by Noelle Adams
The idea startled her so much that she asked without thinking, “Is something wrong with you?”
He turned his head to gaze at her, and he must have seen in her expression that she was scared for him. Instead of giving her the curt response she would have expected, he murmured, “It’s not me.”
She let out a shaky breath, remembering the phone conversation she’d overheard. He’d said something about wanting to be there and then had asked how she was.
Julie wondered who she was.
The driver stopped in front of the huge hospital building, and Julie unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for her purse.
“You don’t need to come,” Eric said, putting a hand on her arm to stop her.
“What? Why not?”
“I don’t need you. The driver can just take you back to the hotel. You can go shopping or whatever you want.”
“I don’t want to go shopping.” She was so outraged that her voice was sharper than it ever was. “I’m here to help you.”
He didn’t look angry. He looked uncomfortable and strangely self-conscious. “I just decided that I don’t need your help. I don’t want you to come with me after all.”
She began to argue but cut herself off. She could hardly insist on coming with him. He was the boss here, and he told her to come and go as he liked. Just because she felt so anxious for him didn’t mean she was allowed to step over the line in their professional relationship.
She swallowed hard. “Okay.” She looked out at the sliding doors that opened into the hospital lobby, wondering again who he was here to see, who he was so worried about. “You’re going to be okay?” To her distress, her voice broke on the last word.
He must have understood what had prompted it, because his expression softened in a way she’d never seen it do before. He reached out and very gently pushed a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’ll be okay.” His voice was a little hoarse too.
For just a moment, she had the most ridiculous sense that he might kiss her, but he just dropped his hand and looked away quickly. The driver had gotten out of the car to help him into the wheelchair, so Eric muttered, “I don’t know how long I’ll be. I’ll call to let you know.”
“Okay.” She wanted to say something comforting, but there wasn’t anything to say. So she just ended up repeating lamely, “Okay.”
She watched from the car as Eric moved into the wheelchair with the driver’s help and then wheeled himself through the sliding doors of the hospital.
Her belly was tightened into knots—a strange mixture of fear and excitement and an emotion she should never have been feeling for Eric. Tenderness.
She needed to get herself under control. Soon. Before he came back later today.
She was here to earn the money he’d promised her. She wasn’t here to make a fool of herself.
—
At four o’clock that afternoon, Eric still had a pounding headache. If anything, it had gotten worse as the day had progressed.
Nothing about the day had been good, and he was feeling more anxious and depressed than ever as he wheeled himself into the elevator.
Following him in, Maddy asked, “Daddy, are you okay?”
He must look like a wreck. Julie had kept asking him the same thing all morning, and now his eight-year-old daughter was as well.
He made himself smile. “Of course, I’m okay.”
Maddy had reddish brown hair, brown eyes, and freckles on her nose and cheeks. She stared at him soberly. “Did the doctor say I was going to die?”
“No!” Eric straightened up, willing his bleak mood away, since his daughter was more important. “Why would you think that?”
“Because the other doctor said so.”
He shook his head. Today he’d had to listen to an international expert admit that he had no idea what was wrong with her and so had no idea how to fix it. “The doctors are looking for something to do that would make you better. They don’t know what it is right now, but they’re doing some research. No one is saying you’re going to die.”
“Okay.” Maddy was smart and verbal and often startlingly mature for her age. She reached over to take Eric’s hand. “Then you don’t have to be depressed.”
“I’m not depressed, Peanut. I just have a headache today.”
“You do?” She peered at him closely. “Did you take some medicine?”
“Not yet. I’ll take some soon.”
“Good.” She nodded as if her mind was resolved.
Eric smiled at her faintly, wondering where the girl had even come from, how his genes and Trish’s genes had managed to come together in someone as remarkable as Maddy.
“I wanted to have supper with you, but Mom said that we have to leave right away.”
“I know.” Eric managed not to look annoyed by Trish’s insistence on leaving so soon. He wanted to have a little more time with his daughter. He had little enough as it was. “But that’s okay. We’ll have our weekend together soon, remember?”
“I remember.”
The girl kept holding his hand as they left the elevator and made their way through the lobby. Trish was waiting near the door.
“What took so long?” she asked. She looked hassled and impatient, but Eric knew she was as worried about their daughter as he was, so he didn’t take it personally.
“I had to go to the bathroom,” Maddy replied blandly.
“Okay, sweetie. Say goodbye to your daddy. We need to get going right away.”
“Can I walk him out to the car?”
Eric kept his mouth closed and was pleased when Trish agreed. They all walked out to the sidewalk, where his hired car was waiting. The driver got out and, to his surprise, Julie climbed out of the backseat.
She looked pretty and subdued in her plain clothes and ponytail. Her eyes took in Eric, Maddy, and Trish, and Eric knew she would have some questions.
“Who is that?” Maddy asked, staring at Julie.
“That’s Julie.”
“Is she your girlfriend?”
