‘I don’t want to stop you from getting out. I know you like to explore places,’ I said, getting up and crossing to where the balcony door was ajar, the rain making an even, soothing sound on the plants that surrounded it, screening it from the one next door. ‘I’m just going to stay here tonight, I think. But you should go out if you want.’
I turned back to find his eyes on me. ‘Had enough rain for one day?’
‘Funny man.’
Hunter grinned and I really wished he hadn’t. It should probably be illegal to have a smile that could do what his could.
I grabbed the room-service menu and flopped onto the bed. ‘So! What shall I have?’ I considered aloud, hiding my face by flicking through the laminated pages of the folder, searching through the choices while my heart rate, and other bits of me, settled back to their normal state.
‘Anything good?’ Hunter rolled over onto his stomach and lay next to me, shuffling the book so it lay in front of us both.
‘I thought you were going out?’
‘Nope. I said we could, but I didn’t say I wanted to particularly. I’m knackered. A night in with room service in front of the telly sounds pretty good to me.’
My chin was resting on my hands and, at his reply, I tilted a little so I could see him.
He replied without moving. ‘Don’t look at me like that either. I’m staying in because I’m tired. Don’t overthink things, Mia.’
‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘You don’t have to.’
I pushed myself up. ‘You know, you don’t know me as well as you think you do!’
He followed, stretching as he did so, the muscles in his arms knotting and flexing as a glimpse of tanned six-pack peeked from under his shirt. ‘I know you well enough,’ he replied, lifting the receiver and hitting the button for room service. ‘What are you having?’
The food arrived, and Hunter directed the waiter to leave the trolley at the bottom of the bed. When he’d left, I shuffled down the bed and sat cross-legged in front of it. Hunter came round the other side and, releasing the tension on the knees of his cargos, sat in the same manner, handing me the remote as he did so.
‘Pick something. Preferably something that doesn’t involve having to think too much.’
I scrolled down and found a romantic comedy with Bradley Cooper in it. ‘How about this?’
Hunter looked up from where he was tearing his soup roll. His eyes flicked to me. ‘Anything without him in it available?’
I bit back a smile, and found Love Actually about to start on a different channel, hovering my thumb over the select button as I looked at Hunter. He shrugged and nodded an OK and we settled in to watch something we’d previously seen a tonne of times together in a very different situation. The familiar and unfamiliar entwined.
Staying in the same room hadn’t been quite as awkward as either of us had initially imagined. The first night was always going to be the worst and luckily, thanks to exhaustion and good food, we’d both been too tired to put much thought into getting worked up about it and had instead just lain on our respective sides of the bed and been asleep within minutes. The last few days had been relaxed and free, which gave me pangs of guilt every so often when I remembered I was actually getting paid to be here. Liv merely told me to stop being ridiculous and to come and have another massage.
Three days in and it was my turn to see Hunter walk through the door, soaked to the skin. I said nothing but gave him an eyebrow-raise while continuing to demolish the fruit and nut bar I’d found in the mini bar along with a pot of tea I’d ordered up. I know. I’m British. What can I say?
‘I guess that’s karma for you,’ he grinned back at me.
‘Maybe. The universe works in mysterious ways. Apparently. On the plus side, I can’t see your pants,’ I added, biting off another chunk of chocolate.
He grinned as he kicked off his shoes with the toe of the opposite foot. ‘On the plus side, I couldn’t see yours either.’
I threw a pillow at the back of his head.
‘Is there any of that left?’ he asked, nodding at the chocolate as he picked up the cushion from the floor and tossed it back on the bed.
‘This?’ I asked, holding up the last bit.
He levelled his gaze at me. ‘Yes.’
I popped it in my mouth. ‘No. sorry,’ I said, abandoning manners to get him back for the shameless dig.
He gave a little headshake but I could see a smile desperately tugging at the corners of his mouth as he headed off to take a shower.
