“Of course you will.” She kept her arm tight over her cheek and refused to let him see the hurt that came with that particular state-merit. “You know, Marcy Stephens bragged quite horribly about the nights you and Cameron spent in her bed. She swears Cameron was the one who escaped moments after his release and you were the one who petted her through the night. She must have managed to get the two of you mixed up.”
There was that scar across Cameron’s cheek, though. That would have been hard to do.
A frown flitted across his brow.
“Go,” she told him softly. “Before it gets much later. I’m sure you have an early meeting or something in the morning.”
She could almost see him latching on to the excuse.
“Ian keeps us busy.” His voice was soft, not exactly latching on to it, but he wasn’t denying it either. “Call me if you need me.”
“I will.” She would never call him under these circumstances; she would make certain she didn’t need him.
She kept her lips from trembling as he leaned closer and gave her a quick kiss before jerking his jacket from the bed and leaving.
Silence filled the apartment after the latch of the door fell and the hollow beep signaling the security reengaged. She pushed the sheet aside and dragged herself from the bed, shivering in the chill of the room as she pulled her heavy robe from the chair on her side of the bed and shrugged it on.
She belted it tightly around her, the heavy material shrouding her from neck to wrists to ankles. It kept her warm when there was nothing else.
She stared around the bedroom and blinked back the tears quickly as her breathing hitched and she fought to hold back the pain.
He wouldn’t even spend the night with her.
She pushed her hands into the pockets of the robe before walking slowly into the living room.
The gas logs were still lit, their faint light guiding her way to the couch where she normally slept. She lifted her blanket from the back of the couch, placed her pillow against the arm of the couch, and curled against it.
Behind her, the overstuffed cushions gave her the illusion of warmth, of someone behind her. She stared into the wall of windows and watched the sky. Sometimes she watched the sun rise and pretended those golden rays were warming her as they warmed the earth.
For the past two years, she had only grown colder inside, and lonelier. She had lost something inside herself that she wasn’t certain how to find any longer. She had thought it was her courage, but after the past night, she knew it wasn’t courage.
It was her ability to trust, to care, until Chase held his hand out to her and told her he wasn’t playing games with her. That he wanted her. That he wanted to share her.
Perhaps one of them should have given this nonrelationship a bit more thought, because she could feel it slowly destroying her.
It wasn’t the sharing, it was the loss. When Chase walked away, it meant she would awaken alone, dreaming his arms were around her.
That knowledge that there was nothing to hold on to throbbed inside her like a vicious wound. There hadn’t been anything to hold on to in far longer than the past two years, and she hadn’t even realized it. Until tonight.
As she stared out the windows, she didn’t count the minutes or the hours. She stared, and remembered Chase. Touching her, holding her, his eyes locked with hers, her imagined feeling that he was touching not just her body, but her soul.
That she was touching him, that her touch went deeper than his flesh.
She was really quite good at fooling herself, she decided. Because for a few precious moments tonight, she had imagined he felt more for her than desire, more for her than the other women he had taken.
Those women he had spent the night with.
Those women he had taken to the opera, to dinner, to the clubs he frequented. Those women he was seen with in public without shame.
And the only time she was seen with him was when they were leaving. Disappearing.
She wiped the tears from her cheeks as the sun began to peek over the horizon. She sniffed back any sobs that might escape and reminded herself that she shouldn’t have expected more.
He hadn’t promised her emotion. He hadn’t promised to warm her.
He had just promised her the pleasure.
She had no right to complain, no right to feel slighted. But the woman he touched, the heart that beat inside her, felt very, very slighted.
7
Sleep came only in fits and spurts. Kia finally gave up and moved from the couch. Slipping on her house slippers she stepped out onto her balcony and let the brisk winter wind whip around her as she stared into the brilliant blue of the morning sky.
Where did it leave a woman when she realized how empty her life had become? When she looked in the cold, dark yawning recesses and realized how weak and lonely she has become? So lonely that she let herself believe that a few hours of pleasure would be enough. That she was courageous enough, immune enough to the needs other women had, that she was trading her heart for that pleasure.
Chase had only come to her twice. There had been no phone calls in between those times, no dinner, no lunch. There had been nothing to indicate that he wanted anything more than that pleasure.
Chase wasn’t a subtle man. He was dominant, forceful, quiet, and controlled, but he wasn’t subtle. If he had wanted more from her, he would have demanded it.
And really, could she blame him for not wanting more? Her anger and outrage two years before had risked his reputation as well as the reputations of the men and women it was his job to protect. And when she had retracted her statements, she had moved out of society as much as possible, disillusioned with the friends she had thought she had, suddenly left adrift and uncertain which way to turn.
So she had hidden. Here in this huge, lonely apartment, she had hidden and forced herself to be content with it. Because the wounds had gone so deep, had been so ragged, that she’d had no idea how to heal them.
The night Drew had come to her with champagne and flowers, wanting to repair the rift that had opened between them, she had wanted to believe him. She didn’t handle champagne well, or any alcohol, actually; her tolerance was very low. It hadn’t taken him long to get her drunk enough that she was dazed and confused.
When he had carried her into their bedroom, she had felt like a princess. When he undressed her, she had closed her eyes and imagined love. And then she had felt another man’s hands.
She shook the memory away. The horror of her husband and another man holding her in her bed. Drew holding her down as she fought, as she cried and begged them to let her go.
It had finally been the third who had stepped away, then tore her husband away from her long enough for her to escape into the bathroom, where she locked herself in, sobbing in fear. It had been that third, and she still didn’t know who he had been, who had argued in the bedroom with her husband, nearly fought, she believed, before he slammed out of the room. And it was only minutes later that her father had arrived, apartment security behind him, responding to a call that his daughter was in trouble.
Drew had never told her who that third person was. When her father arrived at the apartment, one of his security personnel from the company headquarters accompanying him, Drew had been enraged.
Her father had been coldly, dangerously furious. He had wrapped her in his jacket, wrapped his arms around her shaking body, and he had taken her back to the home she had been raised in.
Her parents had sheltered her for as long as they could. She had used her father’s lawyer, Lenore Zimmer, to file for divorce from Drew. Lenore had made certain Drew was out of the home before Kia returned, that he paid the bills until the divorce was final. She had been a godsend to Kia. But nothing, no amount of comforting, no settlement amount, could make up for the knowledge that her dearest friend, Rebecca, had been telling everyone she knew the information Kia had given her while she had been practically in shock and struggling to understand why her husband had attempted to hurt her as he had.