Denied Read Online Free PDF Page B

general.
    Then she thought of someone.
    There was only one person she knew who had tried to help her, and now he owed her a favor.

 
     
    Monster (Present Day)
     
     
     
     
     
    Monster stood in his kitchen drinking brandy, straight, from a heavy-bottomed glass tumbler. He stared out of the window at the grounds and the tall wall surrounding his property, lost in thought.
    Despite spending his entire life in this house—only leaving its high walls for the first time a matter of weeks ago—this place no longer felt like home. He missed her with every fiber of his being, his Flower, his reason for becoming the man he was now. He’d made a choice—a selfless choice. He could have kept her here and lost himself in her soft flesh and warm kisses, but doing so would have been entirely selfish. Just because he’d taken care of the Gonzalez-Larrinaga brothers didn’t mean there weren’t repercussions for what he’d done. A death never went unpunished, and he’d taken lives of two important men here in Cuba. If she was here, it only put her at risk. These were brutal, ruthless people, and if they got any hint that she was someone he cared about, they would use her to hurt him. The idea of her being put in the same situation as she had been with the Gonzalez-Larrinaga brothers speared pain deep inside him. That whole thing could have gone so badly. What if he hadn’t reached her in time, if he hadn’t regained consciousness, and they had raped her? The thought of another man forcing himself inside her luscious body made him want to punch down walls and hurt people.
    But that hadn’t happened, and he wouldn’t take the risk of it happening again.
    He’d let her go because he loved her. He knew she’d be furious with him right now. She would be cursing his name and telling herself she hated him, and though it hurt, that was the right thing for her to do, too. If she hated him, she wouldn’t try to look for him. Cuba was a big place, and he didn’t think she knew what area she’d been in. That would help deter her from coming back and trying to find him. The other thing that would deter her was the extreme measures he’d taken to send her back. The drugs had been the kind doctors used when needing to put their patients under for a length of time. He’d hired an anesthesiologist to travel with her the whole way, and the doctor had reported back that though she’d come out of the anesthetic a couple of times, she hadn’t known what was going on, and they’d left her at her apartment safely. The doctor had even stayed with her until she’d regained consciousness.
    Flower was home, and safe, and that was all that mattered to him. Even if someone came after him to avenge the deaths of the brothers, they’d never even know she was still alive.
    The shrill ring of the telephone caused him to glance away from the window and toward the living room, which he’d turned into his office. Carrying his glass into the other room, he pressed down on the worry that rose inside him.
    Monster set the glass on his desk and picked up the phone.
    “Yes?”
    “It’s Sean Hamilton, sir. I’m calling with a report on your mark.”
    Something in his chest tightened. “Yes, thank you. How is she?”
    “She seems to have recovered well enough from her ordeal, physically, that is. After she woke up, she broke a number of things in her apartment—”
    “What do you mean she broke them?”
    “I’m mean she was angry, sir. She shouted and smashed her belongings up.”
    He’d expected her to react badly to waking up back in her apartment, but still the idea of her breaking her things twisted his gut. He remembered when she’d thrown his books at him in her anger when she’d been here. Perhaps he shouldn’t be so surprised she’d reacted how she had.
    And it’s good she’s angry, he told himself. It means she hates you. She won’t want to ever see you again.
    “There’s something else, sir,” the man said down the