Determined: To Win (Determined Trilogy Book 3) Read Free

between the two of them. Hence the extra security measures.
    But the part that really frightened David, I think, was finding evidence of Brian at his penthouse. David had insisted that I come and stay with him while all of this was going on, primarily because he thought I’d be safer. I normally lived in a little studio in Oakland where the ‘security system’ consisted of a now broken lock on the door. Having me stay at his place in downtown San Francisco was supposedly safer. He had private, around-the-clock security on top of the normal building security, and honestly, I had agreed to move in without a fight.
    So when we discovered someone had broken in and put a shoebox full of newspaper clippings under his bed, he was understandably shocked. Initially, when I discovered the box, I thought it was David’s secret hiding place, which David later made fun of me for. I believe he scoffed, ‘Really, Samantha? I have a safe. Why would I put anything important in a shoebox?’ Clearly, someone had wanted me to find the documents. I still wasn’t sure why. To scare me? To scare me away from David? To make me mad at him?
    The clippings focused on a girl at UC Berkeley who was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in one of the school buildings. When I first read through the stories, I was beyond surprised to find David’s name interlinked with hers. Try more like shocked. Stunned. Hurt. It took a while, but I eventually got the full story from him. They had been in love (puppy love, as David carefully corrected me several times), and were engaged for about two weeks before she was killed. Neither her parents nor his had any idea about the engagement.
    After first reading the articles, I was heartbroken—after all, David had told me over and over that I was special, that I wasn’t like the dozens of women he had accompany him to social events over the years. The same women who approached me any time we were out in public to warn me about his inability to commit. I already knew his commitment issues came from a deeper, more complex place, and we were working through that. So, of course, learning about the fiancé threw me off. I wanted to believe that I was the only one for him, just like he was the only one for me.
    But back to the clippings. They shook David to the core. He had thought I had learned about Sara Goldstein, his fiancé, from the Internet not a shoebox under his bed. But the contents had me raging with so much emotion I hadn’t stopped to think about that. After learning about the box, he spent all night examining the security tapes with his team, and finally they found a possibility … the person who picked up our dry-cleaning on Fridays. A few Fridays ago, it wasn’t the normal person. He or she avoided the cameras expertly, so we couldn’t see a face, but they had brought a bag with them. A bag just big enough for a shoebox. That had to be it. They must have slid it under the bed while we were in Hawaii, leaving me to discover it the next week.
    Learning this had creeped me out. Not just because of what was in the box, but because it meant Brian knew I was there. Staying with David. And he knew our patterns. He, or someone, had to be watching us.
    On the brief elevator ride up from the garage up to the apartment, David held me at his side, his hand slowly stroking my ass, just out of Thomas’s line of vision. Just his fingers managed to make my heart race. I loved feeling coveted by him; his touch was possessive yet tender. As the doors opened into the foyer of David’s apartment, Thomas disappeared off to the side. I knew what was next, and my whole body was screaming for it. I put my tote down on the table in the foyer and started to slip off my heels.
    “What are you doing, Ms. Sharp?” David looked at me pointedly.
    “Taking off my shoes.”
    “But I like those shoes.” His voiced had changed; it was deeper and more gravelly, rough. His eyes moved from my feet to my eyes. I felt the