by J. Dallas
Drake, red-faced, struggling to breathe, sat on the edge of the bed and stared right back.
Shame slammed into me. Shame for the weakness, shame for having him see me like this.
I jerked my gaze away from him and rose, my legs shaky, my head pounding. “I’m sorry,” I said, forcing the words out.
He was silent. Unable to just stand there, I moved into the bathroom and turned on the water, splashing the icy wet across my face, gasping at the shock of it, welcoming it as it cleared some of the cobwebs from my mind.
There was no sound, but I knew when he came up to stand behind me.
Slowly, I straightened and met his gaze in the mirror. The redness had faded from his face. His voice was a little hoarse as he asked, “How often does this happen?”
“What?” I asked flippantly. “Me elbowing somebody in the throat? Not very.”
His mouth flattened out. “The nightmares, Shan.”
I took my time reaching for a towel and drying my face, formulating half a dozen answers before finally settling on the truth. With a sigh, I turned and faced him, leaning on the edge of the counter. “Now? Not very. A few times a year, I’ll have a really bad one. This time of the year is the worst. The rest of the time, it’s just echoes. Sometimes, I’ll sleep walk, move around a little and try to hide. Other times, it’s just restless sleep. That…” I paused and blew out a breath. “That was a bad one. They used to all be bad ones. I couldn’t sleep without taking a sleeping pill. Sometimes, it helped.”
I shrugged and looked down at the hand towel I still held, twisting it around in my hands. “But other times, the nightmares would still find me. I couldn’t wake up. So I’d be stuck.”
He crossed the distance between us, just a few small steps. One hand lifted, came up to cup my cheek. I held still, barely able to breathe as his eyes searched mine.
“I’ve spent the past two months trying to understand why you ran.” His hand slid down, curved around my neck and then he lowered his head, pressed his brow to mine. His lids drooped lower, shielding his eyes, although I could still see a thin rim of green. “And before that, I came here, every summer, waited on that fucking balcony every night for three weeks, just waiting for you. I thought, she’ll be here. One day, she’ll be here. She can’t stay away from a place she loves like this. But you never came back, not that I could see. Now I know why.”
His hand fell away and he straightened, turning away.
“Why did you really come to Gallagher Enterprises, Shan?” he asked softly. “You have every reason in the world to hate me. Every reason to avoid me. Running, I can understand, but why show up in the first place?”
As he pivoted back around to study me, I ducked my head, staring at my bare feet. Curling my toes into the plush, warm rug that spread out over much of the tiled floor, I debated on that answer. I could lie. I knew how to do it, how to look at a person and lie without blinking, without flinching. When you spent years trapped in a pit of depression that seemed unending, lying became almost second nature.
How are you, Shannon?
I’d smile and nod. I’m getting by. Every day seems to get a little easier.
Are you holding up?
A shrug, a shake of the head. Nothing else you can do. A nervous laugh. It’s what Dad would have wanted, right? I’ll be okay. Really.
You’re looking so much better! You are so brave. Your father would be so proud of you.
Thank you. It means a lot to hear that. A smile, a nod…even as I’m screaming inside, I don’t want to make my father proud…I want him here.
Oh, yes. I could lie. I could look Drake right in the eye and offer glib words that would ease this tension, angry words that would push him away. Or I could offer him more half-truths. I had wanted to get him out of my system. It hadn’t worked.
Now he was in my system, in my soul, in my blood. I could taste him on my lips as I slept, feel his body under my hands in my dreams, and when I woke, sometimes I even imagined I could still smell the scent of his skin on mine.
Feeling the weight of his gaze on my head, I slowly raised my head and stared at him.
In the bright, golden lights of the bathroom, I felt exposed and stripped bare.
The small, scared part of me whispered… Lie. Just lie. It’s so much easier. So much safer.
But that was the crux of my problem. I’d felt safe in Florida, and look what happened. Since then, there was rarely a day when I truly felt safe. What I felt was loneliness, anger, guilt and confusion.
I lived in the shadows and I wrapped myself in lies, just to keep people at bay.
In that moment, I realized how very tired of it all I was.
But the lies, and the shadows, would continue unless I pulled myself out of them.
Blood roared in my ears, my heart pounding in my throat. I rubbed my palms together, felt the sweat that had collected there. Clearing my throat, I looked around. Not here. I wasn’t having this talk here. In a bathroom, lush and elegant as it was.
“Let’s go out to the balcony,” I said softly.
He looked away, his shoulders rising, falling on a rough breath. “It’s cold.”
“I grew up on these beaches. I know the weather.”
He just nodded.
* * * * *
Cold, maybe.
But the built-in fire pit, powered by a gas line, chased away most of the chill. Drake wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and I drew my feet up on the cushion, tucking them under me. Between the fire and the blanket, I barely felt the chill in the air.
Not physically.
Inside, I felt chilled to the bone. And sick at heart.
Drake sat across from me, his hands folded, his gaze on the dancing flames. There was no delaying this. Not anymore.
“I hated you,” I said softly.
