by Sybil Bartel
She looked up at me with childlike trust. “Okay.”
The nurse walked back in, and I dropped my hand, mentally reminding myself this woman was off-limits.
Handing me a clipboard with my credit card and paperwork, she pointed. “Just sign here and here. And I have a wheelchair all set so we can get you out of here.”
An orderly pushed the curtain all the way back and brought a wheelchair to the end of the bed.
I signed the credit card receipt, pocketed the paperwork and my credit card, then I helped Genevieve sit up.
She sucked in a sharp breath.
I went on alert. “You okay?”
“Are you dizzy?” the nurse asked.
Her head down, her voice tentative, she swiped at her face, then tugged at the hem of her dress. “I’m fine.”
I noticed the abrasions on her knees from when she’d hit the pavement, but I was a fucking asshole for also noticing the smooth ivory skin of her thighs. “Can you stand?”
“I, um….” She stared at her legs as they hung over the side of the bed. “I don’t have any shoes.”
“Oh, let me get you some socks.” The nurse took off.
Fuck. Fuck. With everything that’d happened, I hadn’t even realized she’d lost her shoes.
Without a word, I scooped her up.
She gasped like she was in pain.
“Arms around my neck,” I ordered, hating the fact that she was injured.
Her body shaking slightly, she complied. “You can’t lift me. I’m too heavy.”
“I already did.” I walked her to the end of the bed. “And you’re not.” She was perfect. Too goddamn perfect.
I set her in the wheelchair, and the nurse came back and handed her a pair of hospital socks.
“They’re not shoes, but at least you won’t be barefoot.” Smiling at Genevieve, the nurse patted her shoulder. “Take care.” She nodded at the orderly. “They’re all set.”
The orderly turned her wheelchair around, but I stopped him.
“Hold on.” I pulled my cell out and dialed Ty.
He answered on the first ring. “What’s up?”
“We’re coming out. Status?”
“All clear out here.”
“You know what vehicle you’re looking out for?”
“Copy. Luna told me what the pussy barback said. Bold move on those fucks’ part driving our SUV around, if you ask me. If I see them, I’m gonna shoot—”
“I didn’t ask. Pull up in the loading zone.”
“Ten-four. Twenty seconds.” He hung up.
I nodded at the orderly. It’d take us that long to walk out of here.
Stepping in front of the wheelchair, I led us out of the emergency area and through the waiting room. I scanned everyone as we left, but the only people in the reception area looked like people waiting to be seen.
As we exited the front doors, Ty pulled up and got out. His hand on his holster, he scanned the parking lot and loading zone as he walked around the vehicle and opened the rear passenger door.
I nodded at the orderly. “I got it from here.” Before she could protest, I picked Genevieve up.
Her eyes darted around, following Ty’s gaze, then she grasped at my neck in a death grip.
“You’re good. We’re clear,” I reassured as I set her in the SUV and held the seat belt out for her.
She didn’t move.
Staring straight ahead, gripping her socks to her chest with both hands, dried blood down the back of her neck and on her dress, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever laid eyes on. She was also married and scared as hell, and it was my fault.
I brushed the errant curl off her face. “Look at me.”
Pain etched across her features, she turned toward me.
“We need to move,” Ty warned.
Ignoring him, I pulled the seat belt across her lap. “I’m going to make you a promise.”
She didn’t respond.
“If I tell you you’re safe, then you’re safe in that moment.” I buckled her in. “I promise.”
“What about the next moment?” she asked, her voice small.
I gave her the truth. “If the situation changes, I won’t lie.”
Staring at me for a moment, she finally nodded. “Okay.”
I tipped my chin and shut the door.
Ty smirked. “Who knew? The billionaire does have a vice. His downfall?” He grinned and waited a beat like I was going to answer his bullshit question. “Redheads.” Slapping me on the shoulder, he walked toward the driver door. “Should’ve told me that was all it took. We could’ve gotten your uptight ass laid awhile ago. I know plenty of strippers with red—”
“Just drive,” I ground out, reciting my address before opening the front passenger door and getting in the SUV.
Ty got behind the wheel, but the smile had dropped from his face as he glanced at me. “You know what you’re bringing to your doorstep?” he asked under his breath.
As much as I didn’t trust Ty, knowing who he’d worked for before Luna, knowing his propensity for pulling the trigger first and asking questions later, I knew he was smart. Before he worked for Luna, he’d been the inside man on one of our ops, and he’d played it smart. Using American Sign Language to communicate, keeping his cover, evading authorities after the bust, leaving no trace he’d ever been in his last boss’s employ—he had skills. And he knew enough about my background to try and warn me off bringing a married woman with a gang after her to my penthouse.
I had respect for his question, but zero patience for it.
“Drive,” I ordered.
Without another word from any of us, Ty drove to my building and pulled into the underground parking.
“This isn’t where I live,” Genevieve said nervously.
“It’s where I live.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. “For now, it’s not safe for you to go home.”
Her lip trembled before she bit it. “Can’t I just go to a hotel?”
