So why was he trying to save her? Why had he proposed marriage to the very woman he was trying to destroy?
He didn’t know. Nor did he care. His hand smoothed over her soft skin, enjoying the way she snuggled against him, her soft, sweet breath soothed against his skin. She was unlike any woman he’d ever been with.
Marriage! Damn, he couldn’t believe he was going to marry this woman! Never in his life had he considered marrying. Anyone! But the thought of this woman being his, of protecting her and seeing her grow huge with their children…yeah, that was suddenly what he wanted more than anything in the world.
His body hardened just thinking about Hayden being big with their children. He thought about a little girl, one that looked as sweet and daring as Hayden. Or a son…damn, the thought of a son, someone to pass his business on to. Of course, his daughter would be just as good, maybe even better at business, than a boy.
He didn’t care. As long as they both had her sweet eyes and gentle spirit, he didn’t give a damn what they wanted to do with their lives. Children. Marriage had never entered his mind, so the thought of having children was foreign to him.
Protecting Hayden was at the top of his priority list. Yes, he understood her hesitation at the idea of marriage. But after today, there would be no more hesitation. She was his woman.
Chapter 3
Hayden woke up and looked around, feeling strange suddenly. She was warm and cozy, but something was definitely missing. Since the sun was just coming up over the horizon, she knew that she hadn’t overslept.
Looking around, she tried to figure out what was wrong. The air was warm, so her heater was working once again. Lifting her head, she tried to…he wasn’t here! Hayden looked at the other side of the bed and realized that Viktor was gone!
Curling up, she pulled the quilt higher around her, feeling her nakedness and hurt like an open, gaping wound. He’d left? Why had he left without a word?
She realized that she couldn’t see her breath this morning but, for some reason, that fact didn’t make her feel any better. The man had left! Without saying goodbye. No, he hadn’t left money on the bedside table, but…Hayden’s eyes glanced over to her bedside table, just to make sure. Her shoulders relaxed slightly once she realized that it was still empty.
The man had made love to her yesterday, acting as if he were just as desperate for her touch as she’d been for his. And yet, she’d woken up alone. No kiss goodbye. No note. Nothing. Just an empty bed and a painfully empty feeling in her heart.
Tossing the quilt off, she almost stomped into the bathroom, furious with the man and his hurtful, domineering arrogance!
Turning on the shower, she fumed while she waited for the hot water to arrive, the old pipes creaking with the effort. Yeah, she needed new plumbing, a new furnace and…goodness, she couldn’t even imagine what would happen when her fridge broke down.
But those were all issues for another day. Right now, she had a hurtful, awful man to deal with.
As she let the warm water sooth over her sore muscles, she thought about all the things she could say to him, the different ways she could tell him that she was angry with him. But the look in his eyes yesterday afternoon struck her and she stilled, unware of the shampoo bubbles dripping down to her shoulders and back. He’d needed her. The look in his eyes, the hunger, the yearning…she hadn’t imagined that.
And last night, when he’d made love to her…or…well, it had been sex, she admitted grudgingly…yes, he’d needed her last night. She’d felt it in the way he’d touched her, in the way he’d shown her gently how to move, how to experience bliss in his arms.
And afterwards…Hayden sighed when she thought of the sweet way he’d held her in his arms. She remembered waking up in the middle of the night, startled by the heat. When she’d realized she was curled up in his arms, she’d smiled and gone back to sleep. But before her eyes had drifted shut once again, she remembered feeling him pull her closer, his arms tightening around her.
No, she hadn’t imagined that. His need, his comfort, and his gentleness…that had all been real.
With a sigh, she stepped under the warm water and rinsed off her hair. Did he really need her? Or was she just being a pushover?
Even Viktor had told her that she was too soft, too sweet.
“Hayden!” a female voice called from downstairs.
