by LR Potter
“No… it’ll pass eventually,” she murmured through the pain.
He gently massaged the knots in her neck and shoulders and continued to speak soft words of sympathy to her. Eventually, she relaxed under his ministrations and drifted off. He wrapped his arms around her and their child and held them close, hating her pain. His chest burned at the feelings of hopelessness her pain brought him. He closed his eyes as he remembered how she’d looked when he’d first walked into the room. She reminded him of a wounded animal which had crawled to hide in its lair. Why hadn’t she stayed with him if she felt that poorly? His heart sank. She didn’t trust him to take care of her… and why should she? He’d let her down so many times in the past.
Chapter Two
Trinity cautiously opened her eyes and was happy the horrendous pain in her head had evaporated. As a thought occurred to her, she rolled over onto her back to find herself alone in the bed. Had Rush actually been here, or was that her imagination? She heaved a huge sigh as she tried to sort through her feelings in regard to Rush Drayton.
She’d been utterly and completely devastated… and broken. In the days that had followed her ordeal with James Franklin, and her father had continuously battered her already shredded confidence.
“I tried to tell you the kind of man he was. But you refused to listen,” he said.
Knowing his words were true only added venom to their sting. Tiring of his self-elation, defensively, she asked him, “And what kind of man are you, Father? How much money did you actually get from the Embassy Fund? Was it worth it? How can you live with yourself, knowing your actions killed your wife? Do you know how scared I was? I was just a child. Did you care? And what about the things you’ve done to me recently? How do you rationalize in your mind scaring the hell out of me?”
He’d slid his hand in his pockets. “I had my reasons for what I did, both then and now,” he replied.
She stared up at him from her hospital bed, bruised and broken, and had an epiphany. Her father believed the world revolved to meet his needs. As long as those needs were met, nothing was off limits. Through his greed, he’d killed her mother and destroyed the only family she’d known… and for what? Money?
“I need you to leave,” she said quietly.
“You’re not thinking clearly. You’re tired and overwrought. By tomorrow, the world will look much different,” he said.
“I’m thinking clearly now. Leave… get out… and don’t come back. I don’t want to see you. I am notifying hospital security not to allow you entry into my room. Am I clear?”
He’d given her a steely stare before lifting a hand to straighten his tie. “Yes, perfectly.”
He’d walked out of her room and she’d not heard from, nor seen him, since. She’d been lucky to have the support of Gavin Lassiter, her boss from LaMont Art Gallery, and Sundra Caruthers, her best friend, to help her find her condo and set it up. It’d taken her a solid month to get back on her feet and begin to do things on her own.
She rubbed her eyes and rolled the muscles in her neck to ward off the oppressive thoughts of the past. She’d put it all behind her and moved forward doggedly – refusing to give in to her feelings of despair and loss. And now, in a matter of two days, Rush had brought it all crashing back down on her. Her lips began to tremble. With pure strength of will, she clamped them together and made them stop. She wasn’t going to be that girl ever again. He’d broken her once; she’d not allow him to do it again!
Carefully, she rolled herself up and stood on wobbly legs. She couldn’t remember ever having a migraine as severe as the one she’d just had. She didn’t think she could endure another one. She padded up the hall to the kitchen and paused in the archway, surprised, when she saw Rush standing at the stove, heating up what appeared to be soup. Her heart caught in her chest at the sight of him. He was just so stunning. Her emotions seesawed between extreme joy and extreme terror. Her heart began to pound and her breathing became rapid. She tried to once again gain the control she’d fought for just a second ago… but it was much harder when looking into her tormentor’s eyes.
As if he sensed her presence, he glanced in her direction, then turned to her.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“Hi,” she answered, as she nervously wrung her hands together in front of herself.
Pushing the soup to an unlit burner, he came to her, pulled her stiff body into his arms, and brushed a kiss against her forehead.
Looking down into her pale face, he asked, “How are you feeling?”
Her uncertainty of him made her feel shy suddenly. “I’m better, thanks.” Clearing her throat, she moved out of the shelter of his arms and moved to the refrigerator for juice. “How’d you get into the condo?”
She saw him stiffen at her obvious rebuff before he turned back to the stove. “The door was unlocked.”
She watched as he stirred the soup and struggled with her overwrought emotions. “Rush, I’m fine. You don’t have to take care of me.”
He cut his eyes to her once more before turning back to the stove to switch the burner off.
“But I want to take care of you,” he replied lightly.
She watched as he searched her cabinets until he found the bowls. Lifting two out, he poured soup into each. He searched the drawers for spoons, before carrying the bowls to the table. When she hesitated, he said, “Come, you need to eat.”
While her stomach roiled at both the thought of eating and sitting at a table with him, she knew he was right. He pulled her chair out and she sat down. She cautiously lifted the spoon filled with chicken broth and noodles to her lips and was happy her stomach accepted it. They sat in uncomfortable silence as they both sipped the soup from their bowls.
She jumped when Rush suddenly placed a hand over the one she’d laid on the table.
