His question was intriguing, though. “What do you mean?”
Before he could answer, the buzzer rang. “Food must be here,” he said but let Sabrina answer it. He put his cigar out. “You can stay. We ordered extra yakisoba in case you came by.”
It was tempting. It had been the better part of the year since I’d had a meal with my friend, and nothing sounded more relaxing than kicking back with a beer and shooting the shit with him over Japanese.
But he was with Sabrina now. And I had Jolie to deal with. Or rather, Jolie to avoid. With our bet made, it was unlikely Donovan would be supportive in that endeavor.
“Next time,” I said, standing up. “You have house to play. Should we wager how long before there’s a ring on her finger?” I held out my hand to shake goodbye if he didn’t take me up on the bet.
“Not a chance,” he said, taking my hand. “Unlike you, I know when the odds are against me.”
He didn’t fucking know anything. Not a single goddamned thing.
But I was definitely going to stay away from my suite for the rest of the day, just to be sure.
Twelve
I spent the rest of the afternoon back at Reach, using Weston’s office so I didn’t have to be reminded of the last time I was in Donovan’s. After that, I joined Nate at the gentleman’s club the guys liked to frequent, which wasn’t the worst of distractions, despite the fact that he had a new lady he couldn’t shut up about.
At least his lady wasn’t the lady I was trying to not think about, and so I endured the torture until well after midnight when I finally gave up the battle and headed back to my hotel.
Headed back to her.
Outside my room, I took a beat to prepare myself, then opened the door to the best case scenario—a dark living area, suggesting my guest was already asleep. Just as I’d hoped.
I avoided looking at the direction of the sofa as I headed toward my room. A lamp had been left on, and the low murmur of voices told me I’d left the TV on as well. I didn’t have a chance to realize I hadn’t turned on the television before I’d made it to the doorway and saw who apparently did: Jolie. Asleep. On my bed. Wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties.
Emotions crashed through me like lightning, striking and disappearing so fast, I barely had time to acknowledge them. Once upon a time, this was supposed to have been our life. Her, sleeping in my bed like it was no big deal. Me, eager not to disturb her as I gazed down at her soft features.
But we hadn’t gotten the happily ever after.
And this was not our life.
“What the fuck, Julianna? I said sleep on the couch.” My voice boomed loud enough to wake her with a start.
She blinked, confused for a moment. Then she saw me and stretched. “Hey! You’re here.” There was a note of relief in her tone. As though she were glad I’d shown up. As though she’d been afraid I wouldn’t.
It was fucked up how the instinct to run to her was still so easily triggered in my body.
I was as mad at that response as I was her. “Yeah. Because it’s my room. If you wanted to treat it like your own, you could have stayed in yours, like I originally offered.”
“No. This is good. This is great. I mean the couch is great.” She jumped off the bed and gathered herself before explaining. “The TV out there isn’t working. I have a hard time sleeping when I’m alone unless it’s on, so I figured I’d just hang out here until you got here. I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I’m sorry.”
It was after one in the morning. Of course she was falling asleep.
There was no accusation in her tone, though, which almost pissed me off even more.
But also, I didn’t trust her.
“The TV doesn’t work?” I flicked on the light switch, noting that the couch hadn’t even been made into a bed yet, then stomped over to the living area television set, ready to call bullshit. While I wasn’t sure that she was particularly manipulative, she had said that she’d try to take advantage of this situation, and seduction had always been her weapon of choice. The broken TV seemed like an awfully convenient setup.
But when I tried the power button, sure enough, it didn’t turn on. I found the cord behind the set and followed it to the wall.
“It’s plugged in,” she said from behind me.
Yeah, but had she tried it in another outlet? I unplugged it and scanned the wall for another place to try it.
“I checked the outlet too. My phone cord works in it, so it’s not that.”
“You should have—”
She cut me off, reading my thoughts. “I called the front desk. They came up and fiddled with it and said they’d have a new one delivered tomorrow. They offered to give us a different room, but I didn’t want to make that decision for you.”
So not a scam then.
I looked around for something else to be mad at and found it easily. That T-shirt she was wearing? It was mine. “It’s hard to not think you’re up to something when you’re lounging around on my bed, wearing my clothes.”
“You’re so very perceptive. I was very much up to something. Want to know what it was?” She’d sauntered toward me while she spoke, and now she was an inch away, leaning in like she was about to share her greatest secret.
I could barely breathe. “What?”
“Sleeping.” She flashed a huge smile, popping the tension like it was a balloon and she was a pin. “I’m pretty transparent, Cade. I’ve already laid out what I’m up to, and save for a couple of personal secrets, I’m not really hiding anything.”
She was definitely not hiding a lot dressed like that. Her legs were long and toned and curved in just the right places. It was hard to ignore how beautiful she was. How beautiful she’d always been.
I wasn’t distracted enough by her looks, though, to miss the implication of her words. She was basically inviting me to ask her anything. Anything at all. I could have all the answers I’d been seeking. I could ask about all the unknown details of her life that had kept me awake for countless nights over the years. The bits of Jolie trivia that had driven me crazy with burning curiosity.
