“Baby.”

For a split second, I think she’s going to say something, but instead she steps over me and walks to the elevator, hitting the button. It takes everything in me not to grab her. A control I never knew I had. Pick her up and carry her back to my home until I make her see reason. Make her understand there is no leaving me. This will end with her being mine. There is no other option. I won’t allow there to be. Period. But I know she needs soft right now. She’s already gotten too big a dose of how deep my obsession runs.

I jump up, running after her, but she doesn’t so much as glance at me. I drop to my knees in front of her, not caring how pathetic it makes me look. I want her to see that I’m willing to grovel. That I’m willing to put my pride aside and literally beg her to listen to me. She is my life, and I refuse to let her go. Losing her isn’t an option, and I will demand she listen, even if it’s from my knees.

“Mallory. You’re going to have to hear me out sooner or later.”

She hits the elevator button again, like it can’t get here fast enough.

“Mallory.” I say her name in a warning.

The elevator door opens, and I reach out to her, so close to touching her, but she steps onto it and turns to face me. She looks painfully beautiful. She’s wearing a black fitted dress with deep purple heels. I notice her hair is down, and it annoys me. Like she’s done it out of spite.

Soft, I remind myself. “Baby. I need you. Don’t go. Let me explain.” It takes everything in me not to tell her I’ll never let her go. That one way or another, she’ll be mine again.

She looks down at me, and then looks away, like the sight of me hurts her.

“Might want to get that tattoo covered.”

With her words, the doors close, and I’m left alone. Looking down, I see I’m shirtless, only wearing a long pair of sweatpants. I hadn’t given a single thought to myself or what I looked like when I ran out of my place. Only that I needed to get to her.

I get to my feet and hit the arrow to take me up to my floor. I need to get ready for work. I need to get my head on straight and figure out how the fuck I’m supposed to win her back without getting kidnapping charges. I’ve got a shareholders meeting today that I’m nowhere close to ready for, but I couldn’t give a fuck about it. The only thing I care about is getting my woman back. In order to do that, I need a plan.

I get on the elevator and rub the place over my heart. I got the tattoo after the first time I saw her, and I never once regretted it. It will stay there until the day I take my last breath, like my love for her will.

I’ll win her back, or I’ll die trying. There is absolutely no room for failure.

Chapter Twenty

Mallory

* * *

I stare at the computer screen, the numbers seeming to mush together. I was thinking I could come into work early and maybe lose myself here. I thought I could get my mind to stop racing, but all I can see is Miles on his knees in front of me as the elevator doors slid closed. It took everything in me to not reach out and touch him.

I made sure I looked as perfect as I could before I opened that door this morning, even if it took an extra layer of foundation to hide the bags under my eyes. I didn’t want him to know I’d been on the other side, miserable and crying the whole time.

He sat there all weekend. I couldn’t stop myself from checking every few hours, thinking he’d leave at some point. I was certain he’d give up, but he never did. The worst thing was so many times I wanted to open the door. I wanted to get in his face and yell at him. I wanted to direct all this anger I had at someone or something. I wanted to figure out what was going on, because my mind was running wild and nothing was adding up.

Osbourne Corp has been a part of my life for a long time. Since I was a senior in high school. First the scholarships, then the internship. These are things I thought I’d earned on my own, and now I’m finding out I hadn’t. My mind can’t seem to shut off as I try to remember as much as I can. Like the fact that I was the recipient of the first scholarship the company ever gave out. That I got the coveted internship so easily, yet didn’t get any other offers.

The truth of Paige’s words hits me. If I did leave, he’d make sure no one else would hire me. He had done so once already. What’s to stop him from doing it again?

All these things floated through my mind this weekend. The little things he’d said about how long he’d waited for me. The way Paige never stonewalled him like she’d done to other men who tried to date me. I didn’t know what to do with all these odds and ends. They didn’t make any sense.

The one thing that keeps taunting me is why did he do this?

I can’t wrap my mind around the idea that he was obsessed with me. I’d never seen him before I came to New York. I would have remembered him, I’m sure of it. But he knew me somehow. Probably knew everything there was to know about me.

Worse, after I really knew who he was, I couldn’t stop myself from digging into him. Looking at every article I could find on the Elusive Billionaire Miles Henry Osbourne, they called him. There wasn’t much in the gossip magazines. Every picture I found of him he was either alone or with his mother. Except for one that looked to be when he was in college with a woman named Ivy Lennox. The picture didn’t make them look like a couple. I recognized the background of the picture and knew they were at Yale when it was taken. The tagline read The Next Big Power Couple? I had to admit they did look good together. She was completely different from me in looks. Tall, long blond hair, a waist that could rival Paige’s and a wardrobe to match her perfection.