Thirty minutes later, the rehearsal was over. During that time, I’d learned two new things about the girl I’d known since elementary school. One was that she had great taste in friends. I liked her best friend already. If it hadn’t been for Tani, I didn’t know how I’d have kept sane when I saw the performance between Rylee and Dustin for the first time.
The second thing was that I had no idea how I hadn’t seen one of her shows before. She exuded the kind of star-power that made me realize I should’ve known about her. Everyone should know about her.
Which only made me want to drag her back to her place and never let her out again. It was terrifying coming to the realization that Bart had been right. I suddenly also understood why there were threats against her. She was no passing sensation. She was a celebrity talent in her own right, and the consequences of that knowledge scared the shit out of me.
Afterward, we took my bike to Fifth Avenue for dinner and to see the Christmas tree. Rylee’s arms wrapped around me and her head buried between my shoulder blades made me feel like the luckiest bastard alive.
Sure, she wasn’t mine—regardless of what that beast inside me thought—but I was the one who got to have her holding on to me. I also got to have her trusting me to keep her safe, to protect her, and that felt like everything to me.
Since we were out in public, I was pretending to be her boyfriend again. We huddled up together in a booth at the back of a trendy bistro, a fire roaring next to us and festive music flowing over hidden speakers.
“What did you think?” she asked quietly enough that I knew it was only for me. “Have I still got it?”
“Are you really worried about it?” I asked. “Because you shouldn’t be. You’re phenomenal on stage.”
“Thank you.” She smiled, reaching across the table for my hand. My heart skipped a few beats when her skin touched mine. “It felt good being back. I missed it more than I realized.”
Over the last week, we’d had plenty of conversations but they’d mostly been lighthearted and casual. “You don’t have to tell me if you’re not ready. It’s still none of my business. I just can’t imagine why you would’ve stopped for so long.”
Her piercing blue gaze caught on mine, her thumb stopping its movements in my palm. Moving her eyes from one of mine to the other, she snuggled closer to my side and tilted her head up so she could still look at me.
“It’s not that I’m not ready. I want to tell you. I just don’t know if I’m ready for the way you look at me to change.”
I frowned, bringing my hand up to cup her face. She leaned into me, and another one of the bricks in the wall I’d tried to construct between us popped out.
“The way I look at you is inappropriate at best. It should probably change, but it won’t.” I ran my fingertips across the smooth skin of her cheek. “There’s nothing you can say to me that’s going to turn me off you. For better or worse, I can’t change the insanity between us.”
“Insanity?” She reached up to smooth the wrinkle between my brows. “That’s a good word for it, but this might just change it. I don’t know if I’m ready for that to happen, even if it will make things easier for us.”
“I’m not interested in easy. I’m interested in you. I shouldn’t be, but you already know I am. You told me the other night that you don’t care about what’s in my past, and I feel the same.”
“See, my thing isn’t just in my past. It’s my present and my future as well. It will never go away.”
“Is it a criminal record?” I asked, trying to ease the tension coming from her.
She smiled, but worry still tightened her eyes. “No, it’s not a criminal record. At least I could apply to have that expunged eventually. There’s no possibility of that with this.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I repeated, “but you should know that you won’t scare me away. I don’t know how you think I’m going to look at you if you tell me, but I can promise you it won’t happen.”
I shouldn’t have been talking to her like this, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t ignore the way I felt about her. She wasn’t just a client. I was already keeping something really important from her because I was afraid of losing her.
In my own twisted way, being honest with her about everything else was me trying to make up for it. I knew that once the inevitable happened, she wouldn’t believe that I hadn’t been lying to her about anything else, but at least I would know the truth. Hopefully, because it would be the truth, I’d be able to get her to believe it eventually too.
“I like that you’re not overly worried about me,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do if you suddenly started pitying me or treating me like I’m fragile.”
Although I’d known that something big must have happened for her to give up what she loved doing for so long, this was the first time my heart constricted in fear about it. “You’re precious, but I know you’re not fragile.”
“I have MS,” she whispered so softly that I almost didn’t hear her. Terror shone from her eyes, but the words came out so fast that it was like she couldn’t hold them back anymore. “Multiple sclerosis. I didn’t fall on that stage two years ago. I collapsed.”
Fuck. Instinctively, my hold on her tightened before I realized I would be doing exactly what I’d promised her I wouldn’t. Forcing myself to relax, I held her gaze steadily and exhaled through my nose as I tried to keep my emotions in check.
“Are you okay now?” It was a stupid question, but since I hadn’t seen any sign of it, I had to know if she was in a completely different kind of danger. One I couldn’t do anything to protect her from.
My heart went wild in my chest at the thought that I couldn’t do anything to keep her safe from her own body. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. I can’t lose her. I just can’t.
She sighed. “Collapsing and being diagnosed scared me badly, but I’m fine. I’m going to have to be more careful going forward, but I’m following all my doctors’ orders and then some.”
