Read What He Explores (What He Wants, Book Twenty-One) for Free Online

Charlotte,” he demanded.
    I shook my head. “No.”
    “You are really beginning to try my patience.”
    “If you don’t let me go, I’m just going to try your patience more,” I reported.
    “Charlotte.”
     “I’m serious,” I said. “Think about it. If you don’t let me go, I’m just going to start running around trying to figure things out for myself. You don’t want that, do you?”
    “What I want is for you to follow the rules.”
    “But –”
    “Charlotte,” he said. “If you are not in the car by the time I count to three, I will pick you up and put you there. One…two… three.”
    I stayed rooted to the sidewalk, daring him to follow through on his promise.
    A second later, he did, scooping me up and setting me gently in the passenger seat. He buckled my seatbelt around me and as he pulled back, he leaned down and spoke right into my ear.
    “Don’t think you won’t pay for this later,” he said, his breath tickling my skin. “I will take this out on your body.”
    And then he shut the door.
    My hands clamped together in frustration, my mind working the problem over in my mind, trying to figure out a way to get Noah to agree to let me go with him.
    The solution occurred to me as soon as he got in the car and started the engine.
    “If you don’t let me go,” I said calmly. “I’ll go talk to the police while you’re gone.”
    “I will lock you up,” he said just as calmly, guiding the car onto 42 nd Street and heading back uptown toward our apartment.
    “Ha!” I said. “With who guarding me? The security guard who let Detective Rake bully his way right to our front door? Good luck with that.”
    “Let me worry about who will be guarding you.”
    “It won’t matter,” I said. “I’ll never be as safe as I am with you.” It was true.
    Noah’s jaw twitched, his hands tightening on the steering wheel. He had no weaknesses except one – my safety.
    I stayed quiet, watching as he mulled it over in his mind, trying to figure out where I was safer – with him and Lameuix, or here alone in the city.
    “Fine,” he said. “But we’ll take the jet.”
    “You have a jet?” I asked, shocked.
    “Of course I have a jet, Charlotte. I’m a billionaire.”
    “Are we going far away?”
    “Not really.”
    “Then why do we have to take the jet?”
    “Because,” Noah said. “Detective Rake isn’t going to give up that easily. If he doesn’t hear from you soon, he will resurface. And when he does, it will not look good for you to have left the city.”
    Detective Rake.
    I’d almost forgotten.
    God, he thought I’d killed Jason Cartwright. Nausea rolled through my body as I remembered the detective’s words. Stabbed. Blood everywhere.
    Suddenly, I felt light-headed, and I took a few long deep breaths until I felt better.
    One crime at a time, Charlotte, I told myself. For now worry about Lameuix.

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    “ T his is yours ?” I asked an hour later as Noah’s driver, Jared, pulled our car onto the tarmac at JFK. There was a shiny black jet waiting on the runway, its nose rising majestically toward the sky as if it were ready to take off at the push of a button. Which, I guess, technically, it was.
    “Yes.” Noah had been distracted on the ride over, spending most of the time on his phone as he dealt with the other cases on his docket, scheduling court dates and coordinating with his junior associates.
    He finished typing the email he was working on, then placed his iPad in his briefcase.
    As he did, the sleeve of his plaid button-down slid up and flashed the face of his black Rolex. Apparently Lameuix was holed up at some compound in Upstate New York, and according to Noah it was in the middle of nowhere – so he’d insisted we stop at home and change before Jared drove us to the airport.
    I was wearing a pair of jeans and a blue sweater. Noah was wearing jeans, too, but they were dark washed and expensive looking, his shirt navy blue and hunter green. Heavy brown