Hayden shut off the water and grabbed a towel. “I’ll be right down!” she called back to Natalie. She knew that her friend was worried about her. Natalie was most likely making tea already. She suspected that her friend had even brought over food. Natalie couldn’t afford that. Yes, she made good money at her job as a school teacher, but she needed every cent of it to put her adorable son into a special school. The kid was too smart for the public school system. He definitely needed a special school and Natalie had found the perfect place. Unfortunately, the tuition was crazy expensive.
Somehow, Natalie would figure it out. The woman was incredibly smart.
Hayden quickly dried off and pulled on a pair of clean jeans and yet another sweatshirt, feeling better after yesterday’s strange day. She picked the borrowed dress up from the chair, wondering how it had gotten there. Then memories of her time with Viktor sparked through her mind and she blushed, thinking of how she’d…and he’d…shaking her head, she banished those thoughts. She couldn’t think about Viktor and everything they’d done the previous afternoon and night. It was just too…embarrassing.
Just thinking about those things caused her cheeks to bloom with color so she folded the dress over her arm and carried it down the stairs, intending to take it to the dry cleaners before returning it to Natalie.
Walking into her kitchen, she felt the hollowness in her stomach and cringed. She hadn’t eaten anything at all yesterday. She’d been too nervous in the morning for breakfast. Then lunch had been skipped as she’d taken Viktor on a tour. Dinner…well, she’d sort of skipped that too.
Remembering the cup of yogurt she had left over, she hurried over to the fridge, trying to act like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
Unfortunately, this morning, it wasn’t just Natalie in her kitchen sipping hot tea. Kate was here as well. Double trouble, Hayden thought.
Natalie was leaning against the countertop with a strange look in her eyes as she sipped her tea. Hayden didn’t understand the expression on her features. “What’s up?” she asked, pulling the fridge door open, only to come to a complete standstill.
Kate was leaning her back up against the sink and smiled over her cup. Hayden felt more than saw, the look that passed between her two friends.
Fortunately, she had higher priorities than her friends at the moment. Food! She needed food like she needed….
Strange, she thought. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Kate’s curious expression. “Something wrong?” her friend asked.
Hayden pulled her eyes away from Kate and looked back into her fridge. Yes, the yogurt was still there. But also fruit, fresh chicken, gourmet breads, eggs, milk, vegetables…some of which she couldn’t even identify. Her fridge was packed with food!
She slammed the door closed and just stood there, her mind going over the events of the previous day. Had she skipped a day? Had she gone to the grocery store yesterday and just… forgotten about it?
Impossible! She didn’t have the money to buy all of those groceries! So, where had the food come from?
“The freezer is packed as well,” Natalie commented.
Hayden glanced over her shoulder at the smirking woman, but then turned back to the fridge, peering inside the freezer area…carefully, as if a wild animal was contained inside and might jump out if she opened the door too wide.
Sure enough, the freezer was packed with packaged foods. But not the normal frozen food packages. Nope, these had fancy labels on them, hand written. Almost as if a restaurant had packaged up their entire menu and put it into her freezer.
“Want to know what else is strange?” Natalie a
sked.
Hayden glanced at Kate when she giggled. Ignoring Natalie for a moment, she looked at Kate curiously. “Why aren’t you over at your coffee shop?”
Obviously something really strange was going on, because Kate lowered her mug, looking curiously amused. “Toby is covering the morning shift. Natalie called me ten minutes ago and told me to get over here fast. So here I am and…”
Hayden waited, but Kate only shrugged her shoulder, her dark pony tail swaying ever so slightly as the woman’s green eyes laughed at some secret joke.
Her eyes narrowed at both women. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked. This whole morning was confusing, she thought, trying to find something that made sense. Turning back to the freezer, she pushed a few of the boxes around, trying to figure out…anything! But no, nothing made sense.
Hayden slammed the freezer closed but stood there for a long moment, still trying to determine if she’d lost a day somewhere. Slowly turning around, she lifted her eyes to her friends. “Okay, I give up. What else is strange?” she asked, her voice sounding strangled and odd.