His shoulders tightened, his body going rigid as though he was preparing for a blow. But when he spoke, his voice was cool, the way it might be if he was addressing some of the hotshots back at Gallagher Enterprises. “I can understand why. I just want to understand what’s happened the past few months.”
He didn’t understand.
But then again, neither did I. Not really.
“For the past ten years, I fixated on you. Blaming you.” I shrugged and looked away. “I had to delay college until I was nineteen. Mom wishes I’d put it off another year, but I was going crazy. She…” I paused, wondering if there was a way to say this without coming off as cruel. “She blamed herself. For a long time. It was their job, she said. To protect me. When I was hurt, it was a failing of hers.”
Drake swore, shoving upright. He started to pace, tension coming off him in waves. “None of you were to blame. A couple of sick bastards wanted to hurt you, exploit you, steal from you and your family. The blame lies with them.”
“I know.”
He paused and looked back at me.
I focused on the fire, stunned by how much lighter I felt, just by saying those words out loud. I’d never been able to do it before, even though I’d told myself I accepted that fact years before. Over the past month especially, I’d been coming to realize just how blind I’d been in my rage toward Drake. Closing my eyes, I pressed my head to the pillowed side of the chair. “It took me a very long time to be able to see that. I blamed myself. I blamed you. I blamed your family.”
His gaze cut toward me and I laughed. “Please, Drake. It was Gallagher Enterprises that authorized the project…not just you.” Sighing, I tipped my head back and stared up at the endless expanse of sky overhead. “I blamed my mother. I blamed the cops for not finding us, not realizing those guys were out there. I blamed the security guards for not realizing what I was saying sooner. And I did blame the men who grabbed me. But it took a long time for me to stop blaming everybody else around me, everybody who’d been in my life around that time.” I plucked at a loose thread on the blanket, forcing the last of the words out. “Including my father.”
The boards under his feet cr
eaked and I looked up, watched as he settled across from me.
“Your father.”
“Yes.” Tears stung my eyes. Impatient, I dashed them away. “He was the reason we went to Florida. He talked about the money. He trusted too many people and that was the reason he ended up in a bad way to begin with, why we had to sell out anyway. Yes, I blamed him. I blamed you. I blamed everybody.”
Clutching the blanket, I stood up and went to the railing and stared out over the water, watching as it crashed into the beach. “Most of all, I blamed myself.”
He joined me at the railing, his eyes on the rolling surf. “Why?”
“I lived. He didn’t. They battered him. I had bruised ribs and a bruised kidney. Oh…and skinned knees from where I fell. You couldn’t even recognize him when they were done with him.” Turning my head, I stared at him, swallowing so I could speak around the knot in my throat. “It’s been ten years. And the clearest image I have in my head of my dad is the way he looked that last day, his face bruised and his mouth busted open. Most of those came from the times when I couldn’t stop myself from screaming. I can’t see my father the way I want to. Those are the clearest memories I have of him, no matter what I do. I can’t cut those images out of my head.”
He moved then, so fast I couldn’t even prepare for it. His hands plunged into my hair, tugging my head back until all I could see was his face. “And is that what he’d want? Would he want that to be how you remember him?”
“It doesn’t matter. I can’t get it out of my head! I did that to him. For weeks before that happened, I didn’t want to talk to him. Not to him, to Mom. I hid in my room, or in the hotel and stared outside, feeling sorry for myself. Because they had done what they could to make sure I’d be taken care of.” I curled my lip, glaring at him. “Poor little Shan. Her parents were in the hole so bad. Then a rich guy comes and buys up their hotel. Now we’ve got lots of money and what am I’m twisted up over? You.”
I jerked away from him, ignoring the nauseating way my head pitched and rolled.
Stumbling away, I curled my hands over the railing, tried to steady my knees. “I hated everybody.”
“You had a right to hate me,” he said, his voice hard as stone.
“No.” I had to get this out. The poison inside me had festered for too long. “A right to be angry…maybe. I still don’t understand why you wasted your time with me, but that’s neither here nor there. I didn’t need to hate your family, my parents, the cops…or myself. I’ve been trapped for ten years and I’m tired of it.”
Unable to stand there any more, I turned away.
He didn’t follow me.
I can’t decide if I was happy about that or not.
Morning came. Too bright, and as far as I was concerned, too early.
Squinting against the light shining through my window, I groaned as the pounding continued inside my head and tried to think about the fact that I had to go out there. Face Drake. Figure out how to get out of this place, figure out what to do next.
At some point in the next few days, I had to make it down to Florida.
Thinking was so hard, though, and the ache in my skull only made it worse.
What do you want to do? That small voice inside my head murmured to me and I closed my eyes.
What did I want?
Slowly, I rolled to an upright position and stared outside, gazing out over the rolling waters. They called to me. The ocean always had. Even the beaches of Florida had beckoned to me, but nothing like it did here.
Home.
What I wanted?
That was easy.
It was this.
This place.
On the rare occasion I had happier dreams, it was of this. On the rare occasion I let myself think about what-if? I imagined myself here. Building something here, making something that mattered. All I’d ever wanted.
I wanted this. I wanted home.
And…
An ache settled in my throat.
