CLAIMED (By the Alpha Billionaire #2) Read Free Page B

wasn’t my boyfriend, he was just a man I spent a few days with. He was my five night stand.
    “Mouthy,” he said before I climbed the first step. I turned toward him and he invaded my space. His hands traced the sides of my face, and he leaned in to claim my lips one more time. “I had to get one last kiss.”
    I smiled, my thoughts a jumbled mess of incomplete sentences.
    “Don’t go back to him,” he said. It was the first mention of Luke all week, and it made me feel like shit. The idea of Luke disgusted me. I’d tasted caviar. I’d never go back to catfish.
    “Don’t worry,” I said. “I won’t.”
    I turned away, peeling myself away from him, and climbed up the stairs to board his plane. I found a seat by a window and buckled myself in, smiling when I thought about the way he’d buckled me in earlier in the week.
    “ You’re safe now ,” his words echoed in my memory.
    I turned to look out the window, where he stood with his hands in his pockets outside his town car, watching. I gave him a wave and he nodded. I’d have given anything to know what he was thinking or if he was going to miss me.
    I was going to miss the hell out of him.
    ***
    That week, life seemed to go back to normal. I spent my days teaching my fifth graders and my nights learning how to cook for one as I graded papers. Every evening, when the sun would go down and I’d click the T.V. off for the last time, I’d think of Sawyer and wonder what he was doing.
    He’d given me his number for emergencies he said, but I didn’t want to bother him. I didn’t want to be that girl. The one who thought a few days of sexy times equated to the beginning of a relationship. I left him alone. If he wanted to get a hold of me, I was going to let him make the move.
    Besides, Sawyer Thomas was going to be just fine without this little Missouri school teacher. He could have any woman he wanted back in the city. The world was his oyster. He’d forget about me soon enough.
    I laid on the sofa in the living room, debating on whether or not 9:00PM was too early to go to bed, when a knock on my apartment door sprung me into action.
    My heart raced, my thoughts immediately going to Sawyer.
    What if he came back? What if he’s surprising me?
    An unapologetic grin claimed my mouth as I smoothed my blonde hair into place and tiptoed to the door. I stood on my toes to look out the peephole. My heart fell.
    Luke. Ugh.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
SIX
     
    Sawyer
    I couldn’t get her out of my head all week. Those five days we spent together were exactly what I needed to realize it was time to move on. I couldn’t dwell on Alexandria’s death anymore, and I sure as hell couldn’t spend my life looking for a replacement version.
    There would never be another Alexandria.
    And there would never be another Maisie James.
    I sat on my jet, a tumbler full of warm brandy in my hand as the fingers of my free hand drummed against the seat next to me. I stood up and headed to the cockpit.
    “Henry,” I said to the pilot. “Where are we?”
    We were headed to Denver for an airline convention, though I was arriving a few days early. I needed to get out of the city for a few days. I needed to clear my head and make sense of the confusing emotions that plagued me since the day Maisie left.
    “We’re over Kentucky right now,” he said.
    “Think we can make a stop in Missouri?”
    Henry nodded, reaching for the radio. “I’ll make preparations.”
    Within an hour, we’d landed at the same little airport I was once stranded at in the same little town where Maisie lived. I’d hitched a ride with a local pilot into town to grab a rental car, and headed to Maisie’s apartment.
    On the way, I stopped to pick up a dozen pale pink tulips. Tulips reminded me of spring, and that’s what Maisie represented to me. A breath of fresh air. A warmed breeze after a long, cold winter. The promise of a new beginning.
    I grabbed the bouquet and headed up the steps to her second floor