Free To Wear His Ring Again by Chantelle Shaw Page B

Impelled by an instinct she did not even try to question, she flew across the lobby.
    â€˜Constantin—
wait
!’
    The sound of Isobel’s voice drew Constantin’s thoughts from the phone conversation he’d just had with the finance director at the New York office. The East Coast of the USA was five hours behind England, and Jeff Zuckerman had seemed blithely unconcerned that it was midnight in London.
    Constantin glanced round and dismissed work issues from his mind when he saw Isobel running towards him. Her blonde hair spilled over her shoulders and he felt a tightening in his groin as he watched the bounce of her firm breasts as she ran.
    â€˜Have you changed your mind about inviting me up to your flat, Isabella?’ His smile disappeared along with his sense of pleasurable anticipation when he saw the look of terror on her face.
‘Santa Madre!
’ He caught her as she literally threw herself into his arms and held her tightly as tremors shook her body. ‘What the hell...?’
    â€˜He was waiting for me outside my flat. He’s so weird.’ Her words were jumbled and incoherent. ‘He wanted me to go with him, and he gave me funeral flowers.’
    Constantin cupped her chin and tilted her face to his. ‘
Who
was waiting for you,
cara
?’
    â€˜David...the man who has been stalking me.’ Isobel released her breath on a ragged sigh as the fear drained out of her. She felt safe with Constantin. It did not even occur to her that her blind trust in him revealed perhaps too much of her deepest feelings.
    â€˜Stalking you?’
Constantin’s eyes glittered fiercely. ‘Do you mean to say that your safety has been threatened by this man? For how long has this been going on? Why didn’t you tell me? I would have arranged security measures, hired a bodyguard to protect you.’
    â€˜I don’t need a bodyguard.’ The stark terror that had gripped Isobel when David had confronted her outside her flat seemed like an overreaction now, and she felt embarrassed that she had involved Constantin. The determined set of his jaw warned her that he would not let up until she had told him everything.
    â€˜I’ve been getting nuisance calls from a man called David for a few months. I’ve changed my landline number and mobile-phone number, but somehow he managed to get hold of my new numbers.
    â€˜He said we had met at a Stone Ladies concert...but I don’t remember meeting him. He phoned me just before I went on stage tonight and said that he would be watching me tonight.’ She bit her lip. ‘I spent all evening wondering if one of the guests was the stalker. When I stepped out of the lift after you’d brought me home he appeared in the corridor.’
    The memory of David’s wild-eyed expression sent a shiver through Isobel. ‘He said it was time that he and I left this earthly world. I’m not sure what he meant.’ She hadn’t waited around to find out, she thought, and shivered again.
    A nerve flickering in Constantin’s jaw was the only indication of his barely restrained fury. Give him two minutes alone with the guy who got his kicks out of frightening Isobel, and the stalker wouldn’t be able to walk, let alone
stalk
a defenceless woman, he thought grimly. The glimmer of tears in Isobel’s eyes and the realisation that she was not nearly as calm as she was pretending to be stopped him from rushing up to the fourth floor to look for the intruder.
    He pulled his phone from his pocket. ‘I’ll call the police.’
    â€˜I’ll do it,’ Isobel said shakily. ‘I have a direct number to report any incidents with the stalker.’
    The terror she had felt when David had accosted her was fading, and she felt angry with herself for not telling the man to get lost. He was probably a harmless overenthusiastic fan, she told herself, although the wild expression in his eyes suggested the