Caught Up In You 3: Designer Love and Empty Things (Edgeplay) Page 2

  Connor returns, still dressed, climbs onto the bed behind me and snuggles me up against him. I turn toward him and seek his lips. He seems surprised but then returns the gesture, melding his mouth to mine. We settle down, content to have shared one last kiss tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll do the smart thing.

  We’ll see about that, Snarkarella mutters.

  Chapter Two

  An irritating beeping sound penetrates my dreamless rest. I blink groggily, still suffering from exhaustion, but disturbed by the sense that I’ve forgotten something important.

  Connor strokes his thumb over my elbow. “You awake?”

  “Yeah.” At least my headache is gone. His home remedy worked like a charm. “What time is it?”

  “A little after seven.” He buries his face in my hair, which can’t smell that great after the explosion, but the gesture is still sweet.

  “Seven?” I scowl, wading through the fog until a cold wave of terror washes it away. “Oh shit.”

  Connor sits up. “What’s wrong?”

  “My second pill. It was in my purse. I left it in the car.” The one that exploded last night.

  I brace myself for his overreaction, wondering if he’ll try to drag me back to the city. He surprises me by reaching for his cellphone on the nightstand. “I’ll have Doctor Trammel prescribe you another at the local pharmacy. One of my security patrols will pick it up for you. Go back to sleep.”

  I wonder if he’s been body snatched again, but a reasonable Connor is much easier to deal with. “Thanks, but the scare kind of got my adrenaline going. I think I’ll just take a shower.”

  “I’ll make some coffee.” He smiles at me, a shy, hopeful smile that breaks my heart a little.

  I take my time in the shower, letting the hot water pound my sore muscles. Maybe I’ll do some yoga later to help loosen myself up a bit. When the hot water is finally used up, I dry off, shrug on my bloodred terrycloth bathrobe and swath my hair in a towel turban.

  The bedroom is empty and I can hear Connor talking to someone, though I can’t make out the words. I wait for a few minutes, unsure who is in my house now. I really ought to stop thinking of this place as mine, even if I did grow up here. It’s the groundskeeper’s cottage. Connor owns it, just like he owns the rest of the Rosemont Estate. If I end our sexual relationship, will he evict me?

  Of course he will, Snarkarella hisses. Do you really think he’ll let you keep on here when you reject him?

  I sink onto the bed and close my eyes. I’d grown up here, in this cottage, on this property. At times it was confining, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t resent living in the shadow of the various wealthy people who’ve owned the Rosemont over the years. Where would I go though?

  Even if he did let me stay here, could I really stay here, see him bring other women here after being so intimate with him? The thought causes my throat to close up.

  “How are you feeling?” Connor’s leaning in the doorway holding a steaming mug of coffee.

  I force a smile. “Okay. I think I’ll be a little derelict in my duties today though. I have some personal stuff to take care of.” Visiting Pops is number one on the list. I don’t know if he’ll realize I missed a day, but I know it and the need to see him compels me. Then there’s the headache of replacing my driver’s license and my ATM card and getting a new cell phone.

  He moves into the room, telegraphing wariness with every step. “Baily, you can’t. Someone tried to kill you yesterday.”

  “What?” He can’t be serious. “I thought it was an accident.”

  He shakes his head. “No. The incident report states that it was a car bomb, although not a very effective one, since the electrical system caught fire before it detonated. I have the email if you’d like to see it.”

  I feel slightly ill. Somehow I’d convinced myself it was an accident. But knowing someone had made that happen….

  “You’re shaking.” Connor sets the mug down and wraps his arms around me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you but you have to know it isn’t safe for you to just run around unprotected, at least not until we find whoever is behind this.”

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” I whisper, clinging to his already rumpled shirt. “Why would someone want to kill me?”

  He rubs my back. “I don’t even know that you’re the target.”

  I push back and meet his gaze as hope dawns over the cold landscape of my terror. “Then…?”

