“Cranberry and soda,” Sean echoed. But as soon as the bartender was gone again, he leaned down close enough that Annie could feel his breath on the skin below her ear. “You’re gonna owe me for this one.”
That was certainly one way to beat away the threat of an anxiety attack, wasn’t it? Distraction worked, but it wasn’t something she could provide on her own. Sean, though. The way he touched her was like ice water to her system. Her breathing still felt tight, but God, in a different way. An exhilarating way.
She twisted, turning to face him. The periphery of her vision swam with darkness, but in the center there was Sean. His eyes. The way he looked at her, with that graceful mouth holding still. Concern narrowed his brows and traced lines across his forehead. “Are you all right?”
She ignored the question. “I warned you there’d be no alcohol under my watch.”
“You were having two. I figured it was worth a shot.”
“Here you are, ma’am,” the bartender said, pushing two slender-stemmed glasses across the bar. He set a squat tumbler of cranberry and soda next to it. He’d stuck a jaunty paper umbrella through a cherry.
“Thanks,” Sean said dryly, before removing the umbrella and cherry without comment. He dropped it on the paper napkin.
“Thank you.” The drink was cool against her sticky palms. Medicating herself with alcohol was a piss-poor idea. She knew that, but she sucked it down anyway. The vodka sizzled against the back of her throat, balanced by the lime juice and sugar. “Come on, Sean. Let’s make this trauma fest worth it.”
She tried to push past him, but apparently, even with one injured arm, there was no making Sean shift if he didn’t want to. He was a wall. A handsome, gorgeous wall. She stretched up to her full height, but that left her still craning her neck as she attempted to look him right in the eyes.
“Only if you tell me what’s going on.”
She was using her best poker face, but her cheeks felt heavy and her skin clammy. At least the fire of the drink had curled through her body, warming her from the inside out. “No.”
“Annie . . .” He drew her name into something she shouldn’t want to hear again . . . but she did. She’d think of his deep, determined voice at three in the morning; she knew it. Her brain would replay that sound, only add in a different context and different hopes.
And she was an idiot. “I’m your physical therapist, Sean.”
“You’re obviously upset.”
“Then why don’t you tell me what you think is wrong.” It wouldn’t count as inappropriate if he was just guessing, right?
Fuck, she deserved to have her license taken away.
“I think you’re on the verge of a panic attack.” He braced himself against the bar, blocking her in. Between the suit and the tie, he looked like something out of a fashion magazine instead of a surfer. But she still wanted to let her head rest against his deep chest.
“Not anymore.” She held up the drink. “I’ve successfully self-medicated.”
“You’re not supposed to do that.”
“I’m also not supposed to be having this conversation with a client.” The washes of sensation down the back of her thighs were gone, at least. That was a bonus. Except she wasn’t sure if they were gone due to the vodka, or due to Sean’s obvious worry. “Let’s make tonight worth it, okay? Can we do that?”
She wasn’t sure how he would answer. Sean had a reputation for being a flashy playboy, and the way he navigated the night’s crush hinted at why. But most people hadn’t seen him sweating through a physical therapy session. Apparently they hadn’t seen the dark, determined look in his eyes. Otherwise they’d have entirely different ideas about him.
The moment he decided to let the charade go was so obvious. His smile built slowly, pulling up on one side farther than the other. His eyes sparked with blue.
“What would make tonight worth it for you, Annie? I have a few ideas. But I doubt you’d agree much with my choices.”
“You’re not supposed to flirt with me,” she replied automatically. Really, she wanted to clasp his face between her hands, feel his scruffy stubble across her palms, and plant a smacking, relieved kiss on his mouth. Just as a giant thank-you for letting her change the subject.
“I do lots of things I’m not supposed to.”
She scoffed, the noise slipping right out of her mouth without thought. Challenging a wild animal wasn’t a good idea. “You’re practically a pussycat.”
“Are you gonna make me prove it?”
