by Teri Wilson
She froze for a moment, her brow crumpling in confusion...and just a little bit of hurt.
Despite the spike of irritation that had hit him hard in the chest when he spotted the envelope, he registered the distress in her gaze. And a very real part of him hated himself for putting it there.
But the other part of him—the tender part, the damaged part, the part that needed to know she was all in before they went down this road again—was livid.
Her head spun slowly around, following his gaze. A second passed, maybe two. But they were among the longest seconds of Ryan’s life. When she faced him again, the desire in her eyes had melted into something else. Regret, laced with a hint of fear.
“Tell me you didn’t come in here while I was out and leave a resignation letter on my chair,” Ryan said through gritted teeth.
“I didn’t.” Evangeline shook her head. “Well, I did. But it wasn’t like that. I...”
Ryan knew he should give her a chance to explain. He knew she was scared. But damn it, so was he. Couldn’t she see that? From the moment he’d woken up in her bed, she’d been pulling away from him, and she was still doing it. Only now, things were different. Now if she fled, she’d be taking their baby with her.
“Do you have any idea how finding a letter like that would have felt?” he said.
She shook her head. “But I wasn’t going to leave it there. That’s why I stayed. I...”
“Excuse me,” someone said from the direction of the office door. It was followed by a pointed clearing of a throat.
Evangeline, still standing between Ryan’s legs, flew backward, as far away as she could get.
“I apologize for interrupting your...ah...meeting, Mr. Wilde.” Elliot’s face had gone beet red. He stared so intently at the floor that Ryan half expected it to open up and swallow him whole. “But there’s an urgent phone call for Ms. Holly.”
Evangeline grew deadly still. “Do you know who it is? It’s not about my grandfather, is it?”
Ryan shot to his feet. No, damn it. Please no.
Elliot shook his head. “It’s your landlord.”
Chapter Eleven
As if Evangeline’s life hadn’t already become enough of a train wreck, she was now officially homeless. At least that’s what the scary-looking eviction notice posted on her door implied.
Her landlord hadn’t minced words when she’d picked up the phone at the Bennington. No dogs. That was it. That’s all he’d said, then he’d slammed the phone down. Hard.
She hadn’t known what to do, and at first she’d been more concerned about Olive’s and Bee’s safety than the pesky detail of where she’d sleep at night. What if her landlord had called animal control and reported them? What if they were sitting in a cement cell at the pound? What if they’d been separated?
In her panic, she hadn’t objected when Ryan insisted on accompanying her to her building to see just how bad the situation was. She’d been grateful for Tony and the limo, otherwise she never would have made it home so quickly. She’d been grateful for Ryan’s presence, too. For some reason she felt like things couldn’t come completely apart while he was there, even though she had a sneaky suspicion he simply didn’t want to let her out of his sight in case she fled.
Her fault, obviously.
She should have done something with that letter of resignation when she realized what a mistake it had been. She should have buried it in the depths of her handbag. Or shredded it. Better yet, she should never have written it in the first place.
But she couldn’t think about that right now. Because even though Olive and Bee were completely fine, snug in their dog bed, right where she’d left them, there was a horrible red sign on the door of her apartment. It said Notice to Vacate in a font large enough to be read from space, because Evangeline hadn’t already experienced enough humiliation in recent months.
Once satisfied that the dogs were indeed safe and sound, she went back outside to square off with her landlord, who was busy pacing back and forth on the narrow sidewalk in front of the building. It would have been nice if he’d shoveled it while he was out there, but she refrained from making that suggestion.
“Please, Mr. Burton,” she said, just shy of begging. “I just need a few days to figure something out, to find a new apartment. A week, maybe?”
What was she saying? She’d never be able to find an affordable, pet-friendly building with a move-in date in less than seven days. She’d been combing the real estate ads since the day she’d brought Olive and Bee home and hadn’t found a thing she could afford. If she had, she wouldn’t be standing on the snowy sidewalk arguing with her landlord while her boss/erstwhile lover and his chauffeur looked on.
She’d asked Ryan to leave, but so far, he’d stayed put. She didn’t bother getting angry. He’d had a front-row seat to all of her recent humiliations. Why should this one be any different?
“This is a no-pets building. You knew that when you signed the lease.” Mr. Burton, who’d never had a particularly friendly demeanor to begin with, frowned beneath his supersized mustache.
“I did. But the dogs are my grandfather’s, and they had nowhere else to go. They’re very well behaved. Just one more week? Two?”
“You can stay, but those dogs can’t. No way.” He shook his head. “I want those filthy animals out of here. If I let you keep the dogs, everyone will want to have dogs. This is an apartment building, not an animal shelter.”
Ryan shot the man a murderous look and came to stand at her side. “There’s no reason to be so harsh. Surely we can all work something out.”
Her landlord looked Ryan up and down, and then he glanced briefly at the limo and rolled his eyes. “You can’t buy her way out of this. She broke the rules.”
Evangeline cut her gaze toward Ryan. “It’s fine. I’m handling it.”