“Trinity, what’s going on here?” he asked softly. “I thought we’d worked through things last night. At least, it felt that way to me.”
Emotions swirled through her at his words – love… hate… hurt… pain… need… regret. She wasn’t sure how to answer. She sat her spoon down on the table with extreme care before lifting wary her eyes to his.
“I need to know the truth about us,” she said hesitantly, not knowing if she could handle the truth.
He sat his spoon down with equal consideration and sighed deeply before sitting back heavily in his chair. Staring into her eyes levelly, he asked, “What do you want to know?”
“How did it start?”
He licked his lips and studied her carefully before answering. “As I told you that day in my office, the man who’d shared a prison cell with Lars Thorn, the man who’d stabbed my father, contacted my grandfather about six months previously – it now appears, he’d also contacted James Franklin from what I’ve been able to gather – looking for the biggest payout. He told my grandfather he had information for a price. My grandfather agreed to pay him and he told us about Tiko Mars and about the truth regarding the Embassy Fund. I was sent to Mexico to find Tiko Mars, which I did. Through… my resources,” the last words sounded menacing to her ears, “I was able to extract the information I needed – except for who’d actually called the hit on my father. I only knew it’d been ordered from your father’s office. But, we knew for a fact your father was in court at the time the call was placed. We also knew he’d had his office under video surveillance. We needed his information.”
Trinity sat staring down into her cooling soup as she took in the information. “How did the situation go from that to me?”
Rush exhaled silently. He knew no matter how it he told the story, he would not come out well in the telling. Anxiousness clawed at his belly. He’d had her within his grasp and he was afraid she was seconds from slipping away from him. Clearing his throat, he decided to just tell her the events. Maybe once everything was out in the open, they could discuss it and then put it behind them.
“My grandfather became dogmatic and unwavering in his determinatio
n to discover my father’s killer. He wanted justice. My grandmother had died the year before, and finding the person or persons responsible became almost like his mantra. No matter how I tried to talk him out of it, he wouldn’t be dissuaded.” Rush exhaled heavily and rubbed a hand across his eyes, dreading the next part of the story. “I was in a meeting with my grandfather and the discussion came up about ways to entice your father to tell us who’d called the hit. As I said, through our investigations, we’d already eliminated him as the culprit. From out of the blue, my grandfather asked who was the closest to your father… I think his exact words were: who did he love? It was then you were mentioned. I wasn’t sure what my grandfather intended, but I knew he was desperate.”
She lifted her wounded dark eyes to his. “You had to have been so thrilled to find your intended target so vulnerable and naïve,” she said, and clenched her jaws tight. “Throw in a fight with my controlling father, and I was putty in your hands.”
He lifted a hand as if to touch her face, but allowed it drop back onto his lap. With a deep sigh, he said, “I didn’t know anything about you. But I thought as long as I was involved, I could keep things under control.” He lifted his eyes to hers and gave her a sad smile. “Then I met you and I was honestly blown away. You were so beautiful and passionate when you were discussing art. You stunned me from the very beginning. You sat across from me that day in the gallery in your pristine, blue silk dress, and all I could think about was how the silk would feel against my hands as I slipped it off your body and laid you out on that damned conference room table. You felt it too. I saw it in your eyes and felt it in your touch.”
She swallowed hard and forced herself to look away from his gaze.
“I was worried,” he continued, “when you said you were heading off to Vail, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to protect you there. So I contacted Hunter. I knew through the course of our investigation about your friendship with Sundra Caruthers.”
The same suffocating bonds that had smothered her at her father’s hands clamped around her chest, causing her breathing to become rapid. Her entire life had been scrutinized and examined without her knowledge. Her lips began to tremble at how violated she felt. She was aware of his heavy stare on her but she couldn’t meet his eyes. “I thought you… I thought we… I thought it was real,” she rasped. Wiping a hand against her brow, she gave a rueful laugh, “How stupid, right?”
“It was real… I wanted you from the very beginning. I tried to protect you, I swear, I did. I begged my grandfather after our first night together. I called him and demanded he call off his vendetta, but he just wouldn’t be convinced. I had to promise to keep trying to get next to you. It was the only way he would keep his distance. But then I got caught up with a work issue in Vail and couldn’t leave when you did. My grandfather thought you were beginning to distract me… I can’t say he was wrong. That’s why he sent his henchman to vandalize your office. My grandfather swears you weren’t supposed to be touched, only scared.”
She lifted a hand to her lips then let it fall to caress her protruding belly. How was she supposed to wade through this?
He leaned forward and laid one of his much larger hands over the one she had over their child. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
She swallowed against the lump in her throat. “You scare me,” she finally said simply.
He closed his eyes as pain lanced across his chest. He wasn’t sure how to overcome her insecurity about him. He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them gently before answering.
“I know. I’m sorry. Tell me what to do,” he said gruffly.
She blinked away the tears which threatened to fall. “You once begged me to trust you… and I did. It nearly killed me when I found out the truth… and then you deserted me… and I was left with nothing… nothing and no one,” she gushed out on trembling lips. “I don’t know what’s a lie and what’s the truth.”