  “We don’t know that you’re not, either. At this point we don’t know anything, but I refuse to take chances with your life.”

  That steely determination is back in his voice and I know I have to stand my ground now. “Connor, you can’t keep me locked up in some safehouse forever. I have a life, things to do.”

  His jaw clenches and his eyes close. I see the struggle in him and sympathize. His intentions are noble—he wants to protect me. What I so easily dismissed as paranoia yesterday, now I see is actually caution.

  His lids lift and his gaze is so tormented it actually steals my breath. “I’m trying to do the right thing here, Baily, but I don’t know what to say to you to convince you of that. I’m not trying to keep you locked up, I’m trying to keep you safe. You have no idea how much you mean to me, how much it kills me to deny you anything. Knowing that you’re in danger because of me, that you almost fucking died because of me, it’s eating me alive.”

  It’s not an act. I gape at him as he stands and begins pacing the narrow confines of my messy room, muttering as though to himself. “I’m not used to this, to not knowing what to do, what’s right. Your life might be in danger. My instinct is to protect you at all costs. I can keep you here, guarded by force if necessary, but you’ll end up hating me for it. But letting you go on with a giant target on your back…either way I risk losing you.”

  I’m not an idiot. I’m not going to cut off my nose to spite my face. “Connor, it’s okay. My job is here. Most of the other stuff can wait. Maybe they’ll catch whoever planted the bomb soon and it won’t be an issue.”

  He stops and shoots me a plaintive look. “I don’t want to lose you.”

  I get up, following my heart to him, and wrap my arms around him. “I’m right here. I’m safe.” Beyond that I wouldn’t make any promises.

  He holds me for several minutes, his cheek resting on the top of my head. I’m completely enveloped in his warm embrace and I’ve never felt so cherished.

  A knock sounds on the front door. “I’ll get it. It’s probably your medicine being delivered,” Connor says, and shuts the bedroom door.

  I pull on a pair of yoga pants and a tank top and twist my still-wet hair up into a ponytail before emerging from the bedroom. Connor has poured me a glass of orange juice and is whipping something up at the stove.

  “I thought you might like some French toast and sausage for breakfast.”

  “Sounds great, but where did the food come from?”

  “I had it delivered,” he answers, cracking eggs into a bowl.

  I watch in awe as my kitchen gets a real workout for the first time in years. Connor even finds an electric frying pan I’ve forgotten all about. Thick slices of cinnamon raisin bread that must have come from a bakery are dipped in the rich batter and then cooked on the hot griddle beside aromatic sausage patties. My mouth is actually watering.

  Connor sets a huge plateful of what must be 1500 calories in front of me before going back to fix his own breakfast.

  I cut up a slice of toast and can’t suppress a groan of pleasure. “You really are a gourmet. No wonder you’re so popular with the ladies.”

  He casts me a veiled look over his shoulder. “I’ve never cooked for anyone before.”

  Seriously? “Why not?”

  He shrugs but I can tell there’s more to it than he’ll admit. He brings his plate to the small table and sits down across from me. I’ve already eaten two slices of French toast and two sausage patties. I bite my lip trying to resist going for a third.

&nb
sp; “Have more.” Connor gestures to my plate.

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?” he challenges, meeting my gaze.

  “I’m not going to be able to burn all that off. It’ll just stick to my hips, where it’ll be in good company.”

  Connor, who already ate twice my portion size, scowls. “So?”

  This from the man who dated at least three supermodels in the last six months. “I already need to lose about forty pounds.”

  “No,” he says simply and begins clearing the table.

  “I’m sorry?” I must have misheard. He couldn’t have just shut me down.

  But he repeats himself. “No, you don’t need to lose forty pounds. You’d be severely underweight for your height, and it would put too much strain on your organs. There is nothing attractive about starvation. Your body is perfect exactly as it is. If you weren’t still recovering I’d throw you over my shoulder and demonstrate exactly how perfect you are.” The heat in his eyes tells me that is no bluff.