I rested my forehead against hers, closing my eyes as I took a moment to process the sharp sense of responsibility I suddenly felt for her. What I’d thought was a protective instinct before was nothing compared to the feeling that ripped through me now. I’d burn the fucking world to the ground if it meant eliminating everywhere a potential threat could be hiding.
“So now you know,” she said softly. “Still want to get into my pants, or did that do the trick?”
I barked out a hoarse laugh, a strange pressure in my chest as I pulled back to let her see my eyes. “I just told you nothing was going to do the trick. I stand by that, Rylee. Don’t get me wrong. This changes things but not in the way you seem to think.”
“How does it change things then?” There was a different kind of fear in her eyes now, and I brought my lips to hers in a chaste kiss to dispel it.
“Watching you was already driving me crazy because make no mistake, I want into your pants as much as ever, but now I’m going to be watching you even closer.”
“You’re not only going to be seeing a sick girl if you look at me now?”
I shook my head, grinning as I dropped a kiss on her forehead and backed away a little. “I still only see you, and you’re going to be the end of me.”
We went for a long walk after dinner, ending up at the Christmas tree. I didn’t let go of her hand once, and as I watched her illuminated by the multi-colored lights with a soft smile on her face. I tugged her closer to me to rest my head on top of hers.
She came around me instead, looping her arms around my neck. “Thank you for keeping your promise.”
“Thank you for trusting me with your secret.” Our mouths met in a stupid but lingering kiss that only ended when I heard a snapshot being taken from our left. Fuck. I knew I shouldn’t have kissed her right here.
Moving faster than I ever had, I pulled her behind me and prepared to square off with whoever the fuck had just taken a picture. Jesus. Relax. You don’t even know if the picture was
of you yet.
When I saw the photographer with his camera pointed directly at us, rage unlike anything I’d ever known swept through me. I stepped forward to grab that camera and crush it on his fucking face, but Rylee’s hand on my arm stopped me.
“That’s Nathan Biles from the Times,” she said softly, then added a little louder. “It’s no biggie. So what if I have a new boyfriend, Nathan? No one cares.”
“I fucking care,” he grumbled, and unease gripped my gut.
“He’s always looking into my life,” she said to me, wrapping her fingers around my forearm and pulling me away from him. “I turned him down once and he’s still butt-hurt by it. That’s probably all this is. Let’s not do anything to provoke him, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed, but I didn’t like it that he’d just happened to show up where we were.
Not one little fucking bit.
Chapter 16
RYLEE
“Bart cleared us for hand-holding and kisses on the cheek, not full-on making out in public,” Carter said once I’d dragged him into an ice-cream shop for dessert. I refused to let that incident with Nathan ruin our date, even if I was shaken by it too. “I need to give him a call.”
“Just tell him I kissed you out of the blue when I saw Nathan.” I shrugged. “You can’t get in trouble if I’m the one who did something I shouldn’t have.”
“I’m not pinning it on you.” His shoulders were still rigid with tension, but there was light in his eyes when he looked at me. “You’re definitely not the only one who did something they shouldn’t have. We both gave in to our baser instincts. It was stupid, but at least you know now how much I still want you.”
It’d been terrifying to make myself that vulnerable to him, but I was relieved that he knew the truth now. I still very much wanted to take things further between us, but I hadn’t wanted to do it without him knowing what he was potentially getting himself into.
His reaction had been better than I’d even dared to hope for, and the kiss had been just as fervent as the previous ones. It was safe to say that he wasn’t one of those guys who was scared of the damaged girls. If anything, he seemed even more intense now than before. It made me want him even more.
“We don’t even know if Nathan will publish that picture,” I said. “If you need to tell Bart, tell him tomorrow? Or am I being a super bad influence right now?”
“You’re being a super bad influence right now,” he said, “but I kind of like it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter. I still need to give him a heads-up.”
Remembering what I’d promised Jules if my relationship with Carter got in the way of him doing his job, I nodded when he pulled out his phone.
He tapped out a quick text before flashing me a grin. “See? That wasn’t so bad. I’ll include a full update in my briefing tomorrow morning, but for now, I just needed to make sure he knew.”
“Do you think he’s going to pull you off my detail now?” My heart clenched painfully at the thought, but Carter shook his head.
“I doubt it. It will be too difficult to place someone else on you immediately because you wouldn’t be able to say he’s your boyfriend if that photo does get out. But it’s more than that. He’s a good friend of mine. He knows a kiss won’t impair my ability to do my job.”
“How about many kisses?” I asked.
He arched a brow, his eyes heating as they stared into mine. “How many are you thinking? You do remember that we still can’t be anything more than friends, right?”
“Right. Sure.” My head knew it, but my heart and body weren’t on the same page. We couldn’t talk about it here, though.
At the restaurant, we’d been cuddled so close together that no one would’ve been able to hear what we were saying. We’d also chosen the restaurant and the table at random, so there was no way someone would’ve been able to do something really creepy like bug it.
Here, however, we were on opposite ends of the table. It was a small one, and we were keeping our voices low, but it was still too much of a risk. Especially since we don’t know where Nathan went.
