With her feet still in his lap, he leaned over her, his hands on either side of her head. He didn’t look at her with pity or concern, or like she was broken. More like some kind of phoenix that had risen from the ashes, beautiful and strong. The victor, not the victim.
“You’re going to need to put that coffee down before it gets spilled.”
He relieved her of her own mug, then pounced, going for her neck first, and she burst into a fit of giggles and squeals when he rubbed his whiskers and nipped at her throat.
A knock at the door interrupted their play. He groaned and slowly rose from the couch. “Whose idea was it to order breakfast?” His lips quirked and laughter shone from his eyes as he pointed at her. “Don’t think you’re saved.”
Still smiling, she sat up and reached for her coffee, never imagining she could be so happy, so carefree with a man. Two newspapers lay on the low table in front of her. The Wall Street Journal and Daybreak Las Vegas. She chose the second and flipped through to the social section. “Let’s see what’s news in Vegas this morning.” She turned the pages and froze.
The news in Las Vegas was her.
A split photo in full color covered half the page. On one side, Blair Sinclair in Stephen’s arms, on the other, herself, sprawled on the floor, her face bunched in an ugly cry. The headline read: Beauty or Beast?
Her eyes quickly scanned the text underneath.
Beauty or beast? It seems that’s just what millionaire playboy Stephen McKinney has to choose from, and the beast certainly came out last night.
She skimmed the information on both of them, more about him and Blair than about her.
Since McKinney was seen leaving with a visibly shaken Walker in his arms, it seems, at least for now, he’s chosen the beast.
Her chest squeezed painfully. Unlike the struggle to breathe in a panic attack, this felt more like her heart breaking. The paper bunched in her fingers. Leaving her coffee, she spun and escaped to the bedroom.
She shouldn’t be here. He didn’t need the mark on his bio and she didn’t need to risk the ultimate heartbreak. It was right there in black and white and color. What he liked and what she would never be.
“Hey, babe.” Stephen’s voice followed her. “They forgot the syrup. Doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. They’ll be right back. Hannah?”
Biting her lip against the tears, she stuffed clothes into her bag.
“Are we playing hide-and-seek now?” She heard the smile in his voice. Heard him stop in the doorway.
“Hey. You getting dressed?”
She yanked on the outside zipper of her overnight bag, fighting to swallow around the knot in her throat, bracing against what Stephen would say. Or more likely wouldn’t. He was too much a gentleman for that.
He stepped farther into the bedroom and all playfulness was gone. “What are you doing?” He picked up the paper she’d dropped on the bed. Didn’t take him long. “Son of a bitch!”
He was furious, of course he was. And embarrassed. Sorry he’d taken her? This was the second time she’d freaked out on him. Because she was a freak.
“Hannah. Stop.”
Damn zipper. She pulled again harder. Those weeks chained up had changed her, tainted her. Maybe ruined her. There were things she could do. Things she could be. And there were things she could never do and never be.
“Hannah.” Stephen wrapped his arms around her from behind, trapping her, halting her movements. “Baby, stop.”
She couldn’t. Her stomach was sick and her shoulders shook in an effort not to cry. Over their perfect morning ruined. How every insecurity slammed into her, dragging her back into a past she wanted to forget.
But Stephen wouldn’t let her go. He kissed the side of her head and turned her in his arms. “Look at me.”
“I’m sorry. This is—” She shook her head and one lone tear slipped down her cheek. “I shouldn’t be here. You didn’t ask for this.”
“I asked for exactly this,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “More than once if I remember.”
But why? That’s what she wanted to ask but didn’t.
“I’ve been in the papers before,” he said easily. “I will be again.”
He slipped the robe off her shoulders, ran his tongue along her collarbone. A soft intimate slide that made her shake in a different way.
“I want you.”
“But, Stephen—”
“Now. Again.” He took her mouth slowly, tenderly, like he’d taken her body.
She thought of the woman in the bathroom, thought that she should be careful. Should remember how very badly this could go even without her past. But she’d been careful all her life. She didn’t want to be careful now.
He continued his convincing, moving them to the bed, and she stopped asking questions, stopped looking for answers and reasons, and lost herself in Stephen.
Chapter 32
“So we’re going to have a party? And then I can keep riding here?”
“That’s the plan. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed.” The two of them navigated the even ground along the fence under a blue sky.
Hannah turned in her saddle to look at the girl riding beside her. Allie sat upright in a standard English saddle, holding the reins perfectly between her fingers. She’d made that much progress. Hannah still held a lead rope clipped to the horse’s bridal, but only as a precaution. Hazel wasn’t going anywhere she didn’t absolutely have to go.