Natalie smiled behind the rim of her cup. “Well, I found one of your black shoes in the living room but the other was at the bottom of the staircase.”
Hayden’s cheeks once again bloomed with color, but she tried to appear casual about the oddly placed shoes. “Um…well…” She glanced over at Kate, trying to determine if her friends had figured out anything, but Kate…she looked just as amused and curiously strange as Natalie.
Natalie pulled Hayden’s attention back. “And there was another odd thing on the second step of the stairs.”
Hayden pressed her lips together, trying to think of what other piece of clothing might have fallen off her body as she’d been carried up the stairs. Unfortunately, the progression from the kitchen to the upstairs bedroom was pretty much a blur. “What was that?” she asked carefully, wary about whatever might have been…strewn.
Natalie’s eyes moved over to the battered kitchen table. “Who is VC?” she asked.
Hayden’s eyes followed her friend’s and she could barely swallow as she took in the cufflink sitting in the middle. Swallowing became difficult. Her eyes moved up to Natalie’s, then to Kate’s, and she wasn’t sure how to explain…what to say. “Um…”
Natalie’s eyebrows lifted in amusement. “You had a fun night last night, didn’t you?”
A muffled laugh came from Kate and Hayden took a moment to glare at the woman, but her glare was ineffective at stifling any amusement.
Hayden sighed, her shoulders drooping even as her knees gave out on her as well. “I don’t know,” she whispered, pushing her hair back with both hands as she stared at the cufflink on the table. It somehow seemed both innocent and serpent-like.
Natalie laughed softly but had some compassion for her best friend. Kate moved from the sink to sit down in the only other chair. “I think it’s great that you finally met someone, Hayden,” Kate said, rubbing her friend’s shoulder gently.
Turning around, Natalie poured hot water over the blueberry tea bag, then handed the cup to Hayden. “Care to tell us what’s going on?”
Hayden debated that for a long moment, not sure if she could really explain the past twenty-four hours. Sighing, she shrugged her shoulder slightly. “To be honest, I’m not really sure what happened.”
Both women laughed softly before Natalie lowered her cup down onto the countertop. “Why don’t you start at the beginning? I have an hour before I need to be at school and my mother took Alejandro out for breakfast. Toby can cover for Kate this morning. So it’s just the three of us for a while. Tell us what happened yesterday after I left here. You were heading into the city to ask Mr. Chenko if he still wanted to buy your farmland and house. What happened next?” She pulled eggs, bread, and butter out of the fridge and turned on the stove. “Tell me that you got waylaid by some gorgeous man and had wild, passionate sex with him!”
“Oh, that would be great!” Kate teased.
Hayden knew that her friends were teasing, but she simply couldn’t laugh. It was too close to the truth!
“Well,” she began slowly.
Natalie popped two pieces of toast into the toaster, then dropped some butter into the skillet, smearing it all over the bottom as it melted. “Or, maybe you found a long, lost lover and he’s just waiting to carry you away from all of this.”
Kate leaned back in her chair. “That would be good too. I’m pretty open to any story, as long as it ends with that special glow.”
Hayden grimaced as she took a sip of her tea. “That’s not exactly what happened.” But sort of, she thought, thinking about how Viktor had arranged for someone to fix her furnace.
As if reading her mind, Natalie paused and looked around, then back at Hayden who was sipping her tea at the kitchen table. “Hey, come to think of it, how do you have heat? Yesterday morning we were breathing icicles. Now it’s almost toasty in here.”
Hayden thought about that for a moment, then stood up and hurried over to the thermostat. Sure enough, the temperature was about ten degrees warmer than what she normally set it at. Viktor might have money to throw around, but she definitely kept things a bit leaner in her house. She adjusted the thermostat back down and turned, ready to explain to Kate and Natalie.
Someone knocked on the door before she could head back to the kitchen. But the delightful scent of bread starting to toast made her stomach growl, as her hunger became a very real part of her consciousness.
