“So what is it?” he asked, coming over with a stern look on his face. “What is it this time? Did you have a fall? Are you too tired? Too distracted? Should I have given you another day?”
“Hang on a second.” A pair of hands took Stephen by the shoulders and pulled him away. I didn’t realize how he’d been hovering over me until Spencer dragged him off.
“Who the hell are you? Don’t put your hands on me!” Compared to Spencer, Stephen might as well have been a rag doll. He could try to put up a fight but it would be a waste of time. The two of them blurred even as I struggled to focus my eyes and watch them.
“Why don’t you lay off her, huh?” Spencer crouched down beside me, looking into my eyes. “Hey, you. What’s going on?”
“I don’t feel very good,” I whispered. “I don’t know why.”
“Neither do I,” he muttered. He stood, turning to a very red-faced Stephen. I rested my head against the back of the booth.
“I think she’s sick,” Spencer murmured.
“Sick? Jesus Christ. She’s costing the studio more and more money every goddamned day. Fucking prima donna.”
“Hey.” Spencer stood toe-to-toe with my director. He was like a giant. “There’s a kid here.”
I looked at Mark, who shrugged. “I hear worse things all the time,” he said.
“Still, that’s no way to talk.” Spencer turned back to Stephen. “I really think there’s something wrong with her,” he muttered. “And it would be better if you didn’t make a big deal about this. I’m going to take her back to the hospital—she might have delayed swelling in her brain. Something.”
“Shit.” Stephen nodded. “All right. I’ll have somebody call an ambulance.”
“No, no. I’ll take her. Let’s not make a big deal out of this.” He helped me up from the booth, and I put an arm over his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I said to Mark, who was sliding in and out of focus.
“Feel better, okay?” He looked worried, poor thing. I wanted to say something to make him feel better, but I couldn’t think of anything. Before I knew it, we were out the door and on our way to the car.
“I’ll have Janine bring your bag to the hospital,” Spencer said. “Just relax. We’ll get you there in no time.”
I wasn’t worried. I trusted him. It felt good to lean against somebody bigger and stronger than me. God, how long had I pretended to be strong? Longer than I wanted to admit to myself. I didn’t want to be strong anymore. I wanted to let somebody else take care of me. I wanted to give in to the way he made me feel. Like I didn’t have to worry about anything.
“You’re so handsome,” I whispered, even as the little bit of rational thought left in my brain told me to shut up. Shut the hell up. Stop being an idiot.
“Wow,” he muttered. “Now I know there’s something wrong.” But he couldn’t hide the way he grinned, either.
“Did you ever think about being an actor?” I tripped a little over a crack in the sidewalk. He kept me steady.
“I can’t act.”
“Most people can’t.”
He chuckled. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Or at least modeling,” I babbled. “You’d make a great model. You have good bone structure. And you’re in great shape.”
“I should hire you to be my hype woman,” he muttered. Then he opened the car door. We were at the car already. It took a second, but I managed to get in without breaking my neck.
“Mt. Sinai. Fast.” I got the feeling we were driving way faster than we should’ve been, but I couldn’t focus on that. I couldn’t focus on anything. I just wanted to sleep. I closed my eyes. If I slept, everything would go away. And I could rest against Spencer…
“No,” he said, sitting me up.
“What? You don’t want me on you?” I closed my eyes again.
“No! I don’t want you sleeping. Don’t go to sleep. Keep your eyes open.” I felt his face so close to mine. I could feel his breath on me. I opened my eyes and looked up into his.
“You have such pretty eyes,” I whispered.
“So do you. Keep them open so I can look at them, okay? We’ll be at the hospital in a minute. Just stay awake.” He shook me a little, and I felt dizzy and sick when he did.
“Don’t do that,” I mumbled, trying to brush his hands off me. They were like steel.
“If it keeps you awake, I’ll do it. If you have something wrong in your head, the worst thing to do is go to sleep.” He leaned over and pressed a button on the door. Cold air hit me like a bomb.