“Only after you get me that introduction you promised. Mover or shaker, either would do.”
He smelled good. It was expensive cologne, sharp musk that wove beneath the press of bodies all around them. But under that was the tangy scent of salt water. He lived and breathed the ocean. “Maybe I’ve changed my mind,” he said. “If I introduce you to this life-changing person, you won’t need my money anymore. You’ll discharge me as a client.”
Maybe she should do that anyway. She was an idiot for even letting this continue. Therapist-patient restrictions existed for a reason. She sipped her drink to hide the flush of guilt making the back of her neck prickle. “Does he have another three million I can have?”
“He might.” Sean had lost that cheeky tone, the one that said he’d hauled them into flirty, fun territory. He had dark holes in him, Sean Westin did.
She lifted her gaze to his. “I’m not greedy. Six mil would probably be too much for a fledgling foundation to manage.”
“Ever dream of quitting your day job?” he asked solemnly.
She snorted. “No. With as hard as I worked for my degrees, you’ve got to be shitting me. I’m never walking away. I’ll be practicing physiotherapy when I’m ninety-three. That much funding probably would allow me to hire a full-time center director, though.”
He washed her over with a sudden, blinding grin. “Leaving you more time to skateboard with the kids?”
“Totally. That’s the fun part.”
“You’re a good person, Baxter.”
She’d disagree with that. She tried to be good, but she was pretty messed up all the way through. Apparently she could add having no idea of therapist-patient propriety to her list of sins. “You’re stalling, Westin.”
“What if I am? What if I wanna keep you all to myself?”
She shook her head, because that was the last thing she wanted to happen. She was happy where she was, leaning against the bar in the shelter of Sean’s body. Which meant she had to get away. “You’re out of luck, then.”
“But you’re in luck. Because our quarry is coming to us.”
Her spine jolted, nerves slamming into the base of her back in one abrupt punch. Her neck snapped tight. “What? Who?”
“Frank Wakowski, the owner of WavePro.”
Bewilderment made her gaze dart around the room. It was a packed wall of women’s bare backs and deep cleavage and men’s suits. “But you don’t surf for them.”
“Nope. I know Frank, though. He’s a good guy, and he’s looking for a new pet project.”
She scrambled through her knowledge of WavePro. From what she could remember, they put most of their donation money into exclusively surf-oriented causes, such as beach cleanup or runoff prevention. “I run a skateboard clinic.”
“You run a safe house for teenagers.” Sean caught her hand and her gaze at the same time. “That’s important, Annie. I wish I’d had someone like you around when I was young. It might have saved me.”
Chapter 7
Sean apparently had a loose-to-negligent setting on his mouth. Because, Jesus, where in holy hell had that little saccharine drip come from? He hadn’t said anything like that in . . . ever. No one on the ’CT knew where he came from. They didn’t need to. No one needed to, except his personal physician and his manager, who knew to watch for signs of mental imbalance. There
’d been none. Sean was about as well-rounded as anyone. Some worries crept in when he hadn’t managed to go surfing for days, but that was about it. He’d made the mistake of telling Gloria a hint of his past when they were dating, and she had very quickly moved on to Nate, deeming him a much less shaky bet. Sean had sworn to not even think about telling anyone else.
Annie had been in a bad place in her head. He’d always been a sucker for women in need, so he’d done what he needed to in order to make her feel better. That was it.
He tugged the bottom hem of his suit coat. An uncomfortable feeling slithered up his spine. Annie was . . . different.
Annie was better than he was. That was the truth. He’d have liked nothing more than to cup her face in his hands and kiss her better, but that wasn’t his right. She’d have freaked out for sure. She was his physical therapist, and she seemed to take that responsibility seriously. But what they had between them was more than that.
