The ray of light illuminated Anna and he was struck for the hundredth time by her beauty.
Her innocence. The pure goodness the radiated from her core.
And as he met her eyes and smiled to celebrate his grandmother’s victory, that was when his wife finally let herself cry.
Not because he’d just broken her heart.
But because a woman she’d only met a week ago might not die after all.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cole had a game to play Sunday, but he wasn’t the only one who hated the thought of leaving his grandmother again so soon, especially when there was such good news to celebrate.
Anna barely knew his grandmother, but she was as happy about the news of her recovery as any one of Eugenia’s close friends would have been.
For the first time, Cole was damn glad for the small hospital room. Because it meant Anna was close to him. It meant he could drink in her beauty. It meant he could listen to her sweet conversation with his grandmother. It meant he could soak in her laughter for a little while longer.
Still, the entire time the three of them were together there, Anna never once spoke to him.
Or looked directly at him. She was wholly focused on Eugenia. He only left the hospital room once to make a quick side trip. The taxi waited outside the hotel with the package—a gift for Anna, one he hoped she’d love.
After booking them on the very last flight out of town, they got into the taxi. He could tell she wasn’t going to say anything more to him on the trip home than she had on the way to Las Vegas.
“I, uh, picked up something for you.”
Her expression became even colder. “I told you already, I don’t want your bribes.”
“I heard you, Anna. I swear I heard every word you said.” He picked up the carrier bag that had been waiting on the floor of the taxi by his feet. “It’s not jewelry.”
She looked at the moving package on her lap in surprise. She shook her head. “Whatever it is, I can’t take it. Not from you.”
But he was already unzipping the bag, just enough that a wet nose and tongue licked across her hand. And then, just as he’d known she would, she was pulling the mutt out of his temporary home and hugging the fur ball to her. She didn’t let go of the dog for the rest of the taxi ride, held the carrier bag close all through the airport, and constantly checked on the mutt under the seat in front of her during the ride home.
She loved the fifteen-pound ball of fur with everything she had from the moment it licked her.
That could have been me.
But he was an asshole who didn’t deserve her. Even now, instead of finally letting her go to rebuild the life he’d torn apart, all Cole wanted was to hold her hostage in the limo and take her back to his house. All he could think about was finding some way to convince her that he really was sorry.
And that he really did love her.
But he remembered that first limo ride from the San Francisco airport, the way he hadn’t asked her if she would come with him to his house. He’d demanded it, as if her opinion hadn’t mattered.
He now knew that her opinion mattered more than anything.
“Where do you want James to take you?”
She looked at him in surprise, but the expression disappeared as quickly as it had come.
“Home. My home.”
Coming around to hold the door open for Anna, James looked at Cole like he was dogshit on the bottom of his shoe. His assistant waited until she was safely inside and the door was closed to say, “You’re an idiot. A complete fucking idiot.”
James didn’t wait for a response, just went around to the front of the car and slid in behind the wheel.
With Cole’s wife inside the car with him.
Possessiveness gripped him hard and he was just curling his fingers around the door handle to pull his wife out of the limo, to work like hell to convince her to come with him in his car, to try and get her to forgive him and give him another chance, when James hit the gas and the limo sped away from the curb so fast it almost took Cole’s hand off.
“Fuck!”
Cole took off across the arrivals lanes at a full-on sprint, dodging each car as if he were on the field instead of a crowded airport, until he found his car. Jumping inside, he sped toward the exit with his car door still open, barely closing it in time to prevent it snapping off on a cement pillar. He threw a hundred-dollar bill at the ticket taker and almost crashed through the gate in his hurry to get to Anna.
He didn’t know what he could possibly say, what he could possibly do, to get her to give him another chance. All he knew was that he couldn’t give her up.
Not without a fight.
Not until he knew for sure that she didn’t love him anymore.
* * *
He turned into her street just as James was walking down the steps back to the limo.
Double-parking his car, not giving a shit if it was towed or even totaled by another car, Cole jumped out. He barely heard James say, “Swear to God, you must be the biggest goddamned idiot I’ve ever met,” barely saw the photographers clicking pictures outside as he ran past his assistant and up the stairs.
Praying she hadn’t yet locked the front door, knowing that she was so trusting she often forgot, he pushed against it.
And it opened.
Anna looked up from the spot where she was kneeling on the floor picking up mail, the dog sleeping in his carrying bag by the hall table. In that moment, catching her completely off guard, Cole thought he caught something in her eyes that she’d been hiding from him all day.
Love.
“Anna, we need to talk.”
She stood up, leaving her mail on the floor, her dark hair silky as it fell over her shoulders, her long lashes almost shielding her ocean eyes from him. She was so beautiful that simply looking at her made his chest hurt with every single breath he took.
“I don’t want to talk.”
She moved toward him and he expected her to slap him, to scream at him for ruining her life, to tell him to get the hell out of her house and her life.
Instead, her hands went to the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it up his body.
More confused than he’d ever been, Cole couldn’t think fast enough to stop her from dragging it all the way up to his armpits. And with her fingernails raking across his chest, it was instinct to lift his arms above his head so that she could get it all the way off.
“Anna. Sweetheart.” He wanted to pull her into him, wanted to force her to listen to him beg for forgiveness until she finally capitulated and forgave him for being the world’s biggest asshole. “I didn’t bring come here for this.”
“I know.”
She untied the bow at the front of her dress and a second later pulled it over her head and tossed it on the ground.
“Anna.” He put his hands on her shoulders, stupid enough to risk touching her when she was standing there almost naked and so beautiful he couldn’t believe his eyes, no matter how many times he looked at her. “You don’t want to make love to me here. Now.”
He hated the way she winced at the word love, hated it even more when she said, “You taught me too well, Cole, taught me not to fight what I really need.” So matter-of-fact. “And I need you. Here. Now. Just like this.”
Her hands went to his belt, unbuckling it, and he tried to still them with his own, but she was focused, one hundred percent intent on pulling his zipper down.
“Anna, baby,” he said, dragging the words from his own throat, “listen to me. We need to stop before you do something you don’t really want to do.”