Kill Switch by Penelope Douglas

Think.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. When women think, shit
didn’t go the way I wanted it to.
What the hell was she doing? I did what Rika told me to
do. Almost. I got to work on something. I brought in a crew,
we tore down that fugly fountain and built the one I had
designed and planned, working day and night for two days, so
she’d find it and explore it and hopefully love it.
GGetting the message that she’d be at The Cove last night
gave me hope, but nothing prepared me for how she just let it
happen. How she was already ready when I showed up and for
the first time, she let me touch her, without a guise or a fight.
It was fucking incredible, and for a little while, it was like
the years in between when we were kids and now had never
happened. Nothing existed except us, especially all the bullshit
in between.
It was kind of a date. I kept her clothes on. Most of them.
But every time the spell started to fade, she let all that
other shit back into her head, and I was getting kind of fucking
sick of losing her.
She may or may not love me.
But it was becoming clear. She didn’t want me.
“Sir?” Crane called out, sounding on alert.
I looked up, the door opened, and men, some I had and
hadn’t seen before walked in, all in suits and some with
gloves.
I closed my eyes, sighing. “Fuck,” I mouthed.
My father stepped over the threshold, dressed in a black
suit with a gray shirt, his dark eyes looking up and finding me
instantly.
He was trying to get a hold of me last night, and I blew it
off. He always gave me a long leash, but if he had to snap it, it
fucking hurt.
“What do you want?” I asked, descending the stairs.