“No. She works for me. She’s helping me out while my leg is broken.”
Maddy’s eyes were wide as they rested on Julie’s still figure. “She looks nice.”
“She is nice.” Eric cleared his throat. “Now you and your mom need to get going, I think.” He pointed at his right cheek, smiling at his daughter. “Right here.”
She giggled and leaned over to kiss him exactly on the spot he’d pointed to. Then, feeling another wave of fear, he wrapped his arms around the girl, hugging her as tightly as he could in the wheelchair.
“I’ll see you soon,” he muttered.
Maddy kissed him again before she finally released him. “I hope your headache goes away.”
“Thanks, Peanut.”
Eric looked over at Trish and nodded. She nodded back. That was as friendly as the two of them ever got, but at least they were always civil.
He watched for a minute as Trish and Maddy walked back into the hospital lobby. Then he wheeled himself over to the car.
The driver and Julie helped him in. He could feel Julie’s eyes on him, but she didn’t say anything. Not until they were both settled in the back and the driver had pulled away from the curb.
He wondered how long it would take her to ask.
It took about forty-five seconds. “Is she a relative?” Julie asked lightly, gesturing with her head back in the direction of the hospital.
He nodded.
“Your…your daughter?”
He nodded again. He didn’t know why he felt so uncomfortable with Julie knowing. No one knew about Maddy. He’d kept her existence as private as he could, since Trish had insisted on it, so the press he got wouldn’t complicate Maddy’s life. But telling Julie made him feel strangely comforted and strangely vulnerable at the same time.
“I didn’t even know you had a daughter.” She was obviously trying to be discreet, to not make a big deal out of this new knowledge. She must have no idea how he would
react.
Eric didn’t even know himself. “No one knows.”
“You weren’t…you weren’t married before, were you?”
“No.”
Julie nodded, her eyes focused just over Eric’s shoulder, as if she felt a little uncomfortable herself. “Is she…is she sick?”
Eric felt that wave of fear and despair wash over him, leaving him helpless in a way he couldn’t bear. He pushed it aside. “Yes.”
“Is it serious?”
“Yes.” He paused for a moment before he added, “They have no idea what to do.”
Julie was silent for a long time. He expected her to say the normal shallow, sympathetic clichés—I’m so sorry, That must be so hard, I’m sure they’ll figure out something.
She didn’t say any of those things, though. He had no idea what she was thinking until she reached over and placed her hand on his forearm.
She left it there for a minute in a silent gesture of support.
It was better than anything she could have said.
—
The rest of the day went downhill.
Eric couldn’t pull himself out of anxiety, no matter how hard he tried to focus on other things. While Julie was around, there was some distraction. She got him to do some work and then chatted casually while they ate and watched TV.
But she was tired and she went to bed early, leaving Eric alone.
He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t even begin to. He kept flipping between sports channels, trying to find a game that would hold his interest. And eventually he went for the whiskey again, since at least that dulled his mind a little.
At one in the morning, he was still awake, and he’d nearly finished the bottle. He was still in his chair, in the sitting room of the suite, flipping channels like a maniac.
Despite the amount he’d drunk, he was still lucid enough to worry. And now he was on the last glass.
“Eric?” came a voice from behind him. “Are you still up?”
He turned around to see Julie, stepping out from her bedroom. She looked groggy and rumpled. She’d obviously just woken up. She wore a little silky gown of a deep, vivid blue with thin straps and fabric that clung to her body.
He devoured her with his eyes, his body immediately liking the look of her with her hair all tousled and almost nothing on. “That should be self-evident.” He spoke slowly and was pleased by how articulate he’d sounded.
She came closer, looking from him to the empty whiskey bottle. She sighed. “This isn’t helping.”
“It’s helping…a little.”
She shook her head and came over to take the glass out of his hand. “You should go to bed.”
Before he could focus enough to object, she’d moved behind him and pushed the chair over toward his bedroom. He tried to argue and tell her not to push him around, but his mind was too fuzzy to get all the words out. All he managed was “Damn it.”
“I know,” she murmured. “The whole thing sucks.”
When she got him close to the bed, she came around and reached down to help him up. He normally pushed himself up and took most of the weight onto his good leg, but he couldn’t seem to coordinate it tonight, so he ended up slumping against her, causing her to stumble. She managed to hold onto him enough to get him onto the bed, but his leg got turned in the wrong direction.
He gasped at the slice of pain, his vision blurring even more.
“I’m sorry,” she said, a little breathless.
“My fault.”
He sat on the edge of the bed until he’d caught his breath. While he sat, Julie reached over to pull his shirt off over his head.
Her body was very close. Her smooth, fair skin. The graceful curve of her neck and shoulder. The swell of her breasts beneath the fabric. The fall of her soft hair.
He wanted all of it so much he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for her as she pulled the shirt off his arms. One of his hands reached her cheek. Her skin was warm and soft, and he needed to touch even more of it. He slid his fingers down the delicious line of her neck.