Angry at myself, at the situation I’d gotten her into, at the fact she’d lied to me, I fought to temper my voice. “This is a secure building with a good security system, and another Luna and Associates employee will be stationed out front.”
“Why can’t he be stationed out front of a hotel?”
“I can’t secure an entire hotel.” And until those carjackers were caught, I didn’t want her out of my sight. Her useless husband sure as hell wasn’t going to protect her.
She looked between me and Ty. “Am I really in that much danger?”
I reminded myself of my promise to her. “Yes.”
Tears welled, but she blinked them back and nodded. “For how long?”
“For as long as it takes for us to find who took the vehicle.”
“And that is?” she asked, her voice stronger.
I shouldn’t be noticing she had a backbone, or anything else about her, but fuck I was noticing. “Hours or days. I don’t know.”
“Then what happens when you find them?”
Ty smirked. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, sweetheart.” He turned in his seat to face her. “You’ll be safe with Sawyer.”
As much as I wanted to hit him for calling her sweetheart, I didn’t say anything. Hearing from someone else that she’d be safe with me might ease her anxiety, and I wasn’t going to deny her that.
Her gaze dropped to her lap, and after a beat, she nodded. “Okay.” She inhaled and looked up at me with determination. “I’ll go with you.”
I didn’t hesitate. I got out and opened her door.
But before I could pick her up again, her hand shot up. “No, I’m walking. No argument.”
For the second time since I’d met her, and despite everything that’d happened, I wanted to smile. Except this time, I didn’t fight it.
I offered her my hand and let the corner of my mouth tip up.
HE SMILED.
Not a real smile, more one side of his mouth moving in a nor
therly direction, but it was no less life-altering, and it made my already faltering heart fracture with a new round of erratic beats that threatened to do me in.
Sawyer Savatier, smiling.
Yesterday I was worrying about what shoes to wear to a client’s event that would say I had everything under control, but also wouldn’t kill my feet after standing for twelve hours.
Now I had no shoes.
And no purse, no wallet, no cell phone and no tablet.
But I had staples.
I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry. My head hurt so bad, I’d been leaning toward the latter, but then he’d smiled. Sawyer Savatier, amused by the girl with blood all over her dress and no shoes.
And now he was offering his hand to me like a gentleman.
Hesitant, I stared at his outstretched palm. I wasn’t wearing heels anymore, and I’d put on the grippy socks from the hospital, but still. If I took his hand, it felt like I was crossing the threshold from independent to needy, and I didn’t want to be someone’s burden. I didn’t want to be what was written all over Brian’s expression at the hospital. But right now, the man in front of me wasn’t looking at me like I was a burden.
So I took his hand.
And immediately wished I hadn’t.
Large, firm, strong, calloused.
He was everything Brian wasn’t. He was everything every man I’d ever been around wasn’t.
Awareness shot up my arm and almost made me forget about the incessant pounding in my head. Almost. But then my feet hit the cold concrete garage floor and vertigo hit me.
I swayed as I reached behind my neck to gingerly feel my wound. I wanted to know how many staples the nurse had put in, but I also wanted to distract myself from the fact that not only was I in a garage that had a cleaner floor than my apartment, but that I was in a zip code that outranked my salary by multiples of a thousand. Not to mention a man more austere than anyone I’d ever met was holding my hand.
“Leave your staples alone.” His large hand squeezed mine. “We’ll clean you up when we get upstairs.”
I practically choked. “We?” I wasn’t sure I could handle much more we.
As if he brought home girls with bloody dresses and staples holding them together every night, he didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”
“I don’t think I can handle a we,” I blurted.
He didn’t comment. He glanced at the driver. “As soon Preston shows up, you’re clear.”
“Copy that.” The driver smiled at me. “Take it easy, sweetheart.”
Sawyer’s eyebrows drew together as he shut the door, then the Escalade disappeared up the ramp and into the night.
Leading us to one of two elevators that didn’t have a call button, but had a keypad, Sawyer entered a code and the doors immediately slid open.
I glanced up at him. “Private elevator?”
“Penthouse,” he clipped, ushering me inside and briefly holding his wallet against a small black pad. A ding sounded and the light for thirty lit up as the doors slid shut.
Thirtieth floor.
Penthouse.
The elevator shot up as the last of my confidence plummeted. Staring straight ahead, my dress stuck to my back with blood, my feet in hospital socks, I didn’t feel like I should be next to a man who lived in the sky.
I felt like a woman with no dignity left.
The elevator doors opened to a small vestibule with a round table in the middle with mail on it, and straight ahead were two large, heavy-looking doors. Sawyer walked to the right and pressed his thumb against a small screen on a keypad and a click sounded.
He pushed one of the doors open, then looked expectantly at me.
No turning back now, I stepped across the threshold.
Taking in the opulence in front of me, I immediately wished I’d done every single thing differently tonight. I wished I hadn’t peppered him with questions at the party. I wished I’d never gone to dinner with him, I wished I’d never seen the woman he used to date, and I wished like hell I wasn’t standing next to him in a ruined dress with staples in the back of my head.
