“No, I compared the car to you,” he pointed out, one hand on the steering wheel, the big SUV moving so smoothly it appeared an extension of his body. “She gives me a sweet ride, but nothing comes close to my Molly.”
Her heart turned to goo.
“As for your driving,” he said, while she fought the urge to crawl over and distract him from the road, “I’ll set you up with a car and a driver until you’re comfortable on your own.” Reaching out, he tapped her cheek. “I don’t want you feeling trapped.”
Molly’s instinct was to say no, but she knew that was pride talking.
“I take care of what’s mine,” Fox said when she didn’t answer, his tone uncompromising as he pulled off the highway and into a parking spot that overlooked the beach. Switching off the engine, he turned to brace his arm along the back of her seat. “Don’t make an issue out of this.”
Molly hadn’t been about to until that last statement. “I’ll make an issue out of anything I please,” she said, the sound of the waves splashing to shore a gentle contrast to the tension in the vehicle. “Giving orders isn’t the way to get me to agree to anything.”
Fox’s scowl didn’t fade. “You know what I’m like. Did you really think I’d leave you to navigate a new city alone? Especially when you’re going to be dealing with all the other crap that comes with being with me?”
She dropped her head back against the seat and into his hand. “No, of course not, but”—turning, she poked her finger into his chest—“you can’t talk to me like that. I won’t take it.”
Fox curled his hand around her nape. “Then you can’t fight me on everything.” It was a snarl. “Jesus, Molly, let me take care of you. It won’t steal anything from you if you let me make life easier for you.”
Her breath caught at the ferocity of his words. “Am I that bad?”
“Yes.” Direct, furious. “I’ve never had to fight so hard to give a woman so little. You even wanted to pay for the goddamn groceries!” Blowing out a breath, he tugged her closer with the grip he had around her nape, his kiss a stamp of possession. “I make millions. I don’t have anyone to spend it on. I will damn well spend it on you.”
Heart thudding, Molly pressed her hand against his chest. “Yes to the car and driver, but—”
“Always a fucking but,” he growled. “No buts. I told you—I take care of what’s mine, and you are mine.”
“I am not a piece of property!”
He squeezed her nape. “And I’m not your fucking lapdog.” Releasing her without warning, he put the car into gear and peeled out of the parking space to head back to the house.
He didn’t say anything else until they were almost home, when he slammed both hands to the steering wheel and shot her a fuming look. “I’m a man. If that’s not what you want—”
“What?” Molly spoke through clenched teeth, the scream built up inside her. “I should go back to my old life? I quit my job, gave up my apartment—”
“You also promised to trust me!” Fox pulled up in front of the gate to the house, pushing the remote attached to the dashboard to open it. “Remember that?” He powered through the barely open gate and up the winding drive bordered by trees. “What do you think I’ll do? Abandon you penniless and broken like your parents did?”
“You bastard!” Molly fisted her hands, eyes stinging at the brutal emotional slap that shoved her right back to the most horrible year of her life. “I did trust you”—with her deepest pain—“and you—” Unable to continue, she unsnapped her seat belt the instant they entered the garage and, shoving open the door, almost ran into the house.
Dragging her suitcase from the walk-in closet where she’d stashed it, she flipped it open on the carpet and began to throw her things in it as she fought not to cry. When Fox’s hands landed on her upper arms, she wrenched violently away—or tried to. He wouldn’t release her, tugging her back against his chest and wrapping his arms around her upper body in a steely embrace.
She kicked back at him, but her position left her at a disadvantage, her foot barely scraping his shin. “Let me go!”
“I’ll never let you go.” Spinning her around too fast for her to get her bearings, he clasped her to him again.
When she shoved at his chest, he didn’t resist. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I don’t care!” He’d used her deepest vulnerability to wound her. “I trusted you!”
Unbalancing her by hooking his foot around the back of her calf, he tipped her onto the bed behind her. He’d come down on top of her and pinned her wrists to either side of her head before she could catch her breath, his weight crushing her to the mattress. “I’m sorry for the way I said it,” he gritted out, his pupils jet-black against the rich color of his irises, “but I’m not sorry for what I said.”
“Get off me! I don’t want to be anywhere near you!”
“Too bad.” It was a growl of sound. “You’re mine,” he said again, “and I’ll take care of you if it’s the last thing I do. That includes making sure our fucked-up pasts don’t mess up the best thing that has ever happened to me!”
Chapter 25
“You really need to move.” Molly didn’t want to hear the care in his tone, didn’t want to see the unyielding commitment on his face. “I can’t breathe.”
Fox released her wrists and pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Better?” Touching his fingers to the side of her face, he went to run them down to her jaw, but she pulled away.
“Molly.” The hard edge was back in his voice. “I’m no shrink¸ but it doesn’t take a bunch of degrees for me to realize why it’s so important for you to remain independent.”
She flinched. “So you had to throw it in my face?” Returning her to a past that had almost destroyed her.
“You want me to ignore it instead? It’s the big goddamn pink elephant in the room.” Fisting his hand in her hair, he forced her to meet his gaze, the smoky green stormy. “I will never abandon you, never put you in a position where you have no choices.” Shoving off her and the bed in a sudden move, he went to the nightstand to pull out a black leather document holder.
“Here.” Throwing it on the bed beside her when she sat up, he strode to the door. “I know it’ll only piss you off, but I was trying to do something to make you feel safe.” He was gone a second later.
Shaken and feeling as if something precious was slipping out of her grasp, Molly picked up the document wallet. Unzipping it, she slipped out the page on top. It was a letter from an attorney, summarizing the complex legal documentation behind it. That summary was concise and to the point and it stole her breath.
Fox had set up an irrevocable trust fund in her name with a fifteen-million-dollar endowment. The money was being managed by a reputable financial firm, with the income from the principal accessible to her at any time: income that could never be cut off by Fox or anyone else. A generous percentage of that income would be automatically deposited into her account every month in any case.
The multimillion-dollar principal, on the other hand, would only be accessible to her after she spent at least two years with Fox, the clock having started the day she landed in Los Angeles. The payout would be doubled if she stayed five years, tripled if she stayed ten.
Hands trembling, she dropped the documents to the bed and thrust her fingers through her hair. She wasn’t a shrink either, but she could see what he was doing and it broke her heart. Rubbing the heel of her hand over the organ, she got off the bed and went to find him, eventually tracking him to the gym downstairs. He’d changed into cutoff sweatpants and was lying on the bench press, having just lifted what looked like a ridiculously heavy set of weights.
Not wanting to risk disturbing him mid-press, she waited until he’d successfully cradled the bar, then straddled his body. “Look at me,” she said quietly and, when he went to lift the weights again instead, closed her hands over the bar. “I won’t allow our pasts to mess us up either.”