“Okay,” she whispered. She sounded strange but he was too fuzzy to figure out why. “Why don’t you lie down? Can you get your leg up?”
He had no objections to lying down. He had some trouble with his leg, but she helped to lift it onto the bed. He stared up at her, washed with hot desire that was tempered by something much softer. He didn’t understand it. His mind wasn’t equipped at the moment to understand it.
She pulled the covers up over him. As she drew nearer to him, he reached out for her again. This time his hand curved around her ribs, and he moved it farther forward so he could reach the soft flesh of her breast. He could see them clearly, since her neckline was hanging low as she leaned over him. They were full, lush, the nipples tightened and rosy pink.
He slid the heel of his hand over her nipple through the fabric and heard her hiss in response.
She liked it. He might be drunk, but he knew she liked him to touch her like that. He reached out with his other hand, but she pulled out of his reach.
“We’re not going to do that,” she murmured, catching his hand as he reached for her again. “That’s definitely not going to help anything.”
“It would help the condition of my dick.” This seemed like a perfectly reasonable and intelligent thing for him to say, since he was hard, fully aroused at the sight and feel of her so close to him.
She made a choking sound. “I’m afraid your dick is going to have to fend for itself tonight.”
He let out a low groan, but he was suddenly so exhausted he could barely make his mind work. All he knew was that the world was hard, cruel, unjust—to a girl who had never been anything but good—and he had no power to make it any different. All he knew was he was alone in the face of it.
“Don’t leave,” he breathed, closing his eyes and hoping that doing so would shut out the world.
He heard her say, “I won’t,” and he believed her.
She didn’t say anything else, but he was aware of her presence until he finally went to sleep—or maybe passed out.
Chapter 7
The next morning, Julie overslept by an hour. She was startled and worried when she woke up and saw it was after seven thirty, but when she ran to get a cup of coffee, she realized that Eric wasn’t up yet either.
It was another hour before he was awake.
She was flustered and anxious about the events of the night before and was vaguely praying that he wouldn’t even remember them when she helped him into his chair.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, scraping his fingertips over his scalp through his messy hair. He looked and smelled awful, but Julie wasn’t surprised after the amount he’d drunk.
“I’ll get you some water.”
“Coffee.”
“Water first.”
He didn’t argue, but he was scowling when she returned with a bottle. He chugged almost half of it in one go, and he was staring at her as he lowered the bottle. “Sorry about last night.”
“It’s fine,” she murmured, making sure to meet his eyes, no matter how self-conscious she felt.
“No, it’s not.”
“You’d had too much to drink. You stopped when I told you to. It’s not a problem for me. We can just forget it ever happened.”
His brown eyes were conflicted as he looked at her. “You sure?”
“Of course.” She smiled at him. “Now, if you don’t mind my saying so, you stink. You should probably get in the bathroom and wash up.”
He nodded, his face relaxing, and returned her smile with a dry one of his own.
She liked that smile. It felt real—and less entitled and strategic than his smugger expressions. But she couldn’t help but remember how he’d been looking at her last night. His expression then had been strangely soulful, hungry, like she was what he wanted more than anything in the world. She also remembered the state of his body. His erection had been more than obvious beneath the thin fabri
c of his pants.
For her. He’d gotten that way for her. He’d looked that way at her.
It could easily go to a girl’s head.
She wasn’t going to let it go to hers, of course. He’d been drunk and hadn’t known what he was doing. She’d been in her nightgown, and he would have leered at almost any woman in his condition. She wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking it had anything to do with her.
She was going to forget about it, exactly as she’d told Eric.
“Okay,” he said. “But maybe we should move the liquor out of my reach for a while.”
She laughed at his self-deprecating tone, and everything returned to normal between them as she helped him onto his crutches so he could go to the bathroom.
She wasn’t going to keep thinking about that look in his eyes as he gazed at her from the bed last night. It wasn’t real.
It didn’t mean anything.
After Eric had gotten dressed and as they were eating a quick breakfast in the sitting room, he got a text on his phone that changed his expression abruptly.
“Everything okay?” Julie asked softly, hoping it wasn’t bad news.
He tapped out a reply before he answered her. “Yeah,” he said, releasing an audible sigh. “Just my daughter saying hi.”
She still couldn’t believe he had a daughter. He just didn’t seem like the father type, at least on the surface.
There was more to him than the surface, though. She knew that now.
“She’s doing okay?”
“Yeah. She’s a tough little soldier.”
“Who is her mother?” Julie was pretty sure she shouldn’t ask—since it wasn’t her business at all—but she desperately wanted to know. She’d checked online last night, but there was nothing anywhere on the Internet about Eric Vincent’s daughter, or even about his ever having had a serious relationship.
She wondered if he’d been in love with the girl’s mother, sometime in the past.
Eric gave a dismissive shrug. “You wouldn’t know her.”