“Cold!” I tried to close the window, but he wouldn’t let me. It did clear my head a little, funny enough. I could think again. I looked at him. “I’m scared.”
“I know.” He sounded angry, even a little dangerous.
The car screeched to a stop, and the driver—what was his name again?—jumped out and ran around to the back door. He opened it and helped me out while Spencer got out on the other side. Between the two of them, they carried me into the ER.
There was a lot of action. Loud voices, bright lights. Questions. So many questions. I felt a sting as a needle went into my arm. More questions. I couldn’t make myself answer them. I couldn’t find the words. I heard Spencer rattling things off to the nurses, who asked more questions.
Then my gurney was racing down the hall, and then I was in a machine and told to lie still. So I did. Finally, there was quiet. I wanted quiet. There was too much noise going on.
I really couldn’t seem to focus. Before I knew it, I was back in a little room with just Spencer sitting by my side. It felt like I blinked, and I was suddenly somewhere else. I couldn’t keep track of anything. I turned my head to look at him. He was staring at me.
“Am I going to die?” I whispered.
“No. Not today.” He reached up and stroked my hair. It felt nice.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“They’re processing your images now and the doctor will be right in. How do you feel?”
“Weird.” I shrugged. “Just weird.”
“You’re clearer than you were before,” he mused. His hand fell from my hair to my hand, and I felt his fingers close over mine. That felt nice, too. I finally had somebody on my side. Somebody I could count on.
Janine came rushing in, all apologies. “I’m sorry,” she babbled. She had my coat and bag with her. “They didn’t tell me you were brought here until just a few minutes ago. I was at the trailer, just sitting there like an idiot. What’s wrong?” Spencer gave her the rundown while I closed my eyes and thanked whoever was out there in the universe for giving me somebody to talk for me.
The door opened again, and two doctors came in. They didn’t look very happy.
“Miss Banks,” one of them murmured, “this will sound indelicate, but…”
“But what?” Spencer asked. “What did you find on her scans?”
“Nothing,” the second doctor said. “Nothing out of the ordinary, at any rate. No swelling, no anything. She’s just fine.”
I looked at Spencer, who looked at me. “So what’s the problem?” he asked. “I mean, that’s a relief, but what’s the problem?”
“As I was asking,” the first doctor continued, “how much have you had to drink today?”
I blinked, sure I had misheard him. “To drink? Like, water?”
“No. Like alcohol.”
“I haven’t had any alcohol. In years.” I looked at Spencer, eyes wide. “I told you. Remember?”
“I’ve been with her literally since before dawn,” Spencer said. “I’ve watched her all day. She hasn’t drunk anything other than water and tea.”
“Well, her bloodwork says otherwise. You’re drunk, Miss Banks. Very drunk. That’s why you acted the way you did.”
“Well, if I was drunk, I would know it. Right? We wouldn’t come rushing to the hospital.”
“Doctor, I’ve been with her, too,” Janine insisted. “She didn’t have any alcohol.”
“I’
m sober,” I said.
“Again, not according to your bloodwork.”
“Okay, okay.” Spencer stood up, running his hands through his hair. I needed him to do the thinking for me just then, because I was sure I’d just woken up in a nightmare. “Let’s get this straight. Her blood alcohol level is up.”
“Way up,” the doctors confirmed.
“The only thing I’ve seen her drink today is water and tea, like I said.”
“Are you sure it was water?” The doctors looked at me. I looked at Janine.
Her eyes were wide. “The production assistants make sure the trailer is stocked with water every morning. Your brand and everything. It’s just there when we get there.”
I nodded. “It’s true. They provide it.It tasted like water to me.”
Spencer took out his phone and made a call. “I want every bottle of water in Charlotte’s trailer taken in for testing.” I knew he was talking to one of the detectives on the case.