He’d let himself slip around her. Said things he shouldn’t have. Since she was so clever, she probably already had started putting pieces together. Things in his past were better left there, and he couldn’t afford the trouble that came with a serious relationship. Girlfriends tended to need honesty, and he’d had problems with that. Sure, he always stayed on the up-and-up with where he went and the kind of man he was. He didn’t lie. But he also didn’t give away all his truths.
He’d never been able to tell a soul about his mother. Not even Gloria. Those days were long ago.
Sean ruthlessly stomped down buried memories that wanted to explode. He needed the water, and soon. It was the only thing that could clear his head. That his shoulder wasn’t aching at that very second made the desire worse. Unfortunately, it would only take one wrong move to hurt it again.
He smiled at the owner of WavePro and shifted so that he was shoulder to shoulder with Annie. “Frank. It’s good to see you.”
The older man verged on skinny from a life spent surfing. He held out a hand. “Sean. I was sorry to hear about your injury.”
Sean nodded, but his back teeth ground together. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t shake hands.”
“Of course, of course,” Frank agreed, waving it off. “Sorry. Wasn’t thinking.”
Frank was a nice guy, and as easygoing as the head of any multimillion-dollar company could be. He likely hadn’t meant anything by offering to shake hands when Sean was nursing his injury, but the reminder still grated. For now, it would have to be enough that Sean felt better day by day. Annie’s treatment had plenty to do with that, he was sure. But it made his bones scrape with discomfort that he wasn’t at a hundred percent.
“No worries. But Frank, let me introduce you to Annie Baxter.”
Her mouth curved into a slight smile. “That’s Dr. Baxter.”
Shock left Frank’s mouth hanging open. “You barely look old enough to be a coed. I can’t imagine where you managed to squeeze in all your schooling.”
“I’ve had people ask me that before.” There was nothing wrong with the way Annie replied, and her expression never wavered. But Sean could see her pulse flicker into triple speed behind her ear.
How often must she hear that? Too often for it to be even remotely amusing anymore. He wanted to put a hand at the base of her spine, but he resisted the impulse. Putting women at risk of gossip had never been his favorite hobby. “Annie runs a teen drop-in center focused on peer outreach support systems. She teaches skateboarding as a medium for contact,” Sean said smoothly.
If he hadn’t been quite as focused on Annie, he’d have missed her rapid blink and the way her lips parted. Just as quickly, she recomposed her expression into a serene smile. She looked gorgeous enough to eat. The gold dress skimmed over her with a modest bodice, but it put a killer expanse of back on display. She was sleek and lean, the body that had looked boyish in jeans and a T-shirt suddenly wholly feminine. It seemed that she hadn’t expected him to so easily reel off her foundation’s principles.
“Is it in San Sebastian?” Frank asked. He had salt-and-pepper hair, and he’d recently cultivated a short beard and mustache. He rubbed the beard. “I’m always looking for projects in town. Keeping development local shores up our roots in the community.”
Sean knew that already. He couldn’t have leveraged his surfing into the healthy investment portfolio he’d managed without keeping his ear to the ground. Sean surfed for Coyote, but that didn’t mean he was unaware of WavePro’s growing status in the surf community. They wanted good press, and they wanted it in Southern California. Charity donations created a healthy tax write-off for them as well.
“My ad hoc location is in San Sebastian,” Annie agreed. “We’re hoping to be able to open the permanent center off Seventeenth Street, since there’s a former bowling alley that could be easily converted. But it would depend on meeting our funding goals.”
“What are your goals?”
“High-end figures are two point seven million. We can do it for less, but we’d rather not.”
Sean smothered a grin behind his cranberry and soda. He didn’t miss how she avoided mentioning that Sean had already pledged enough to cover all those so-called funding goals. She was ruthless. He pretty much dug that about her.
“Skateboarding, huh? No chance there’s any interest in surfing?” Frank winked.
Annie’s narrow shoulders lifted in a shrug. “We’ve had interest, naturally. It’s hard to run a teen center in San Sebastian without having kids who want to surf. After all, you sponsor Tanner Wright, who’s also a local. The fervor for the World Championship Tour is at an all-time high.”