The rain had set in and I lay in the dark listening to the steady sound of it, unable to sleep. Across the bed, Hunter’s breathing was just as rhythmic and I closed my eyes again, willing either of the sounds to soothe me back to sleep.
As I finally began to drift, I dragged myself awake again, aware that something was different. Wrong. But unable for a moment to focus enough to work out what the change was. And then I realised what it was. Hunter. The steady, deep breaths he had been taking earlier were now short and shallow. With no one to overlook our room, we’d left the curtains open, but with the moon obscured by rainclouds, it was still hard to make anything out. As my eyes gradually adjusted, Hunter’s breathing got more and more ragged and he began mumbling, broken sentences and names I didn’t recognise. I got out of bed and put the lobby light on, throwing a little illumination into the room, but not enough to wake him, before returning to the bed. As I leant over, his arm thrashed out, his fist gripping the sheet next to me, the knuckles white as the muscles strained to hold on. His brow was deeply furrowed as he called out again, this time in a language I didn’t even recognise.
‘Hunter?’ I called, softly.
His head and arms continued to thrash, the momentum building as his voice became more desperate and strained. A sheen of sweat broke on his face as he suddenly clutched his stomach and cried out in such pain I felt the burn of tears in my throat.
‘Hunter!’ I called again, louder this time but still not touching him, unwilling to get physically pulled into his dream. I’d never been frightened of Hunter’s size – it had been one of the many things that had attracted me to him in the first place – but I knew he was in a different place right now and, until I knew more, I wanted to keep us both safe. Behind his eyelids, a flash of something stilled him momentarily at my call. But it was fleeting and, almost immediately, he was back in the nightmare.
As his arm thrashed out close to me again, I called once more, louder and more forcefully. His eyes opened and he looked at me. But he was unfocused and I could see he wasn’t really there with me, not quite yet.
‘Hunter. It’s Mia. You’re safe. You’re in the hotel room with me in Malaysia.’ As I watched, his gaze gained recognition and his breathing gradually began to slow. The hand that had gripped the sheet with such strength and desperation earlier now gradually opened and relaxed. ‘You’re OK,’ I reassured him, taking his hand and holding it. This was yet another view of the Hunter I didn’t know. The Hunter who “had reasons”, according to Sandeep, for his behaviour. The Hunter who’d cried out in such horrific pain that I knew I’d never forget the sound for as long as I lived. He told me he knew me but I knew for sure now that there was another side to Hunter Scott I had absolutely no idea about. I fully expected him to take his hand away as he focused on me and his breathing returned to normal. But he didn’t. Instead his fingers curled around mine as he closed his eyes and said nothing.
We sat there in the quiet, his hand holding mine, the only sound around us the rain as it fell, lighter now than it had been but just as steady. After a minute or two, Hunter opened his eyes, the deep blue rimmed now with red. His thumb stroked back and forth over my hand as he stared past me before his gaze drifted back. A flicker of something passed across his face as his hand tightened around mine. It was like a faint shaft of light as he finally decided to remove the barrier and open up to me. And then, just as quickly, all was dark again as he let go and sat up in the bed
, scrubbing both hands back and forth quickly over his hair, freshly cropped by the hotel’s barber that morning.
‘I need a shower.’ He threw the sheet back and swung his legs round, moving quickly to the bathroom, leaving me where I was, wondering what the hell had just happened.
When he finally came out, my eyes were closed but I was still awake. When I opened them he was standing with his back to me, dressed in training shorts and pulling a clean T-shirt over his head. I propped myself up on one elbow and the sound of movement made him turn.
‘I thought you’d gone back to sleep.’
‘No. Are you all right?’
‘Yes. I’m sorry I woke you. Get some rest now, OK?’ He moved towards the balcony.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Just out here. Go back to sleep.’ Hunter stepped out and a moment later I heard the creak of the wooden lounger as his muscular bulk settled on it. I blew out a sigh, kicked the sheet away and got up. Slipping on the silk dressing gown Liv and I had found in a tiny little shop in the city a couple of days earlier, I grabbed two bottles of mineral water and padded out to the balcony.