  Something warm spreads through my chest and I can’t seem to wipe a silly grin off my face. Knowing that Connor Edge desires me so intensely is heady stuff. Is it any wonder I’ve become completely addicted to him?

  ~*~

  We spend the rest of the day snuggled together on the couch watching old movies on cable. I rest my head in his lap and he strokes my hair. “Don’t you have work to do?” I ask him at one point.

  “It can wait,” he replies.

  I smile softly, flattered that he’d rather hang out with me even if we’re not having screaming sex. Unfortunately, I can’t think of any safe topic to share with him.

  “You were going to be a nurse?” Connor asks, sifting his hands through my hair.

  I freeze as the contentment I just experienced slips away. Of course he heard me talking with the ER doctor yesterday. “Yeah, I was going to be, but I had to drop out of the program.”

  The next logical question falls from his lips. “Why?”

  “It’s complicated,” I say, then roll my eyes at how ridiculous that sounds. It’s the same old tired excuse everyone uses when they don’t want to discuss a topic.

  Connor doesn’t respond, just keeps combing my hair with his fingers, massaging my scalp lightly. He’s waiting me out, I realize, waiting for me to open up and share bits of myself with him. He’s looking after me so tenderly and I want to be honest with him.

  I struggle to sit up and he steadies me with one hand, always so attentive to my needs, so watchful. I both love and resent his scrutiny. “Who’s asking, my boss or my boyfriend?”

  His lips twitch. “Am I your boyfriend?”

  Heat scalds my cheeks and I look away, mortified, just like that time in sixth grade when I told Johnny Wilson I liked him. He’d laughed in my face. I hope this conversation yields more positive results. “Only if you want to be.”

  “I’ve never had a real girlfriend before. I’ve had phony ones of course, and women I slept with. But not an actual girlfriend.”

  I try to wave it off, along with the ache in my chest. “It’s not important, not really, just a stupid label.”

  He slides closer on the couch, invading my personal space in the way only he can do, not crowding me, simply sharing my space, reassuring me with his solid presence. His index finger hooks around my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “It would be my honor to be your boyfriend.”

  My insides melt and I move closer to seal my lips over his. He allows me to take the lead, but the heat that is always there between us sparks to life. When we finally part, both of us are breathing hard and I see tightly contained desire on his face.

  “You need to rest,” Connor murmurs. I can’t tell if he’s reminding me or himself of this fact.

  “Right.” My libido is fully recovered and while I may not be up to full speed, I could use another couple of his therapeutic orgasms. Strictly for medicinal purposes, of course. “So, what were we talking about?”

  “How you wanted to be a nurse and why you dropped out of the program.”

  “Technically, it’s two different stories. Are you sure you want to hear all my baggage?”

  “That’s a boyfriend’s right.” I see a glint of pride in his eyes. My heart pounds as I think, I’m Connor Edge’s first real girlfriend. I want to crow it from the rooftops. Then I think about the baggage I’m about to unload and sober up.

  “My mother was a wild woman in her youth. She hated being poor, hated that her parents worked here at the Rosemont. She liked to go out and stir up trouble. Trolling every bar in the county, stuff like that.”

  Connor nods. I find I can’t look him in the eye while saying this. The shame burns me to the quick.

  “One night she had a little too much to drink. She was at the wrong bar at the wrong time. A couple of guys talked her into taking a drive with them. They were also drunk. They drove her out to the middle of nowhere and took turns raping her. She doesn’t remember the details, all we have is the police report that states she was found naked and bleeding along the side of the road.”

  I hear him suck in a quick breath, but need to finish, get this information out there.

  “I was born nine months later. She left me in the hospital, just disappeared.”

  “Baily—” Connor stops and I chance a look at him through my eyelashes. His lips are parted, eyebrows drawn down as if in pain.

  “I was underweight, sickly. A few of the nurses took turns holding me, even beyond their shifts. There have been studies done on babies born with low birth weight that show those who are held more often are more likely to thrive. My grandfather had just lost his wife and daughter. He came to see me but if not for the nurses, I probably would have died.”