She didn’t seem to have any personal interest in surfing, though. Sean didn’t understand that. How could she have left it so cleanly in her past? Unless she’d had a shitty wipeout or some other sort of trauma. He knew plenty about leaving unpleasant stuff behind, but to him, surfing was life. Surfing was what cleaned away all the nasty.
He watched her profile as she continued chatting with Frank. It was hard to believe the pixie who’d almost had a panic attack in the middle of a party twenty minutes ago was holding her own with the owner of a multinational company. She was badass like that. Her nose and chin were rounded from the side, her cheeks soft. Her lashes were dark and lush, casting shadows across her upper cheeks under the party’s dramatically colorful lighting.
“Well, naturally I can’t promise anything,” Frank eventually said, “but if you contact Adin Lund, our new director of operations, I’ll take a look at your prospectus.”
“I’d be happy to, Mr. Wakowski,” Annie said, every inch the graceful professional.
Sean thought there would probably be a much more significant reaction from her as soon as Wakowski walked away, though. She was vibrating, but quietly. Her muscles popped into tight alignment along her spine. The hint of ribs at her midback suddenly became more visible, three definite swoops revealed by her electric tension.
“Sean, it’s been wonderful to see you,” Frank said, clapping Sean on the back. “I must say you’re dealing with those strange rumors fairly well.”
The world tilted. Sean’s fist curled. Some part of him had been subtly terrified this moment would eventually come. There was nothing in Frank’s words that guaranteed he was about to say something horrible about Sean’s past. Not at all.
But Sean knew. He knew with a perfectly incontrovertible irrationality that was all sorts of convincing. There was only one thing in his past. One allegation that had haunted him for life. His mother’s ruin. Everything else was practically sunshine and roses when held in perspective. “What rumors?”
Frank flushed red. His jowls pushed up as he shook his head and held out a hand. “No, that is . . . if you haven’t heard . . . You haven’t heard?”
Sean shook his head. “I’ve been keeping my head down the last two weeks. Well, collarbone, anyway.”
Bu
t he should have been dialed in. His smartphone had all the addresses and phone numbers of every person on the ’CT, as well as their Instagram accounts and sponsor-mandated Twitter. If no one had told him what was going on, this was bad. He’d been here before, the one on the outside when the slightest hints about his mother leached into his high school’s rumor mill. His stomach coiled into a chilled knot.
Annie set a hand on his forearm. The suit and his long-sleeved shirt meant that he couldn’t feel the softness of her skin, only the weight of her touch. “Sean,” she said softly.
“What’s going on, Frank?”
“Son, maybe we should sit down.”
“Maybe you should just spit it out.” He was losing his grip on the spike of anger that had his fists clenching, both of them. There was no pain from his shoulder, because the rest of him didn’t even exist.
“There’s talk that a documentary maker has found something interesting about you. They aren’t saying great things. Rumors are saying the topic might be doping.” Frank held up both hands. “But they’re mostly just rumors so far. No one’s even attached a director’s name to the picture. I wouldn’t put any stock in the idea.”
Sean gave a bitter huff. His stomach twisted. No one had come to him with a request for a documentary lately, which could only mean that they’d intended from the beginning for it to be unauthorized. “People are putting plenty of stock in whatever the hell they feel like. Otherwise someone would have told me what was going on.”
He’d been left in the dark. Fuck, he hated that. He’d felt helpless and ignorant when his mother’s illness pushed him around. Not her, not the stuff that she accumulated, but the mental illness that pushed and pulled her around. He’d never been able to help her conquer it, not even at the dark end.
That was why he’d avoided being helpless once he’d had his own life. He conquered the damn ocean, and he’d been so close to a world championship so many times, he could have kissed the damn silver trophy. Yet he’d missed it.
Ahead in the Heat Page 5