A pale streak of light from the garden hit the balcony and, as I stepped out, I could see his expression was set to unimpressed at my ignoring his instruction. So what else was new?
‘Here,’ I said, handing him the bottle. He looked at it for a moment before taking it and opening it.
‘Thank you. Now please would you go back to bed? It’s the middle of the night and I already feel bad for waking you.’
‘No. And don’t. I wasn’t asleep anyway.’ I plopped down onto the lounger next to him.
He put the bottle to his lips. ‘Impossible woman.’
Nothing I hadn’t heard before.
‘Hunter. Please talk to me. I’m worried about you.’
He turned the cap of the bottle over and over in one hand, twisting it in and around his fingers. ‘Don’t be. I’m fine. There’s really nothing to talk about.’
‘We both know that isn’t true.’
‘Mia. Leave it. Please.’
‘How am I supposed to do that? You’re thrashing about, calling out in a language I’ve never heard you speak, completely distressed—’
‘Look. I’ll get another room tomorrow. Somehow. And then—’
‘I don’t care about you getting another room, Hunter! I care about you!’
He looked away, swigging from the water bottle. I moved to the end of his lounger, forcing him to look at me.
‘In all the time we were together, you never once had a nightmare. Not once. But I saw your reaction to the noise of the fireworks in India. And now this tonight?’
‘Mia, don’t.’
‘I have to, Hunter! You made this big thing about needing to know where your team is at all times. But that has to work both ways. I need to know where you are too, but it’s clear a part of you is somewhere else and I want to help. I can’t bear seeing you like this!’
‘So don’t watch then,’ Hunter snapped.
‘That’s unfair,’ I said, my throat tight with hurt and anger. ‘I’m trying to help but I can’t do that if you insist on being such a stubborn arsehole all the time.’
‘I don’t recall asking for your help. And really? You’re going to sit there and give me a lecture on stubbornness? That’s fucking rich!’
‘Excuse me?’
He shoved himself up and swung his leg round so he was astride the lounger, his face close to mine. ‘I told you to go to the doctor the minute you landed on your arse and hit that rock, but oh no, you have to show everyone that nothing can hurt you. Nothing gets in the way of the will of Mia Walker. You can never bear to show any sign of weakness because you’re under the mistaken impression that, by doing so, people will think you’re weak when in fact it means nothing of the sort! And no matter how many times I tried to tell you and show you that, you never got it. So, don’t you dare start on me about stubbornness. All I wanted was for you to get checked out, just to make sure you were safe before you did that fucking jump, but you wouldn’t, would you?’
‘I didn’t do the bloody jump anyway so what the hell are you so worked up about?’
‘Because you were prepared to risk your life just to prove a point! On something you didn’t even want to do anyway! You always have to prove something, don’t you, Mia? You always did. It’s so important to you to show everyone just how tough and independent you are. I never understood it and I never will. You’re beautiful, clever and great at your job. But it’s never enough for you to believe that. This obsession with proving yourself all the time could have killed you! You need to stop! Now! You don’t have to keep doing this. Don’t you get it? You’ve completely missed the point that the people who care about you don’t need anything proving to them. Ever.’
‘Seriously?’ I yelled at him. ‘You’re going to sit there and tell me I don’t need to prove myself when you’re exactly the reason I’m constantly doing that on this trip! Maybe you’re right about the others. But you made it non-negotiable.’
‘What?’ He pushed himself up quickly, stepping in front of me as I stood and turned to go back inside. ‘You’re putting this on me?’
‘This time? Yes, you’re bloody right I am!’
‘Oh, this should be good.’ He crossed his arms in front of his chest, and waited.
‘You know exactly what you did, Hunter. Now please move. I came out here to try and help you, but you know what? I don’t care any more. You can deal with whatever shit it is you have going on by yourself as that’s clearly working so well for you. I’m going to bed.’