Drake.
Still.
Always.
It was what you wanted.
This beautiful place, like he’d reached inside me and captured my dreams, brought them to life; he’d done it because I’d wanted it. He’d come back here, hoping to find me. That meant something, didn’t it?
Was it foolishness to hope we still had a chance?
Just the thought of it was enough to make my heart race. Enough to make my palms go damp while the yearning swamped me. Every time I’d woken up alone over the years, some part of me had wished for…something. No. Not something. That empty void inside me had a name and only he could fill it.
They say youthful infatuations are fleeting, that they never last.
But mine turned into an obsession…a love that haunted me even now.
A chance.
Sliding off the bed, I moved to stand in front of the mirror, studying my reflection. It hadn’t been all that long ago that I had stood in Philly, staring at my reflection critically, wondering if he’d see the girl I’d been under the layers of sophistication I’d developed over the years.
I’d been fooling myself to think that he wouldn’t see that girl.
She was still there. Under a thick layer of bitterness, anger and hurt, she was still there. I could see her clearer now. I could even feel her. Maybe it was because something had pierced that layer of bitterness.
I could see her—see me. Nothing had ever been more clear in that moment, standing in the dark, wearing Drake’s button-up shirt and a pair of his boxers that bagged around my waist. Scowling, I looked down at myself, realizing I’d been wearing the same clothes since I’d arrived here—how long had it been? Thirty six hours, maybe?
It seemed about right.
I needed to think. I needed to clear my head. And I really, really needed a shower.
I spent a good twenty minutes under the hot, pounding spray. I came to one conclusion.
It was time. Time to start over. Time to reach for a second chance. Here, back where everything had started. Here, with Drake.
Although the water was hot, goosebumps raced across my flesh while my belly clenched. There was a tight, hot knot there and I groaned, leaning back against the tiles. They were heated by the water and their warmth seeped into me, turning my already loose muscles into putty. My breath hitched in my chest and my heartbeat raced.
I wanted to start over.
I wanted a chance with Drake.
Was I going to go do this?
I didn’t know.
The thought of it terrified me.
The thought of not doing it terrified me more.
It was that thought that pushed me to turn off the water, to reach for one of the towels, hanging on a heated rod. I wrapped it around my body and then grabbed another, drying the water from my hair. My hands were shaking the entire time though. As I dried my hair, as I wrapped the towel around my head, as I finished toweling off and as I slicked some of the lotion I found on the counter over my skin.
Even as I brushed my teeth, I could see how my hands shook. When I finished, I reached for the towel and let my wet hair spill down around my face, using my hand to finger comb through the loose curls, wincing as I felt the lump that had ended up putting me in this predicament.
Once I’d finished, I lowered my hands to the counter and stood there, staring at my reflection.
“Pull yourself together,” I said to the woman in the mirror.
Without waiting to see if she took my advice, I adjusted the damp towel back around my torso and turned to the door.
Chapter Five
Cool air kissed my flesh as I opened the door and moved into the wide open living room. There was a fire roaring in the stone hearth and in front of it, sprawled in a chair was Drake. The golden light from the fire set the deep red of his hair to flame and he was lost in thought, staring into the glass of bourbon he held in front of him.
I stood there, watching as he lifted it, looking down into it without drinking
it.
I took a step forward and froze as his gaze cut to me.
It was like the fire in the hearth reached out to lick my flesh. I was flaming hot, and all because he’d looked at me.
The wooden floor under my feet was the only thing that felt cool. Even the air was supercharged, heated against my skin as I took another step, then another. Soon, there was no more steps left to take and I stood in front of him, wearing nothing but the towel, looking down at him while he swirled the whiskey in his glass and then tossed it back. “You should be resting.”
“I’ve done nothing but that for the past day and a half.” I reached out, touching the glass with my fingertip. There was barely a swallow left. “Can I?”
He gave it to me, his gaze burning on mine.
I lifted it to my lips and followed his example, tossing it back, relishing the heat as it burned down my throat. I put the glass down on the table next to his chair and then, straightening, I held his gaze and dropped the towel.
His eyes went black.
It was strange, but as I eased in, the nerves that rippled inside me faded. Bracing one knee beside his thigh, I rested a hand on his shoulder and then brought up my other knee. My heart knocked hard against my ribs and need was a scream in my blood. Lifting my other hand up, I slid them along the wall of his chest. My senses felt heightened, too much, so that the nubby fabric of his sweater abraded my palms. The sweater covered hard muscle and I could remember, so vividly, how it had felt to have him pressed against me.
“Shan.”
His hands gripped my waist. I could feel the imprint of each finger, the callouses an exquisite torture against my skin. But he didn’t pull me closer. He just waited. My breath caught in my throat as he stared at me.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice a gruff whisper.
“Doesn’t take much to figure out.” I pressed my mouth to his. “Not really.”
A groan rumbled out of him. His hands tightened. But his lips remained firm, unmoving, under mine. I caught his lower lip between my teeth and tugged. Then, slowly, I lifted my head and rested my brow against his. “I spent ten years alone, miserable with it. I’m tired of it.”