I wasn’t completely ignorant of wealth. I’d had famous clients and rich clients. Hell, my last client lived in practically a palace on the intracoastal. I’d seen all kinds of wealth.
But this?
Shiny, white, polished stone floors, a restaurant-quality kitchen gleaming with stainless steel and high-gloss cabinets, two-story-tall windows looking out on the ocean, leather furniture that looked butter soft….
He was a Savatier, all right.
And I was… a foster kid. “I, um, wow.”
His hand landed on the small of my back. “Let’s get you cleaned up, then you can sleep.”
I didn’t want to sleep. My head was spinning, and I wanted to run away from every perfectly placed piece of furniture and lack of clutter as much as I wanted to crawl on his couch and stare out at the stars that looked close enough to touch until the sun came up. Every single thing about his home was different than mine.
There were no throw pillows on the furniture, no blankets, no discarded sweater or shoes or coffee mugs left out. No nail polish spilled on the carpet, no interesting fabric hung on the wall as art because it was pretty. No, he had real paintings and lamps without scarves over the shades and floors so clean you could eat off them.
I didn’t belong here.
I didn’t belong anywhere even remotely close to here.
But I didn’t have time to tell him that. He’d already led me past the stunningly perfect living room and kitchen and formal dining room with seating for ten. His touch on my back generating waves of heated awareness that spread over my entire body, he led me down a corridor with half a dozen doors before ushering me into a room that I knew was his before he’d turned on a single light.
The smell of sandalwood and musk and shoe polish and fresh laundry hit me so strongly, my conscience betrayed me and completely gave up on the notion that I didn’t belong here. My senses on overload, my body aching for comfort, I wanted to breathe in this scent for the rest of my life. More, I wanted to lose myself in the very man attached to that scent who was leading me to the edge of a giant bathtub with jets.
“Sit,” he commanded.
God help me, I fell victim to his commanding presence. Like an addict, I wanted to forget every single thing about my life and get drunk off his bossy orders, because I was quickly realizing that every time he told me to do something, I didn’t have to think.
Oh God, I didn’t have to think.
There were no decisions to be made about what kind of wine went best with what food, or what color invitation conveyed understated excitement. I didn’t have to figure out how to seat warring divorced parents of the groom next to each other.
Except it wasn’t just work that slipped my mind as I did exactly what he’d told me to do.
My ass landed on the edge of the tub, and I was already awaiting further instruction. I wasn’t mired in worry about my next car payment, or rent, or wondering where the next client would come from. I wasn’t even freaking out about my stolen purse and everything in it anymore.
Because when he spoke to me like that, when he gave me his intense stare and issued a command, I felt like I was the only person in his universe.
And I’d never been someone’s world.
Not Brian’s, not my birth mom’s, not any of my foster parents’, not anyone’s.
I was alone.
I always had been. Even when I was married, and it had taken me to this very second to fully understand that, because not one thing Sawyer was doing for me would have ever been anything Brian would have done for me.
Not that I would, or could, ever compare the two men, because they were night and day, but Brian would’ve been yelling at me about my missing wallet before he would’ve helped me get cleaned up.
And that right there, the thought of my old reality, it was enough to kick some sense back into me. “I’m going to need to borrow you
r phone to cancel my credit card and close my bank account card.”
A billionaire bodyguard in a custom-made suit bent over me and gently pulled my blood-stuck hair off my shoulders after turning on the faucet to fill the giant bathtub. “We’ll take care of it after we get you cleaned up,” he reassured, fingering the zipper on the back of my dress.
I jerked away. “I, um….” Oh God. “I can do that.” Suddenly ashamed at myself for my wayward thoughts of letting him order me around and take care of me as if I were helpless, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t helpless. I’d taken care of myself my whole life.
His hand landed on my shoulder. “Relax. I’m only unzipping it for you. It needs to come off.”
My emotions in whiplash overload, a shiver went up my spine. “I can do it myself.”
“Stand,” he ordered, reaching for a towel and ignoring me.
No resolve behind my previous declaration to do it for myself, I did exactly as he said. I stood, but apparently my submission was only relegated to my body, because words spilled out of my mouth. “Are you always like this?”
“Like what?” He handed me the towel as the bathroom filled up with steam.
I didn’t hold back. “Disregardful of what people say to you. Hearing only what you want to hear.”
“I am neither ignoring you nor being disrespectful.” Holding my gaze, he put his arms around me.
I sucked in a sharp breath. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you.” My zipper slid down my back. He dropped his hands and turned around, giving me the illusion of privacy. “Take the dress off, wrap the towel around yourself and sit back down on the edge of the tub. I’ll wash the blood out of your hair.”
“I….” I was going to say I could do it myself, but I couldn’t, not really, not without getting my head wet, and the doctor had said not to get the wound wet for twenty-four hours. And if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t even want to attempt to do this myself. I didn’t want to touch it anymore. It was throbbing and sore and felt hot, and I just wanted the pain to go away.
“Fine,” I relented, shoving the straps of my dress off my shoulders. “But you can’t get the stitches wet.” I wrapped the towel around me.