She took a deep breath and faced Mr. Burton again. “Five days. Surely you can give me that long.”
He shook his head. “Zero days, unless you get rid of the mutts.”
Mutts? She gasped. “You did not just call them that.”
Ryan reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Come on, love. Let’s take Olive and Bee and go. You don’t want to stay here anymore.”
He was right. She didn’t. But where was she supposed to go with two elderly, special-needs dogs?
She shook her head. “I just can’t believe you’re throwing me out with no notice whatsoever. Is this even legal?”
Mr. Burton shrugged. “I’m not throwing you out. I’m throwing those dogs out. Get rid of them, and you can stay. They’re not yours, anyway. You just said so. If that’s true, send them to stay with your mom and dad. Your sister. Anyone. They just can’t stay here.”
She flinched as if she’d been slapped. “For your information, I don’t have a mom and dad. Or a sister.”
“We’re finished here.” Ryan’s arm came down between her and Mr. Burton, then before she could object, he pulled her close to his side and began steering her toward the car.
She couldn’t believe this was happening, but she should have seen it coming. She had, after all, broken the rules.
Still, it would have been nice if she’d been evicted before she found out she was pregnant. She already had serious doubts about her mothering instincts, and this wasn’t exactly inspiring confidence in her ability to properly care for a helpless baby.
“Sit.” Ryan pointed at the buttery leather seat in the back of the limousine. The look on his face told her arguing wasn’t an option.
Besides, she didn’t have much fight left in her after squaring off with her landlord. His suggestion to send Olive and Bee to live with her parents had caught her off guard, stripping her of every last shred of confidence.
The truth was, sometimes she forgot just how alone she really was. Sometimes she was too busy trying to forge ahead, prepa
ring for the sommelier exam or thinking about what wine she’d suggest to Carlo Bocci if she ever actually had the chance to serve him, live and in the flesh. Sometimes she very purposefully didn’t allow herself to think about what the future would look like once her grandfather died and once Olive and Bee were gone, and she had no one left.
Sometimes she was simply distracted from her loneliness by the devastatingly gorgeous man who’d fallen into her lap and didn’t seem to have any plans to go anywhere, no matter how convinced she was that he’d eventually break her heart.
And here he was. Again.
Somehow, some way, even though she was homeless, and even though she didn’t have the first clue how to be a mother and she was probably going to get fired for fleeing her workplace two days in a row, she didn’t feel so alone anymore.
Maybe this was what hope felt like.
“Give me your keys,” Ryan said.
She dropped them into his outstretched hand.
“Wait here. I’m getting the dogs.” A vein throbbed in his left temple. His gaze shot toward Tony, giving Evangeline a perfect view of the fascinating, angry knot that had formed in his jaw. “Make sure that jerk leaves her alone while I’m gone. Got it?”
Adrenaline trickled through her veins.
Tony nodded. “Yes, Mr. Wilde.”
It wasn’t adrenaline. It was something more...pleasant. She squirmed in her seat. Was she seriously feeling aroused at a time like this?
Impossible.
She called after him. “Ryan?”
He turned. The resolve in his gaze sent a shiver coursing through her.
Not so impossible, after all.
She swallowed. “Can you get the bottle of wine, too? The one in the wine cabinet in the living room?”
She couldn’t leave it there. That wine was special. One of a kind. It would have been easier to go get it herself, but she didn’t dare move. Not when Ryan had suddenly gone into alpha male–protector mode.
He gave her a curt nod and stalked back toward her building.
While he was gone, she concentrated on getting her skittering heartbeat under control. And reminding herself that she was an independent woman who didn’t need rescuing. Except it felt good to let someone take control, for once. She’d been on her own for so long, she’d forgotten what it felt like to be cared for. Protected. Jeremy had never stood up for her as Ryan just had. In all fairness, she’d never given him the chance. She hadn’t wanted to.
Moments later, Ryan emerged, holding the bottle of red in one hand and two dog leashes in the other. Olive and Bee trotted merrily out in front of him. They were obviously on doggy autopilot because they tried to drag him in the direction of the dog park, but he made a few adorable cooing sounds and they immediately turned around, ready to follow him off into the sunset.
Evangeline’s heart gave a wistful little tug. She averted her gaze, but not before her eyes went misty.
She blamed pregnancy hormones. And the frosty winter air. Because she absolutely couldn’t be getting emotional at the sight of Ryan Wilde walking her dogs.
A tear slid down her cheek.
Too late.
He exchanged a few words with Tony, who helped the dogs into the limo, and then slid in beside her with the bottle of wine tucked neatly under his arm. Bee immediately scurried into Evangeline’s lap. Olive settled on the back seat between them.
“Thank you,” she said as the car pulled away from the curb.
“You’re welcome,” he said quietly.
He was saying and doing all the right things, but now that they were alone again, he couldn’t seem to look her in the eye anymore. It hurt. More than she wanted to admit.
His words from earlier kept echoing in her mind, on constant repeat.
Do you have any idea how finding a letter like that would have felt?
