Beloved Predator (Beloved Series #2)

Two

Ari

It had been an amazing morning. I saw my first sunrise in Key West in almost five years, and it was just as beautiful as I remembered. It was even better that Patrick had been there to watch it with me. He'd been less than thrilled about waking up so early, but I bought him breakfast and a giant cup of café con leche from our favorite sandwich shop before we walked back to the house.

"Ari?" he called, bringing my mind back into the present.

"Yeah?"

"I need to get on Skype with Nat and Petey for a little bit."

"For work?" I asked. "But it's a holiday."

"Yeah, I know. But Nat had some questions before she signs off on the lease."

I lowered my head and nodded. I wasn't ready to go back to work yet, so Nat was still acting CEO. The guilt at leaving everything for her to handle still gnawed at me.

"Okay," I murmured.

"What's wrong?"

I took a deep breath. "It's a holiday and the three of you are having to work."

"It's not a huge deal. She got the lease papers last night and had a couple questions, so I'm clarifying them for her before she turns in the paperwork tomorrow and gets the keys."

"I feel bad. She's pregnant and planning a wedding. She shouldn't have to do my job, too."

"And she insisted on doing your job, remember? So you can get better."

"You're right," I relented with a sigh. "Can you please tell her I'll call her later?"

He bent down to kiss my forehead. "Will do. I shouldn't be too long."

I decided to sit in the sun, so I changed into my black bikini then threw my hair in a ponytail. My hair had finally grown a few inches and was now past my shoulders. After a good coat of sunblock, I grabbed the black notebook next to my side of the bed and headed outside.

Elise, my counselor, had suggested I keep a journal to organize my thoughts. Once I was seated by the pool, I dangled my feet into the water and turned the book over in my hands. Today was the first day where I felt like myself since everything happened nearly six weeks earlier. It felt like a good time to read through the earlier entries just to see how far I had come.

I continued to thumb through the pages, glancing through entries about nightmares I'd had, good days, bad days and days where I didn't know how I felt. I vented my frustrations about the lack of progress into the search for James, my frustrations about my voice not being better, and at one point I just spent five pages venting every little thing that bugged me that day.

A picture from between two pages slid out, which I grabbed and smiled. It was a picture of Patrick and I sitting at a table at one of the open-air restaurants on Duval Street. A tourist had asked me to take a picture of him and his wife with their camera and in exchange he took a picture of us. In the picture, Patrick was making a goofy face while I kissed his cheek. I glanced down at the entry that day, one of the last ones in the journal since it was almost full.

June 30th – when did you realize you loved me?

The rest of the page was blank. I remembered I had written the question in my journal that morning and had intended to write Patrick's answer the next day. However, we had gone out that night and wound up not getting home until two the next morning. The tourist who took our picture told us about a place playing live music and we had decided to go check it out. We danced, laughed and had a great time. Later we walked around until we found a park bench and just sat and talked about random things. It wasn't until we had gotten home and were lying in bed that I asked him. I smiled at the memory...