Since Natalie was a much better cook than she was, Hayden turned to the front door instead of heading into the kitchen. Opening the door, she looked out at a tall, rugged looking man with a tool belt wrapped around his waist and a clipboard in his hand. “Mornin’ Ms. Ferrant. I’m Burt and I’ve been hired to do a walk though and start listing all of the items that need to be fixed in your house,” he explained, his tone ending upward, as if he were asking a question instead of making a statement.
Hayden stared at him, not sure what he meant. “I’m sorry but…I can’t…” she shook her head, feeling awkward and painfully poor.
The friendly man looked down at his clip board, reading something off of the sheet. “A Mr. Viktor Chenko said all the bills should be sent to him, but he had some ideas that I should go over with you, just to make sure you are okay with them.”
Still, Hayden stood there, door open with the heat seeping out and the cold creeping in with her mouth hanging open, feeling foolish and awkward.
“I still don’t…”
His smile was meant to be reassuring, but because she was still confused about too many other things, the expression completely missed its mark.
“I promise not to get in your way.” He paused and sniffed. “Smells like you are in the middle of breakfast. How about if I just go around and list all of the exterior issues first, and then we can walk around and talk about the interior problems that need to be fixed and then the changes Mr. Chenko suggested?”
The only thing Hayden could do at the moment was nod her assent.
With that, the man stepped back with a polite nod and lifted his clipboard, obviously starting out with her front porch.
Hayden closed the door carefully, leaning back against it as she tried to figure out what was going on.
“Breakfast is ready!” Natalie called out.
Food would help, she thought, aware of the clawing hunger in her stomach. Priority number one, eat. Number two, figure out how she’d gotten food to eat. Number three…well, she’d get to that after number one and two were cleared up.
Somewhere on her list of things to figure out…what had happened between last night and this morning.
Walking into the kitchen, she sat down at the table and stared at the egg on toast that Natalie had made. Kate was already eating and she waved Hayden into the kitchen.
“Okay, spill it,” Kate demanded, cutting into her breakfast. It had been a while since the three of them had shared breakfast together.
&
nbsp; Hayden couldn’t wait any longer. Going a whole day without food had made her dizzy. At least, that was the excuse she was going with at the moment. Digging in, she quickly gobbled up her food, ignoring Natalie’s curious gaze.
When the egg and toast were gone, she sat back against the chair with her tea warming her hands and tried to get her brain moving.
“Soooo?” Kate prompted.
Hayden smiled slightly, not sure where to start. So instead, she stuffed more toast into her mouth, using that as an excuse to avoid answering the question.
“Um…”
Obviously, Natalie knew her well. “Start with yesterday morning. You went into the city and met with Viktor Chenko, the man you hate. The man you yelled at the last time he was here trying to buy your land and house. The man you swore would never step foot on this land as long as you were breathing. The man who…”
“Okay! I remember!” Hayden gasped, lifting her hand up to stop the onslaught of stupidity that had spewed from her mouth after the man had arrogantly offered her an outrageous amount of money for her family farm and then…
Well, Hayden wasn’t going there. More food. More avoidance.
“So?” Natalie prompted once again. “Spill it! How did the most hated man in America lose his cufflink in your stairway?”
Hayden swallowed the large bite of food, then shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “How do you know it is his?”
Kate snorted, shaking her head as Natalie gave Hayden a look that told her in no uncertain terms would she allow any sort of prevarication.
With a chuckle, Hayden tilted her head slightly. “Do all moms know how to do that?” she asked.
Natalie rolled her eyes. “Yes. And stop stalling. I want details.”
Hayden looked down at her cup, realized that she was out of tea and stood up, rushing over to the stove to heat up more water for another cup.
Once again, Kate laughed. “I’m not sure that mom-look is working very effectively, Nat,” she teased, and ducked behind her cup when Hayden turned that glare on her.
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