Or maybe that was her game. Lull me into a false sense of trust. Then attack.
I refused to let my guard down. “Okay, then, so you won’t mind telling me why you’re wearing my shirt.”
She took a step back and leaned against the arm of the couch. Comfortably, not seductively. “It’s not as exciting as the reason you’re alluding to. I usually sleep in just…” She gestured to her panties. Cotton and plain, like the kind she’d worn as a teen. “All the clothes I brought with me are weather appropriate. Sweaters. Jeans. Nothing comfortable enough to sleep in.”
“So you went through my stuff?”
That smile again. “I don’t remember you being so suspicious and melodramatic.”
“I don’t remember you having a total lack of respect for privacy.”
Her smile faded then because we were talking about my things, but we were talking about her secrets too. If she wanted me to respect her boundaries, she had to respect mine. “I opened one drawer and took the first shirt I found. That’s it. I can give it back—” She grabbed the hem and lifted it high enough that I saw the bottom curve of her breasts.
My pants felt tighter.
“Stop.” I looked away in case she didn’t. “Keep it. Keep it for the week.” I almost offered to let her take it with her when she left, but the plain black T had suddenly become one of my favorites.
“Thanks.” Her smile was back, more contained than before, but genuine. “And for the room. I really do appreciate it.”
I was still pissed. Anger was my security blanket, and if I let it go…
Well, I didn’t want to think what I’d be left with then. So I didn’t accept her apology or her gratitude. I just stood there feeling gruff and raw and turned inside out and let her make of it what she would.
“I’ll, um, just…” She stood and nodded toward the couch behind her.
It was my cue t
o leave. To go hole up in my bedroom, with the dresser pushed against the door if necessary.
But that luxury room, with its king-size bed and thousand-thread-count sheets, suddenly seemed lonely. And just like she’d needed the TV on for companionship, I wanted to linger in her presence. “Here, I’ll help you set it up.”
I crossed to the opposite end of the couch and reached for a cushion. She hesitated only a beat before joining me, tossing cushions to the floor, then hefting the metal frame out of the enclosure. The mattress inside was bare, but I found a bag of bedding in the coat closet that included a bed sheet. I unfolded it and handed her an end.
Then together we spread it across the mattress, tucking the ends around the corners so it would stay. I’d never made up a bed with someone before. This was the spot where she’d sleep. Where she’d spend hours at her most vulnerable. It was intimate in a way I hadn’t expected. More intimate than sex even. I’d fucked a lot of women. Jolie hadn’t even been my first. But for this, she was the only one.
I peeked over at her as we tucked the top sheet in. Her gaze brushed over mine in periphery, then caught it full on. My breath felt lodged in my chest, and I cleared my throat, as though that would help.
It didn’t. But the noise strengthened her attention, and now I felt obliged to do something with it. “You’re here a week,” I said, not sure where I was going with the remark.
“Yeah.”
“Because you thought that would be enough time…?”
“Enough time to convince you to help me?” She pulled a pillow to her so she could put on a pillowcase. “I hoped it was enough time.”
I tried to consider her position and what she knew of me. What she knew of the boy I’d once been. That kid, would he have helped her? How long would it have taken for him to be convinced?
Not even a full minute.
“I could already have been on my way out of the city by now. How could you be sure I would even be here for a full week?”
“It’s a long flight. The odds seemed to be in favor that you wouldn’t just turn around and go back.”
“But we had no arrangements to see each other again. As far as you knew, you had that one meeting. That’s all I’d given you.”
She smiled guiltily. “Why do you think I made sure I was staying in your hotel?”
A hotel with a near thousand-dollar-a-night price tag. She probably would have had enough to charge the whole week if she’d booked something on Priceline.
It had been an expensive gamble on her part. “That’s a lot of guesswork. A lot of things had to fall into place to be sure you saw me again.”
“Hard to knock my plan when I’m staying in your room.”
I caught myself before I laughed out loud. Admittedly, she was cute—had always been cute. A little full of herself. A lot full of determination. I’d already spent enough time with her to see that hadn’t changed. As much as I refused to acknowledge it, there was a lot of that girl I’d known still in this woman, and that realization made me nostalgic.
Made me start thinking things I shouldn’t.
I was grateful when Donovan’s words from earlier butted into my thoughts. Do you have to kill him literally?
“Why do you need him to be dead? Are you that set on revenge?” I was an idiot. Practically asking her to change my mind.
“Not just revenge.”
“Then what? Money?”
She shook her head as she unfolded the comforter. “I need him out of my life. Can you take the end?”
I took the other side of the blanket and spread it over the bed, but I ignored her attempt to change the conversation. “Do you still live near him? Do you need help moving away?”
Headmaster Stark was a prominent figure in his community. She was a full-grown woman, but if they lived in the same town, there was no way she could really escape him. Was that all it was? She had enough money to live, but maybe not enough money to reestablish herself away from him?
“No, I’ve lived in Boston for about ten years.”
Boston.
