Free Run to Him: The Full Novel: A Domination/Submission Alpha Male Billionaire Suspenseful Romance (The Billionaire's Beck and Call Book 4) by Delilah Fawkes Page A

my previous one had been, too.
    Max .
    He’d loved the way I stood up to him, the way I’d pushed him, the way I’d stayed true to myself, even when he was trying to “upgrade me” with clothes and shoes. The way he did it, though, was like he was trying to coax out the real me—the person I’d be if I had all the confidence in the world. He saw the beauty in me and worked to get me to see it, too…
    God, I missed him.
    But, after everything that happened, I supposed I’d never see him again. Never see his stupid blue eyes that made me melt each time he looked at me, or see that horrible black curl fall over his forehead that made me want to touch him and kiss him and—
    Enough! I had to get it together and stop thinking about what I couldn’t have. I had a job to do, after all, as crazy as it was.
    I tipped at the counter and left, trying to calm down before walking in those big, gilded doors.
    I was just making my way over to the case holding women’s watches when I caught a glimpse of someone tall, dark and handsome across the aisle. For a moment, I thought I was seeing things: I had just been thinking about him, after all. But then, that familiar deep voice met my ears, and I clapped my hands over my mouth, ducking low behind the counter.
    “It can’t just be any ring,” he said to the clerk, leaning over the display case with him. “It has to be unique—bold, but delicate, and as stunning as she is.”
    He was wearing a long, dark coat over a silver-grey suit that made his eyes glint like sapphires. His face looked more drawn than I remember, like he hadn’t been sleeping well, but to me, he was still as handsome as ever. Maybe even more so.
    And here he was, buying a ring for some other girl.
    God, I was an idiot to think he ever loved me.
    Tears threatened to spill, but I took a deep, shuddering breath, willing my over-caffeinated self to keep it together. If I waited him out, maybe he’d leave without seeing me.
    “Very good, Sir,” the slender man helping him said. “She sounds like someone truly special. I can tell from the way you speak of her, that you love her very much.”
    He smiled, and my heart did a painful little flip in my chest.
    “It’s impossible not to,” he said. “Everyone who meets Lucy Willcox is changed for the better.”
    I gasped, then cursed myself as his head swung my way. Before I could move, his long legs had carried him around the counter I crouched behind, and I looked up to see my Max looking down at me.
    “Lucy!”
    “M-Max… How ya been?”
    How ya been? God, I sounded like an idiot!
    He reached down and pulled me up onto my feet, then clasped my hands in his. He was warm, his touch as electric as ever as he held me, surrounding me. I could smell a hint of his cologne, and beneath it, that heavenly scent that was just… him .
    “Lucy, how much did you hear?”
    His blue eyes searched mine, vulnerable and worried. I’d only seen him like this one other time: when he asked me to stay with him, that night under the stars. When he asked me to be mine, and waited, heart-in-hand, for my answer.
    “I heard enough to think this Lucy gal is pretty lucky,” I said, meeting his gaze steadily.
    “Oh, yeah?”
    He cracked a sideways grin at me and kept holding me close.
    “Definitely.”
    “And if I told her that I can’t stop thinking about her… that my life is in shambles without her… that I love her more than anything in this world… do you think she’d still feel lucky?”
    I ran my thumb over his, and smiled back, warmth filling me from head to toe at his words.
    “She’d feel like the luckiest girl in the world,” I said. “She’d be a fool, too, if she didn’t tell you that she loves you right back. More than she can possibly say…”
    Tears stung my eyes now, the words catching in my throat, but I didn’t need to say anything more. Not then, at least.
    In that moment, looking at one another, right there, in the middle of Tiffany & Co,