She’d messed up. He was probably counting the seconds until they got back to the Bennington and he could put her and her troublesome dogs into a hotel room and walk away from this mess.
“Once we get back to the hotel, I’ll figure something out,” she said. There had to be somewhere she could go. New York City had more Realtors than the rest of the country combined. She’d find something. She had to.
But then the limo turned right when it should have turned left. Evangeline could see the snow-tipped trees of Central Park on the horizon when Grand Central Station should have been coming into view instead.
She swiveled toward Ryan. “Wait a minute. This isn’t the direction of the Bennington.”
“No, it’s not,” he said evenly.
He smoothed down his tie, which now had a large puddle of dog drool in the center of its woven silk pattern. Ryan didn’t seem to notice. Either that, or he didn’t care.
Evangeline blinked furiously again. Do not cry. He’s probably got an entire walk-in closet full of Hermès. The fact that he’s letting your half-blind dog drool all over one necktie doesn’t mean anything.
She cleared her throat. “Are we taking some secret alternate route back to the hotel?”
It was possible. Tony was a miracle worker. He clearly knew Manhattan like the back of his hand.
But somehow she doubted it. Ryan was too quiet. His eyes were too steely, the set of his jaw too tense.
“No, Evangeline.” Olive crawled into Ryan’s lap. He rested a hand on her back, but his gaze remained glued on the scenery out the window, whizzing past them in a crystalline blur of white. “I’m taking you home.”
* * *
“This really isn’t necessary.” Evangeline stood in the center of Ryan’s living room, looking far too much like she belonged there, and crossed her arms. “I mean, thank you. I appreciate it more than I can say. But it’s a huge imposition.”
Bee shuffled into view from the direction of Ryan’s bedroom with Olive hot on her heels. Each dog had one of his shoes dangling from their destructive little mouths. The shoes weren’t a matching set, either, ensuring maximum damage.
“It’s not an imposition at all,” he lied. Somehow he managed to keep a straight face.
What was he supposed to do? Watch and do nothing while the mother of his child got tossed onto the street? Over his dead body.
“I’m sure if I called Elliot and explained the situation he’d find a room at the Bennington we could use for a day or two.” She bit her lip, not looking entirely sure.
Ryan knew calling Elliot would be her absolute last resort. Evangeline didn’t believe in mixing business with her personal life, a fact Ryan knew all too well. “Think again. Elliot is severely allergic to pet dander. I don’t think you’ll get much sympathy from him.”
She blinked. “How do you even know that?”
“A certain former US president spent two nights in the Bennington penthouse with a certain pair of Portuguese water dogs last year, and Elliot sneezed for three straight weeks afterward.”
She let out a snort of laughter. “Are you making that up?”
Some of the tension in Ryan’s muscles loosened slightly. For the first time since their near kiss in his office earlier he fully met her gaze. “No, it’s true.”
She smiled at him, and it seemed to blossom from somewhere deep inside. That thing about pregnant women glowing? He’d never believed it before. Until now.
“I thought Portuguese water dogs were supposed to be hypoallergenic,” she said.
“Not for extreme allergy sufferers, apparently.”
“Like Elliot?”
Ryan nodded.
Were they really going to stand there and discuss their coworker’s dog allergy instead of talking about what was—or wasn’t—going on between them? He sighed. “I haven’t kidnapped you, Evangeline. You’re free to go.”
Olive or Bee—Ryan wasn’t sure which—made a snuffling noise. Then, as if to prove a point, the furry nonh
ostages abandoned their stolen shoes and curled into a contented pile by the fireplace.
Evangeline’s glow dimmed, ever so slightly. “I never said you’d kidnapped me.”
No, but you’re already planning your escape.
“It’s only temporary, though. Until I find something else.” She nodded resolutely. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he echoed.
What were they doing?
They were having a baby together, and they couldn’t even manage to have an honest conversation about their feelings.
She looked up at him, and he could see his own doubts swirling in her sapphire eyes. They were both in over their heads, drowning in all the words they couldn’t say...desires they couldn’t quite contain. And like most drowning victims, they were flailing, lashing out, when in reality, they just might be destined to save one another.
“I was never going to just leave that letter in your chair, Ryan. I want you to know that.” Her lips curved into a sad smile.
In another time, another place, he’d kissed those lips. He’d tasted them, worshipped them. When the time was right, he would again. “Do you really want to resign?”
He wanted to be supportive. He wanted to tell her it was okay if she still wanted to quit. But it wasn’t okay, damn it. The Bennington needed her.
He needed her.
“What is it that you want, Evangeline?”
Tell me.
Say it.
Her gaze flicked toward his bedroom and then back to him. She exhaled a shaky breath. “I don’t want to resign.”
It wasn’t everything he wanted to hear, but it was enough. For now. “Promise me you’ll stay until Bocci shows up.”
She nodded, then frowned. “What if he never comes?”
“He will.” He’d better. “He’s in New York until the end of the month. Just give it until then.”
And then what?
He didn’t know. He was just trying to buy some time—time to convince her to stay.
“Okay, I promise.” Her lips parted, as though she wanted to say something more.