One word, but it was a puzzle piece I’d been searching for for so long that I couldn’t help but hold on to it once she’d given it. Boston. All this time, she’d been in Boston.
Boston wasn’t that far from Connecticut, though. “Is he bothering you? Showing up on your doorstep?”
“It’s not quite that simple—”
“You keep saying that. I have resources that can handle complicated.”
The blanket in place, she stood up straight. “I need him out of my life for good.”
There was desperation in her voice that I recognized because it was exactly the desperation I’d felt back then, when I didn’t see any escape from her father’s abuse. She’d suffered at his hand too, but I’d never seen the despair in her that I saw now.
What hold did he still have over her?
Trying to convince myself I didn’t care was futile. At the very least, I was curious. “What did he—”
She cut me off. “I’m not going to say any more than that, Cade. Please don’t ask.”
Transparent, my ass.
Fuck her.
“Looks like you’re good here. I’ll leave you to it.”
I brushed off her good night and walked around the bed to head to my room without a word. I did look back, though. Not to check out her ass, but since she was reaching across the bed to straighten the edge of the comforter, that’s exactly what I saw.
And then I froze, my eyes pinned on the art inked at her hip, visible as the shirt rose with her stretch.
Before I knew what I was doing, I was at her side, tugging down the side of her panties far enough to see the whole thing.
“Hey!” She was startled but not incensed. In fact, once she realized what I was looking at, she lifted the shirt so I could see the full-color design better—a bird cage, the bars torn open in one spot, one bird outside the cage in flight, another still sitting inside.
I knelt down at her side, my breath caught in my chest, my heart pounding in my ears. Wordlessly, I swept my finger across her skin. Goosebumps broke out underneath my touch. Strange, since my finger felt like it was burning as it moved over the broken cage. Over the bird in the sky. Over the bird behind the bars. I lingered here the longest, tracing the creature’s wings.
Why hasn’t she flown away?
I would have traded places with her. If one of us had had to stay, I would have done that. If that had been an option. If that had been the price for her freedom.
Her belly rose with an intake of air, and I realized she’d been holding her breath. Realized I was touching her. Realized I was on the brink of falling apart.
I stood up quickly, careful not to meet her eyes. “Hey, how about you go ahead and take the bedroom? So you can keep the TV on,” I added, so she wouldn’t think the offer was for any reason other than practicality.
She tugged her shirt—my shirt—down, and folded her arms across her chest, as if by covering up, I could unsee what I’d seen. “I’m not doing that.”
“You said you can’t sleep.”
“I should be better knowing you’re in the next room. If not, I’ll put YouTube on my phone.”
She wouldn’t look at me either. God, she was so frustrating. “Just take the room, Jo—” I caught myself. “Julianna.”
Now her eyes hit mine, and I could practically hear her thoughts. “It’s Jolie now.” But she managed to refrain from saying it.
And I managed to refrain from saying the other thing pressing on my tongue, that I could take the room with her. That I could make her feel less alone. That I could still help her fly.
“Just for tonight,” I insisted. Needing her in that other room as soon as fucking possible. “Okay?”
If she had fought with me right then, I didn’t know what I would have done, but I had a feeling it would have been something impossible to come back from.
Fortunately, she didn’t fight. I sat on the couch bed and busied myse
lf with taking off my shoes, not looking up again until after I’d heard the click of the door shut behind her.
Thirteen
I slept fitfully, and not because the bed was uncomfortable, though it really was too small for my height. It was her keeping me up. She was quiet as a mouse, the only sound coming from the bedroom the low drone of the television. But I felt her. And every time I started to drift off, I jerked awake, as though my brain had determined I couldn’t waste a single second of being in her presence with sleep.
I must have slept eventually because sometime around seven in the morning I woke up. There was no foggy daze where I temporarily forgot she was in the next room. As soon as my eyes opened, my ears were straining, listening for any of her sounds, imagining I could hear the soft rhythm of her breathing.
Cursing at myself, I rolled out of bed and tugged on last night’s clothes so I wouldn’t have to deal with her. Thankfully, the bathroom wasn’t an en suite, and I was able to slip in, relieve myself, and freshen up without disturbing her.
I was out the door before she made a single peep.
The boxing club was busier at this time of the day. Being Monday didn’t help; the place filled with Midtowners getting a workout in before heading to the office. Somehow, I managed to get a bag to myself, and I set out to keep my thoughts from overtaking me with pure aggression.
But even after an hour of beating the shit out of my imaginary opponent, I had enough energy to scare myself. Twice, I was invited into the ring for a real fight. Twice, I declined, afraid I’d kill someone.
Kill the wrong someone.
Fuck, I couldn’t escape it, couldn’t escape her or her damn favor. Couldn’t punch away the thoughts and the memories and the desires. The desire to save her. The desire to fix her. The desire to have her as mine again.
I was sore and exhausted by the time I finally gave up and changed out of my gym clothes. After the long workout, the cold outside felt good, and I loitered outside the club, letting the nine-to-fivers hurry past while I soaked in the chill.
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