Hunter didn’t move. ‘Not until you tell me why this is all suddenly my fault.’
‘Because from the moment you took this job you started trying to get me thrown off it! You must have known what this could mean for me but you still tried to screw everything up. I never would have done that to you! To anyone! And I never would have thought it of you. I know I hurt you, Hunter, and I’m sorry. I really, really am. But I can’t change what happened. I knew I could never change your personal opinion of me. I know there’s a part of you that will always blame me, and hate me for ending things, and I have to live with that. I knew I could do this job, but you were so adamant I couldn’t – that I wasn’t the right person for it – that I’m continually having to prove to you that I am.’
I finished my tirade and we stood there for a moment. Silent, not moving, like two chess pieces approaching checkmate. And then my body reminded me that it was three o clock in the morning and it was knackered.
‘Excuse me.’ I pushed past him and he let me as I headed back inside.
Having splashed cold water on my face, I dropped the dressing gown on the chair and set about straightening the sheets on the bed. As I was finishing, Hunter stepped back through the door, his eyes wary and intense. I was exhausted and he looked the same. What both of us needed was just to get some sleep.
‘I always knew you could do the job.’ His voice was soft and raw. ‘Never doubted it for a moment.’ The smile that accompanied the statement was honest and sad.
I looked up from where I had now got into bed, the sheet pulled up around my chest. He took in the confusion on my face and rubbed his hand over his lips and jaw. ‘You were right from the start. It was about you. Not wanting to have to do this with you.’
Dipping my head so he wouldn’t see just how much his words cut me, I shuffled my back up against the headboard a little more, and played for time. Ready, I lifted my head and found myself hooked straight into his gaze. I wrapped my arms around myself tighter, over the sheet.
‘I don’t suppose I ever thought you’d truly forgive me. But I guess I hoped you would. I mean, you’ve obviously moved on, dating models and actresses and socialites, all of them incredibly beautiful. Your career is phenomenal. You travel the world doing what you love. You have everything you ever wanted. Why are you still holding on to your anger at me? Can’t you find it in your heart to let tha
t go? For both of us?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘I don’t have everything I ever wanted, Mia. And the why? Because you broke my heart. Completely. Utterly. And I didn’t know how to deal with that. So initially I turned it into anger. Admittedly, probably not the healthiest choice I could have made, but still. I wasn’t thrilled about this whole deal because the thought of spending time with you again...’
‘I understand,’ I replied quickly, smoothing the sheet in front of me, and doing my best not to show just how much his words had affected me.
‘No, Mia. I’m not sure you do.’ The sad smile was still in place as he sat on the bed. I opened my mouth to say something but he cut me off. ‘It’s late.’ The words were laden with meaning. He was done talking.
Hunter lay back on top of the sheet, his feet dangling over the end of the bed, and closed his eyes. He lifted one arm and laid it across his forehead, blocking some of the light. I flicked the switch and threw the room back into darkness. Sliding down into the bed, I lay for a moment, still and listening. The rain had stopped now, the odd drip as it fell from the sodden leaves the only reminder of the storm. I turned my head and, as my eyes adjusted, I could see Hunter’s arm had already slipped away from his face. The nightmare had drained him. I couldn’t help thinking that the ensuing argument probably hadn’t done much for him either – it had sapped my energy and I hadn’t been fighting demons immediately prior to it. I listened for a moment more as I closed my eyes. Hunter’s breathing was soft and steady. I hoped for his sake that it would remain so.
Chapter Nineteen
‘Gosh! You two look tired,’ Liv chirped when Hunter and I met them for breakfast the next morning. I’d actually groaned when I’d looked up from cleaning my teeth that morning at the dark circles under my eyes. Olivia, by contrast, was looking bright and perfectly pulled together as usual. I remembered what Hunter had said about not comparing myself, and gave her a weary smile.
The Christmas Holiday Page 19