“You think Miss Banks was tricked into drinking?” The doctors at least looked a little more sympathetic.
“I do.” Spencer looked down at me. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’ll figure this out.”
“Who’s worried?” I tried to smile.
Chapter Nine – Spencer
I had to get to the bottom of it, and fast. I couldn’t stand watching her lose it the way she was.
Only she wouldn’t let anybody know she was losing it, because that would mean admitting she was human. She couldn’t do that. Not in front of anybody but me.
She was sober by the time we got back to the apartment. Sober and in a really bad mood. Janine scurried off into her little office—and “scurried” was the right word, too. She reminded me of a scared animal, probably thanks to Charlotte’s sharp tongue.
“You wanna tell me what’s going on in your head?” I asked after I sat her on the sofa. She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the cushions. I saw the lines in her forehead, the way her eyebrows drew together. She pressed her lips into a thin, fine line.
“You wanna know?” she asked in a shaky, trembling voice. “Do you really wanna know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
She snorted. “What do you think? I mean, you know so many things. You’re so smart. Why don’t you tell me what’s happening in my tortured, tortured mind?”
“Don’t do that,” I warned. “Don’t turn me into one of the people you boss around and talk down to and treat like shit.”
“Ooh, so forceful. Mr. Army Man.” She giggled, but there was no mirth in that giggle. She was angry and miserable and taking it out on me, and I had to remind myself of that before I strangled her.
“Push me away as much as you want, but in the end it’ll come down to the same thing. You’ll still be at the mercy of whoever’s doing this to you, and you’ll still be scared shitless.”
“Don’t tell me how I feel,” she muttered. “Just don’t.”
“You told me to tell you how you were feeling. So I did. Tell me I’m wrong,” I dared.
“I hate you right now.”
“You didn’t hate me so much in the car, on the way to the hospital.”
She scoffed. “I was drunk.”
“Yeah, because somebody drugged you, Charlotte. And it’s okay to not be okay after something like that. It’s okay to be scared and wonder what else could happen and who you can trust.”
“Nobody,” she whispered.
“You know that’s not true. You know you can trust me. You trusted me before this, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, maybe I did. But then this happened and now I don’t know who I can trust all over again. I mean, I stupidly trusted the people who work for the production company, didn’t I? And then I find out one of them drugged me, for Christ’s sake.” She swiped a hand over her cheek to catch the single tear that had escaped her eye. “Who is it? Who made them do it? And how did they manage it? I mean, did they bribe them? Did they threaten? Who would do something like this to me?”
She covered her face with her hands, and I watched her dissolve into tears. Her shoulders shook up and down as she sobbed.
“Hey. Come on.” I wasn’t the kind of man who could handle the sight or sound of a woman’s tears—who could?—but I also wasn’t the type who could sit there and not do anything about it. I couldn’t let her cry and not try to help her.
“Come on, now.” I put an arm around her, feeling a little awkward but at the same time feeling like I had to protect her. I couldn’t stand knowing she was in pain. I couldn’t stand not wrapping her in my arms when she sobbed like that. I had to hold her.
She leaned in, too. That was the only green light I needed. I wrapped both arms around her and let her rest her head on my chest. She was so small—smaller than she seemed, maybe because she always tried so hard to seem bigger and stronger. Her body shook against me. I leaned my cheek against the top of her head and wished more than anything that I could make it all go away. I felt helpless and I hated it. I hated that I couldn’t do anything to soothe her except holding her. How useless could I be?
“I hate this,” she whispered in between sobs. “I hate it all so much. I can’t stand it.”
“I know. I know you feel this way. I wish I could make it all go away for you. Hell, I would switch places with you if I could. You know I would.”
“I don’t.”
“Well, I do. I do wish that.”
“I feel like I should thank you for that or something,” she said, wiping her face with her hands. “Isn’t that stupid?”
“Not really.”
