THE BILLIONAIRE'S GIRLFRIEND

THREE.

He was dressed in black from head to toe. Even his face remained hidden in the shadow, but the energy crackling in the room could not be hidden. It could not be ignored.

Malora could only stare at him, while her jaw had fallen off and rolled into somewhere in Antarctica.

He was here!

He was really here!

"Don't look so shocked, Malora." His voice was low, calm even, but beneath all that calm, there was a storm brewing. She'd known him for a long enough to know when he was about to explode. "I told you that I keep close eye on my things."

Malora flinched at that word. He considered her his thing. She should say something, she knew. She should yell and tell him to get out of her life just as she'd planned to do if he ever came knocking on her door, yet all she could do was gape at him like a fool.

Her brain seemed to be stuck on a repetitive loop of: 'he's here!'

He rose from the chair and stepped into the light so she could see him better. Malora couldn't help the inaudible gasp that escaped her lips.

Master T had changed so much. There were deep line around his cold, emotionless gray eyes. A thin, but deeply healed scar ran down the right  side of his face. What had been his long, shiny dark hair was now a fancy buzz cut that was so low it showed his scalp. It made him look ruggedly, rouge-like and dangerous.

Malora took an unconscious step back. She didn't recognize this man in front of her. He looked nothing like the  man who'd taken her on vacation. The man who'd rescued her from the Paw's of that evil man. The man who'd thrown his body over hers to save her. No.

Standing in front of her was a man who looked as if he would crush her without a second thought. It made Malora's heartache.

"Did you think I wouldn't find you?"

Malora could only stare at him while her heart raced faster. "H-how—"

"Did I find you?" he finished for her. A  laugh escaped his lips, but his eyes didn't reflect it. They remained cold and unflinching. "It doesn't matter."

It did matter, because her life would never remain the same again. The feelings she thought were long dead began to stir in her gut. Which was a bad sign. A very, very bad one.

"What matters is that I've found you, and I am here to collect what you owe me."

Malora licked her lips and in a breathy voice asked, "what do I owe you?"

"Forty-seven days."

She squinted at him, hoping she heard him wrong. "Did you just say—"

"I am not in the habit of repeating myself, pet." His lips twisted into a smirk when she flinched and took a step back from him. "Or have you forgotten that I bought you with my money."

Tears filled her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to let them fall. Malora would never show this man, whoever he was now, her vulnerable side again. Even if it killed her.

"I owe you nothing, Mr. Pitts."

He stood up straight with his legs slightly apart and folded his arms across his chest, all the while keeping his eyes on her. "I think you mean 'Master T', pet."

Malora gritted her teeth so hard they hurt as she mumbled, "don't call me that."

"I will call you whatever I want because you're mine." His tone was deadly cold. Devoid of any emotion, and that scared her. This was worse than if he shouted at her. "I paid for your services for three months, pet, and you still owe me forty-seven days."