The doctor grunted.
“I’ll let her leave then. I’ll get what I need and be at your apartment within the hour. I want her to stay in bed tonight and tomorrow.”
“I have a job,” she bit out.
“You won’t have one long if you don’t listen to the doctor,” Timothy snapped furiously. “For God’s sake, Kia, when did you get so damned stubborn?”
“While you weren’t looking.” She felt as querulous as she sounded.
“No doubt in my mind, because if I had been looking we might have had to discuss it, little girl,” he informed her, obviously covering his fear with his anger.
She glared back at him. “Are you staying at Chase’s, too?” She looked at Chase. “You didn’t mention staying with you.”
Her head was splitting. She knew she really needed to protest this, but she just couldn’t find the energy.
“You don’t have a spare room for the doctor,” he told her.
Of course, he had a reason. She sighed and stared at her hands. It wasn’t because he wanted her there.
“Well, hell,” she said. “I guess your couch is just as good as mine.”
Chase flinched. He wasn’t about to tell her exactly where she was going to be sleeping. In his bed. Right beside him.
He glanced at Rutherford, and knew her father knew. He was glaring at Chase. His expression promising retribution if Kia ended up with a broken heart.
“Sweetheart, you can come home with us,” Cecilia told her.
She looked at Chase and he saw panic in her eyes. Oh Lord, no. Her mother would flutter around her and weep and worry all night long. She couldn’t handle that.
“She’ll go home with me,” he told them. “Sanjer will be fine at the apartment, and both of you can come in the morning and stay as long as you like. Hell, follow us back if you want.”
He didn’t care a bit to bail her out of this one. He had no intention of allowing her to be anywhere but with him.
“Since when do you decide how she should be taken care of?” Timothy barked.
“If you don’t stop arguing over me like two dogs with a bone, then I’m going to go home by myself,” she informed them, pressing her hands to her temples. “God. I don’t care where I go, I just want to sleep.”
She was unaware of the concern that filled the air. Timothy had never seen his daughter bloody; Celia knew she’d have nightmares for years to come over it. And Chase. Chase felt as though rage was going to destroy his sanity. So help him God, if he found out who did this, he was going to kill.
“I’ll get her signed out of here,” Sanjer promised. “I’ll be there in an hour, Chase. Have my room ready. And some food if no one minds. My dinner was interrupted tonight.”
Chase moved around the bed, holding Kia’s attention, seeing in her eyes the vulnerability there, the almost hidden fears and desires. He didn’t bother to hide his. He wouldn’t make the same mistake he had made earlier tonight. He had dared to take his eyes off her when everything inside him had screamed at him to go with her, to chase after her.
She was stuck with him now, and he wondered if that might ultimately end up destroying both of them. Chase had never been one to let go of anything that belonged to him. And he was starting to feel as though Kia… belonged.
He picked her up in his arms, feeling how light she was, how fragile. He held her gaze.
“I told you,” he whispered then. “It doesn’t change. Only the circumstances do.”
“And I told you,” she whispered back. “Bet me!”
17
Dr. Sanjer checked Kia again after Chase took her to his apartment and put her to bed. She knew it was his bed. The monstrous four-poster had to be his. Only he was tall enough to climb into it easily.
Now she lay silent, staring at the ceiling, counting off the hours as she tried to figure out exactly how she had ended up in his bed. With him in it.
She was dressed in one of Chase’s T-shirts and her bronze panties. A sheet and a finely sewn heirloom quilt covered her, and beside her Chase lay, his arm thrown over her stomach as he slept.
She was lying there wishing she could roll away from him, wishing she could get enough distance between them to make sense of the feelings that kept moving through her.
She had dreamed of sleeping with him. Now that she was there, in his bed, sleep was the furthest thing from her mind. Kia just wanted to make sense of exactly what was happening, right now, inside her.
Chase lay relaxed against her, his head close to hers, his larger, more powerful body warming her. She had to restrain the urge to stroke her hand along his arms, to lay her head against his chest, and ask him why the hell he was doing this to her.
He was messing her head up, messing her heart up, and she had no idea how she was supposed to act now, or how she was supposed to feel.
Lying in his arms was heaven and hell.
She closed her eyes and fought the emotions she couldn’t seem to bury deep enough to hide from. Tears flowed from the corners of her eyes, and she swore she wasn’t going to turn in his arms and beg him to. make sense of this for her.
Her head was hurting. That was the problem, she assured her-self. She felt bruised and frightened, and so terribly off balance now.
Which was worse? Lying alone in her own bed, or lying with Chase and fighting to hold herself away from him?
“If you keep crying, Kia, you might well break my heart.”
Her eyes jerked open as Chase shifted beside her and leaned up, staring down at her as he lifted his hand from her hip and brushed a tear from her cheek.
“It’s the headache,” she whispered, her lips trembling.
“I know, baby.” He kissed her temple gently. “Dr. Sanjer can’t give you anything more right now.”
His hand cupped her neck, his fingertips moving against the back of her head, so gently. Caressing and massaging, stroking her flesh as another tear fell.
“You’re never going to let me get over you, are you?” she finally asked, feeling the gentle, easy movements at the base of her neck relaxing a bit of the pain away.
Oh, that felt nice. Her lashes fluttered closed for a moment as she breathed in, letting that slow, easy massage penetrate her brain.
“Never,” he agreed, but his voice was soft, easy. A whisper of knowledge that flowed through her as he shifted closer to her, or did he pull her against him?
She wasn’t certain now. She knew his fingers didn’t stop that slow, easy glide, and the more he caressed the hollow at the base of her head, the more the headache eased.
“I like that,” she finally sighed.
“When Cameron was a boy, he used to get headaches,” he told her. “I’d watch Mom rub his head. She said even kids knew how to stress out. You don’t have to stress out, Kia. I’ll keep you safe.”
“From everyone but you,” she sighed, tucking her face against his chest.
“From everyone but me,” he agreed, his voice heavy despite his gentle tone.
She let a bittersweet smile form on her lips as his fingers stroked her neck. Kia knew she should be pulling away. Better to deal with the headache than to deal with Chase, in his bed, curled against him as the darkness wrapped around them, heavy with sensuality.
“Why did you hide for the past two years, Kia?” She felt his lips against her brow again. “Why didn’t you let Rebecca Harding and her little friends take the fall as liars rather than putting it on your head and taking everything on your own shoulders?”
Why had she? She breathed out roughly, her fingers digging into the comforter covering her as she tried to hold on to her determination.
“I’m not going to let it go,” he assured her. “Tell me why?”
“Because it was easier,” she finally whispered. And it was only partially the truth. “Rebecca didn’t start that grief, Chase. I did. I trusted the wrong person, and I married the wrong man. I needed time.”