Carter was facing the window and keeping a very close eye on it, but we couldn’t be sure he wasn’t out there in the dark. Watching us.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked, proving again that his feelings for me definitely hadn’t bred complacency.
I mentally shook myself out of it. “Bart actually. I like him.”
It was fun to see the blatantly masculine possessiveness flaring up in him, but that wasn’t what I was after. I’d never play with him like that. It just wasn’t me. “I should have phrased that better. I like him for Tani, not for me. We’ve gotten to talking on Sundays when he’s there, and I think they would be great together.”
“I met Tani today. She seems nice.”
I felt my smile brighten up. “She’s the best. They have a lot in common. I wanted to talk to you about whether you think it’s okay if I introduce them?”
“If you want to do it, do it,” he said with a shrug of one of his shoulders. “I should warn you that he’s not interested in single mothers, though. Cash is her son, right?”
“Yeah, but what does he have against kids?”
“It’s not that. Bart had a shit dad and he won’t mind me telling you. He’s very open about it. He’s terrified of kids because he doesn’t want to do to a kid what his father did to him.”
Interesting. It would be fine, though. “Cash is a great kid. I’m not suggesting they get married. I’d just like them to meet each other. It’s up to them what happens from there.”
Tani wasn’t looking for a man to be a father to Cash. I just knew she was lonely and wouldn’t mind having the companionship. Even if it was just as a friend.
They could be great together, but they had to meet each other first. Anything else regarding what they wanted from life or from each other would be up to them to figure out.
“Thanks for telling me. If they meet, I’ll be sure to let her know. The last thing I want is to set her up for heartbreak.”
“You mean you’re not trying to play matchmaker?” he asked, his tone teasing. “Who would’ve thought you’re such a romantic at heart?”
“I’m not,” I protested, but considering Tani had said the same just the other day, I was starting to suspect they might be onto something. “I just want everyone to be happy.”
“What about you?” He looked right into my eyes, and that strange sense of familiarity leaped out at me again. I had a flash of something at the back of my mind, but he spoke again before I could grab hold of it. “Don’t you deserve to be happy?”
“I am happy.” I’d just be happier if I could figure out why he seemed so familiar, and if I could convince him to give us a chance.
When we got home later that evening, Carter dropped down on the couch and wiped a hand over his face. “What do you think? Are you up for a movie, or are you just going to head to bed?”
Even while we were at home, our relationship had taken on a comfortable domesticity where it was sometimes easy to forget who we really were to each other. I no longer hid out in my room and he didn’t feel like he had to sneak around after I went to bed to make food.
I was about to sit down in my usual spot when I decided against it. Going over to him instead, I slowly lifted one of my legs and propped it down on the cushion next to him.
“Did you mean it? What you said earlier.”
He looked up at me, a flash of desire slipping past the expressionless mask he was trying to keep in place. “Every word of it. Including the part about us only being friends.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be friends.” I put my hands on his shoulders cautiously, watching for any indication that he didn’t want me to touch him.
Nothing came.
He even slid down a fraction of an inch, widening his legs so his thigh pressed up against my knee next to him. “I never said I didn’t want to be friends. I just asked if that was really what you want
ed.”
“You know it’s not what I want.” Holding on to his shoulders for balance, I raised the other leg and placed it on the couch too. If I lowered myself down, I’d be on his lap. “It’s been a really long time since I’ve felt a man’s hands on me. I won’t say a thing to anyone and I know you won’t either. It’s just us here, Carter. We don’t have to pretend or hold back when it’s just us.”
He groaned, his hands coming up to grip my hips. His fingers flexed. “How am I supposed to say no to you right now?”
“You’re not,” I said softly, threading my fingers into his thick hair. “Unless you want to say no, that is.”
“I don’t want to say no. That’s the fucking problem.” He dropped his head against the back of the couch, peering up into my eyes beneath his long lashes. “It’s been more than a week. Why now?”
“I need you tonight,” I said, slowly sinking down until I was sitting on his thighs. “Make love to me, Carter. Please? You said you still wanted me.”
“I do.” He slid his hands around my back and used his hold on me to pull me forward. When my core connected with his, I felt his erection against me and a moan slipped past my lips. His eyes darkened, his pupils dilated, and his breathing sped up. “Do you believe me now?”
“Yes,” I breathed, toying with the strands of his hair as I fought against the urge to roll my hips. “I’ve always believed you. I trust you. I thought we’d established that.”
“We have.” He let out a long breath, his throat working as his eyes fluttered closed. “Fuck.”
“Yes, please,” I said, and he smirked even without opening his eyes.
“I wasn’t offering,” he groaned, his fingers digging into me so hard that it almost hurt. But I liked it. He wasn’t treating me like I was fragile, and that tiny hint of pain only told me just how much he wanted me. “If we do this, no one can know for now. It’s not because I’m ashamed of you or because I’m scared of breaking the rules.”
Dropping The Ball: A New Year’s Billionaire Romance Page 11