  Connor pulls me into his arms and holds me. My heart races and I’m not sure what else I can say. The silence stretches out between us, agonizing, painful and fraught with landmines.

  My abandonment issues are not pretty. I’m a loner by choice because it’s so much less painful to keep people at a distance than to wait, poised on a razor’s edge, wondering when they too will grow sick of me and leave.

  If my own mother couldn’t love me as a tiny, helpless baby, why would anyone else bother?

  I wait for a few minutes, letting him absorb what I’ve told him. It’s probably better if he leaves me now than for him to pretend he doesn’t see the undesirable coating that clings to me like a bad smell for days or even weeks before he leaves. I’m already more attached to him than I ever wanted to be. I crave being with him to an unhealthy degree. Not because he’s Connor Edge, the sexiest man on earth, or because he has more money than a third world nation. Because I’m addicted to the way he makes me feel.

  Wanted, desirable.

  For someone like me, he’s habit-forming. Better to go cold turkey now.

  Silently I get up and move into the bedroom, shutting the door between us. If he leaves while I’m in here, I’ll pretend that it never happened, that he didn’t say things to stop my heart.

  No matter if doing so breaks me. I vow he’ll never see it.

  Chapter Three

  The bedroom door opens and I cease staring at the clock and turn to face Connor.

  “You tired?” he asks, his brows furrowing in concern. “Still have a headache?”

  “No,” I say, unwilling to address the larger issue.

  “Will you be all right if I leave you for a little while? There’s some stuff up at the main house that I need to see to.”

  “Do what you gotta do.” My heart is cracking in two. Here it is, stage one of The Brushoff. It shouldn’t upset me so much. I intended to walk away from him not even twenty four hours ago. But logic and reason are conspicuously absent in the throng of hurt feelings and wounded pride.

  Shoulda kept your mouth shut! Snarkarella croons.

  Coulda, woulda, shoulda, but didn’t.

  He bends down, presses his lips to my forehead. “I’ll be back in a bit to fix you dinner. We’ll talk more then, oka
y? Try and rest.”

  I remain curled on the bed, head and heart both throbbing from recent injury. I don’t know what else there is to say. It’s obvious to me that Connor’s extracting himself from our relationship. We’ll talk more later is code for I can’t deal with this shit. I’ve been here before, with other men, but never have I been so invested in a relationship as I am in this one.

  It stings that I’ve only set myself up for a bigger fall. There’s no way I can blame Connor for deciding I’m more trouble than I’m worth. No, I’m at fault because I know talking about my abandonment and Mommy issues is a relationship killer. The men I’m with never know what to say, how to respond after I detonate that bomb. Moments of comfortable silence turn awkward and they start looking at me as though my hands have turned into meat hooks and I intend to sink them in at any moment.

  Not one ever thought that maybe I wouldn’t want to be with a man who didn’t want me.

  I roll off the bed and move into the bathroom, soaking a washcloth in cold water. My blue eyes are red-rimmed from crying and my hair is a mess. There is nothing attractive about my ratty sweats or the cavefish paleness of my skin. I can’t blame him, not really.

  The ache is more about the kernel of hope being crushed. The intensity Connor focused on me actually made me think that I really could bare my soul to him and he would still want me. That he would say something like my mother’s an idiot for not wanting me, or he’s grateful to those nurses for stepping up because they saved me for him. Some sentimental garbage to make me feel desired and cherished, like only he has ever done.

  Instead, I get silence and we’ll talk more later.

  The landline rings just as I exit the bathroom. The portable is in the kitchen but I have a prehistoric corded telephone on my nightstand and reach for it. “Hello?”

  “Baily Sinclair?”

  “Speaking.”

  “It’s Ian Fletcher.” He’s brisk, to the point.

  “Hi Doctor Fletcher, what’s up?” My nerves jump a little.