of the trees, she paused. This early in the day, everything normally seemed q
uiet and peaceful. Except today the peace was gone and all she could think about was that stupid phone call yesterday where she’d been threatened. The call that had apparently upset Nathan so much that he felt the need to force his way into her home and not leave.

  It was hardly likely that there was someone who’d been waiting in the woods since yesterday on the off chance that Katy was going to walk through. She was going to be fine.

  She stepped into the woods and immediately turned back and didn’t stop until she was standing in the sunlight.

  “Stupid, paranoid, good for nothing...” she muttered as she unlocked her cell phone and dialed the front desk. Sean answered with the customary greeting for the inn. “Sean, it’s Katy. Can you connect me to Nathan’s room?”

  “Katy? Uh, sure.”

  She was happy he didn’t ask for any explanations because she sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to explain. Once the call was connected, it rang twice before Nathan answered.

  At least he wasn’t sleeping.

  “Hello?” he answered.

  “I need you downstairs in the back courtyard. Your stupid paranoia was contagious and this is all your fault, so you’re going to suffer too.”

  A few beats passed before he said, “Be right there.”

  Katy hung up and crossed her arms over her chest as she second-guessed herself. She shouldn’t have called him. She could’ve had Sean come with her. But then there’d be no one to cover the front. If Mr. Burkhart had been staying here, she never would’ve called him.

  She was only doing this to punish Nathan, but the fact that she was scared was just proving him right. God, she hated this. She hated feeling afraid at her inn. She hated that Nathan had gone and done something so stupid. Because for one stupid day, she’d gone and thought that they had a chance.

  It wasn’t long before Nathan made his way across the courtyard toward her. He’d changed into a fresh darker wash pair of jeans and a hunter-green sweater. Katy took a drink of her now lukewarm coffee and wished it was something stronger.

  “You taking me out to the woods to shoot me?” he asked once he was close enough.