She looked up at me, eyes wide. Everything about her appealed to everything in me—her beauty, her strength, her vulnerability and helplessness in the face of everything that was spinning out of control around her. Our eyes locked, and even though hers were red and watery, I couldn’t help but get a little lost in them.
It was wrong to think about her the way I did. I wished I could find a way to stop thinking about her the way I did. I wished I didn’t want to touch her as much as I did—not just hold her, but stroke her and run my hands over her body. I wished I could keep from imagining doing it. She was right there. In my arms, looking up at me like I was all she had in the world. What man wouldn’t respond to something like that? I was only human.
I lifted one hand to stroke her cheek, damp with tears. Her skin was as smooth as it looked, like cream. I wondered if the rest of her body felt that way. Probably, I guessed. I touched her again. She closed her eyes and sighed gently, and the sound was like music. She seemed to melt into me, like she was asking me to touch her again. She wanted more from me. I wanted more from her.
So I ran my fingertips down the side of her face and cupped her chin in my hand. She tilted her head up for me, making it easier for me to cover her mouth with mine.
She whimpered softly into my mouth, a sound that went straight to my dick and caused it to swell. I couldn’t focus on that just then. I focused on the smoothness of her lips, their softness and fullness. Their firmness. I sucked the bottom lip gently before biting gently on it and she groaned. Her hands found my head and her long, slim fingers tangled in my hair. She pulled my head closer, holding me in place while our mouths moved against each other.
She parted her lips and my tongue slid between them. I took a slow tour of the inside of her mouth. I was painfully hard already and just getting harder every time our tongues touched. She pressed her body against mine, growling a little like she was hungry. Hungry for me. Just as hungry as I was for her.
Bzz! Bzz! My eyes flew open. A man never lost a hard-on as quickly as I did in that moment. Her hands were still in my hair and her eyes closed, face tilted upward toward mine. I looked down at her in distress. Bzz! Bzz!
“My phone,” I muttered, reaching into my jeans to grab it as I bolted up from the couch. What the hell was I thinking? How could I have let myself get so carried away on camera? We were right there, under the eyes of
the entire surveillance team. They were probably enjoying themselves, too, placing bets on how long it would take before the two of us were humping. I could just imagine their laughter. Well, if the phone hadn’t rang, somebody would’ve won that bet because I was about a half-minute away from taking her.
I walked out to the balcony, and the cold air cleared my head even more. I needed that. It gave me a fresh outlook. I answered, seeing the main office number on my ID but knowing it had to be Pax.
“Yes?”
“Don’t yes me,” he said, and his jaw was tight. “Don’t answer the phone with an attitude like I’m the one who was just having a hot and heavy make-out session with one of our clients.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you’re sorry. That’s an understatement. You really should watch yourself, Spence. I know you’re perfect for this case but I can’t have you screwing up.”
“I’ll do my best not to. And for the record, it’s not as if that was purposeful. Just one of those moments you get swept up in.”
I heard his heavy, disappointed sigh. “Well, there isn’t a man alive who hasn’t had one of those moments, I guess.”
“I’m sure that’s true.” I felt hopeful for the first time since I’d answered the call.
“She’s beautiful, right?”
“Yeah. You know she is.”
“And she’s vulnerable, so she’ll cling to you.” He sighed again. “I’ve been in that place. It never ends well.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” I gripped the railing, wondering if I shouldn’t just jump off the ledge and end it all right there. The cold breeze lifted the hair from my temples and cooled me off even further, but it wasn’t what I really wanted. I really wanted to be deep inside her. This wouldn’t end well. Pax was right. As he normally was.
I ended the call and closed my eyes. With all the technology available, why couldn’t we come up with a viable time travel machine design? I would use the hell out of that thing. If I could go back to the moments before we got back to the apartment, life would be a lot easier.
Well, at least something was going my way. When I walked back into the apartment, the living room was empty. Charlotte’s bedroom door was closed.
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