He Called Her Too Fat for Love in Front of Everyone, but the Curvy Waitress Became the Only Woman Who Could Save Him

Catherine spent the following afternoon scrubbing the blood out of her carpet with hydrogen peroxide and cold water.

She had applied for three nursing administrative jobs online, though she knew her blacklisted license would make the calls unlikely. She had two hundred dollars in her checking account and seven days before rent was due.

*You should have taken the check, you fool,* a cynical voice inside her whispered.

*No,* she countered, scrubbing harder until the fabric frayed. *The moment you take their money, you belong to them.*

At 7:00 PM, the smell of smoke broke her concentration.

It wasn't the smell of burnt toast. It was the sharp, chemical reek of gasoline.

Catherine dropped the sponge, her instincts screaming. She rushed to the front door, touching the wood. It was blistering hot. From the stairwell, a sudden, concussive *whump* shook the building as a fireball erupted on the second-floor landing.

“Fire!” a neighbor screamed down below. “Get out! The stairs are gone!”

Catherine ran to the window. Smoke was already billowing up from the street. Below, a nondescript black sedan was speeding away into the dusk.

*The Cavanaughs.*

They had tracked the blood trail. They knew Dominic had survived, they knew who had helped him, and they were tying up the loose ends with kerosene.

The hallway was a wall of black, choking soot. Catherine rushed back into the bedroom, soaked a towel in the bathroom sink, and wrapped it around her mouth and nose. She ran to the fire escape outside her bedroom window, kicking out the rusted latch.

The iron grate groaned under her weight, slick with freezing rain. She took two steps down the ladder when a loud crack echoed from below. The rusted supports gave way.

Catherine shrieked as the iron framework sagged outward, pitching toward the alleyway thirty feet below. She swung violently, her fingers digging into the icy railing, her boots dangling in the void.

“Hold on!” a voice roared from below.

A black SUV violently smashed through the alley’s wooden fence.

Dominic Vale leapt from the passenger seat before the vehicle had even come to a full stop. He was wearing a dark wool coat, his chest heavily taped under his clothes, his face pale with fury. Behind him, four armed men fanned out, securing the perimeter.

“Catherine! Let go!” Dominic shouted, positioning himself directly beneath the collapsing iron frame.

“Are you crazy?” Catherine screamed through the smoke, her arms burning with exhaustion. “You have cracked ribs and a punctured lung! I will crush you!”

“I don't give a damn about my ribs!” Dominic’s voice boomed through the burning alley, commanding, raw, and desperate. “Let go, Catherine! I will catch you! *Trust me!*”

The upper bolt sheared off with a screech of tortured metal. The fire escape collapsed.

Catherine fell.

She didn't fall into the concrete.

Dominic caught her. The sheer impact drove them both into the snow-covered asphalt, the breath exploding from Dominic’s lungs in a violent grunt of agony. His stitches tore; blood instantly seeped through his white shirt, but his arms remained locked around her waist like bands of forged steel. He absorbed the brunt of the fall, twisting his body to ensure she landed entirely on top of him, shielded from the falling debris.

Catherine pushed herself up, coughing wildly, staring down at him in horror. “Dominic! Your chest!”

Dominic was gasping, his face white as paper, but his eyes were blazing with a ferocious, possessive fire. His large, blood-stained hand came up to the back of her head, pulling her down toward him, his thumb brushing a streak of soot from her cheek.

“You’re safe,” he whispered, his chest hitching. “You’re safe, Catherine.”

Before she could speak, Marlow and two guards lifted her to her feet, while another two carefully helped Dominic up.

Above them, Catherine’s third-floor apartment exploded into a towering column of orange flame, raining ash down upon the street. Everything she owned—her mother’s quilts, her books, her medical textbooks, her clothes—was gone in a heartbeat.

“Get her in the car,” Dominic ordered, leaning heavily on Marlow, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

“Dominic, no,” Catherine protested, pulling back from the guards. “I can't go with you. This is because of you! They burned my home because of you!”

Dominic turned back to her, his jaw set in stone, his eyes dark with an emotion that looked dangerously close to anguish.

“They burned your home because you saved my life,” he said coldly. “Which means every man who wants my head will now want yours. You have no home. You have no clothes. And by midnight, there will be a hundred-thousand-dollar contract on your name in South Boston. You step out of my sight, and you are dead before morning.”

He held open the heavy, armored door of the Suburban.

“Get in, Catherine,” he said, his voice dropping from a command to something that sounded almost like a plea. “Please.”

Catherine looked at the burning building, then at the man who had traded his pride, his blood, and his body to catch her from the sky.