He removed his hand from hers and rubbed it across his face. He turned his chair to face her and pulled hers toward him until they were sitting with knees touching. He gripped the seat of her chair and leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers. His brilliant hazel eyes were shut and his jaw clenched tight.
“I love you, Trinity. And God knows, I wish I could go back and redo everything. I don’t want to lose you. I don’t know what to do. But I promise I’ll spend the rest of my life striving to be the man you deserve. Please give me that chance,” he pleaded.
Her heart pounded and her breathing was rapid. Her head spun at the many unanswered questions which flooded her. She patted his cheek gently, before untangling herself from him and moved to stand facing the sink with her back to him. She curled her fingers around the sink’s edge.
Now hidden from his immense stare, she allowed the tears to streak down her face as she fought with the crux of her problem. “If you loved me, how could you leave me when I was lying in a hospital with a gunshot wound in my chest? You just left with no explanation. I was alone and scared. I didn’t even know at first if you were alive or dead. How do you do that to someone you supposedly love?”
He was silent for a very long time. Gruffly he began, “Your father…”
She interrupted him. “My father was and is a liar. We both know that. Why would you believe him?” she demanded.
“I didn’t know until afterwards what he’d done to you. I didn’t know he was responsible for that hideous photo being delivered to your office or the break-in at your house. I didn’t think he would lie about you having an abortion. He told me you didn’t want to see me. After everything that had happened, why wouldn’t I believe that?”
She stood silently as she contemplated his words. “What about your grandfather? How am I supposed to handle that? He would have had me killed to get the information he wanted.”
He moved swiftly from his chair and placed his hands gently on her shoulders as he leaned his face into her hair. “He wasn’t going to go that far. I wouldn’t have let it go that far.”
Her shoulders slumped as she exhaled heavily. “I barely survived it the last time you left. I… can’t go through that again.”
He turned her to face him and placed hands that trembled gently against her face. He stared down into her tear-streaked face and swallowed hard. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said softly before he lowered his lips to hers.
She leaned into the kiss for just an instant before snatching out of his grasp and turning her back to him once again. “I was alone and pregnant, and every week I’d opened that damned newspaper and there’d you’d be with someone else. Do you have any idea how hurtful that was? How much it hurt being so desperately in love with you and it being obvious you didn’t feel that way? Hadn’t ever felt that way? How it felt to know the child I carried wasn’t conceived in some great love story, but instead conceived in some sort of loathsome game in which I was the booby prize?”
He winced at her words. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I thought it was what you wanted. I was hurt when your father told me you’d gotten rid of the baby and wanted to be equally rid of me. What was I to do? I certainly didn’t blame you. I was so in love with you, but didn’t see any way I could ever convince you of that. But I’m begging you now to believe me.”
“You hurt me,” she whimpered.
He exhaled sharply before placing his hands on her hips and leaning into her back, his face buried in her hair. “I know. I’m sorry. More sorry than I can ever express. Please just give me a chance… give us a chance.”
She whimpered in indecision.
“Marry me,” he whispered against her ear.
She stiffened at his words. It felt as if a knife was being twisted into her chest. Her breathing became ragged with emotion. “I can’t,” she strangled out before snatching herself away from him and moving quickly to her bedroom. She closed the door and leaned against it as tears began to stream down her face.
Several minutes passed before she heard the knock on the do
or behind her. “Please just go,” she sobbed.
She felt a thud against the door, which she assumed was his forehead leaned against the door.
“Please let me in. Please talk to me. I can’t leave like this. I’m begging you,” he pleaded.
She turned and laid her face against the door. “Please don’t ask me to marry you like this.”
Silence met her words. Emotionlessly, he replied, “I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t shut me out.”
Wiping a hand across her face, she slowly opened the door. His grim face tore at her heart. He wrapped his massive arms around her and held her as tight as her protruding belly would allow.
“I can make you love me again. I swear I can,” he whispered into her hair.
She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I love you now.”
His chest rose and fell rapidly. “Then why won’t you marry me?”
“You want to marry me for the wrong reasons,” she replied quietly.
He pulled back to stare down into her face. “I love you and want to build a life with you and our son. What better reasons can there be?”
She laid her forehead against his chest as she struggled to find the right words. “You feel desperate and think this is what I need to hear. But it’s not. I just… need time. I mean, it was only two days ago that you were out on a date with someone else. I can’t switch gears that fast, and I don’t think you can either.”
He stiffened once more at her words. “You’re wrong. I know what I want… what I’ve wanted since Vail. But you’re right about one thing, I’ll do anything to make you understand I’m serious about us. This is what I want… you’re what I want. If I could talk you into it, I’d whisk you away today and marry you. In fact, I’d prefer it that way. But I’ll do whatever you need me to do. Just don’t shut me out.”
She stood for a long time in his embrace as indecision… want… need… and fear encompassed her.
“Can we just try dating?” she asked.