Being Me

Twenty

After leaving our hotel room, Chris and I step into the packed elevator. Chris leans against the wall, settling me under the crook of his arm, and his touch is like a hot, welcome branding too intimate for the public setting. The rubies dangle between my legs, a teasing friction against my clit that, while not painful, is inescapable—as is the thick ridge of Chris’s arousal against my backside. Chris nuzzles my neck, and I shiver. I can almost taste his pleasure at my reaction, and his hands travel up and down my rib cage, tugging the silk of my dress and the jewels on my nipples. My hands go to his, holding them steady in a silent reprimand, and his soft, sexy rumble of laughter touches my ear.

My lips curve at his playfulness, and the contrast of this moment to another occasion when I wore no bra and panties, at the winery, strikes me. I’d scolded myself for daring to see romance in what was a sexy adventure. Even meeting his godparents that warm August night still left me wondering where Chris and I were headed. I could easily spin doubts and get tangled up in all that could go wrong tonight if I let myself. The list of worries is long. Chris’s return to Paris. My impending career decisions. My secret. My gut clenches and the elevator opens.

I step off the car and mentally leave my concerns inside. Tonight Chris needs me to be clear and present. My Dark Prince is teetering on the edge of darkness over Dylan, and I have to be the rope he clings to for a lifeline.

Once in the corridor, Chris twines his fingers with mine, and this small, intimate act makes my heart squeeze, warming me far more than the gentle sway of the jewels between my thighs while I walk. I cut him a sideways glance to find him doing the same to me, and it is as if I’m experiencing a summer breeze. He floats inside me and completes me, and for the first time in my life I have a sense of being in a relationship, rather than being alone or possessed. Ironic, I think, considering this is the same man whom I’ve all but begged to claim me and possess me. He is dark passion and wicked heat and I can’t get enough of him.

We exit the hotel into the warm, cloudless night, dozens of stars shining brightly above, and I slip my small sparkling black purse over the thin emerald strap on my shoulder. The private car Chris ordered for us is waiting, but we turn when we overhear an elderly couple, also attending the gala, struggling to find a cab.

Chris and I share a look of understanding before he addresses the couple: “You can join us. We’re headed to the same place.”

A sleek 911 halts beside a doorman, and I have a momentary flashback to the night of the wine tasting at the gallery. I’d walked out of the gallery to find Chris leaning on the 911, my father’s car of choice. I’d compared the two men who are incomparable, and the smiles Chris has just put on the elderly couple’s faces drives home that point.

Inside the back of the car, sitting in the middle, I begin chatting with the woman beside me. Chris settles his hand on my knee, his thumb absently caressing my silk stocking, heat seeping through to my skin. Darts of pleasure shoot up my leg and straight to my swollen, overly sensitive clit.

It’s becoming impossible to focus on my conversation, and when I can take no more, I grab his hand and hold it still, shooting him a warning look.

Chris arches a brow. “Something wrong?”

I cut him a look and spoke softly. “You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“Yes,” he agrees and his lips twitch. “I do.”

“Of course you do,” and the fact that he does is enticingly erotic rather than enticingly frightening. It’s also the reason I hold his hand for the duration of the ten-minute drive.

We exit the car at the Children’s Museum, where the gala is being held, and cameras begin to flash. Chris’s discomfort is palpable as we walk the red carpet laid out on the stairway to the entry, and I’m not surprised when he declines visiting the press room. His dislike for the spotlight and his willingness to put himself there for his charity speaks volumes about how much this cause means to him.

Once inside the building, we pause under a massive archway that is the entry to the main triangle-shaped event room, where about one hundred guests mingle in the open area between us and the band performing on the opposite side of the room. Music echoes upward, spiraling into the massive dome covering us, and I am in awe of the artwork painted on its interior.

Reminded of another wall closer to home, I cannot help but say, “This reminds me of Mark’s office. You painted his wall, didn’t you?”

There is a slight tightening around his mouth. “Yes.”

“Yes? Just yes?”

He shrugs. “He swore he’d sell one of my paintings at Riptide for a ridiculous figure and I agreed to paint the wall if he did.”

“And you donated the money to the hospital.”

I watch the emotion flash across his face and his expression becomes all hard lines and ridges. “It paid for Dylan’s treatments and set up a trust fund for his family they don’t know exists yet.”

I feel his words like the punch in the chest I know they are to him. “You and Mark seem to do a lot of good together, but you have a strange relationship.”

“We have a business relationship.”

“But you were once friends.”

“Friends is a word used too loosely by too many people,” he comments dryly, and clearly he has had enough talk of Mark. He motions to a table of food. “Are you hungry?”

“I’m starving,” I say, but I’m bothered by the way he avoids the topic of Mark.

Chris’s hand slides around my waist, discreetly molding us hip to hip, thigh to thigh, and all thoughts of Mark are gone when he softly murmurs, “I’m starving, too—and not for food.” And he looks like he wants to gobble me up right here and now. My body reacts, and my lack of panties makes the damp heat between my thighs more than a little evident.

I blush, and I don’t know why. Less than an hour before, the man licked my nipples and attached rubies to them, but there are just these moments when Chris is such a powerful male that I melt for him.

And he knows it. I see it in his face, in the wicked heat burning in the depths of his green eyes. I don’t care, either. I don’t fear him knowing how I react to him as I once might have. I watch as a slow, sensual smile slides onto his lips, and with it I am relieved to see the dark lines and ridges of moments before fade away. “Ah now,” he says softly, seductively, “there is my sweet little blushing schoolteacher. Seems I haven’t corrupted her completely just yet.” He pauses. “But I’m working on it.”

“You accused me of corrupting you.”

“You did, but in all the right ways, baby.”

My brows furrow. “What does that mean?”

“If you don’t know yet, you will.”

He sweeps me into the crush of the crowd, leaving me guessing his meaning, which shouldn’t surprise me. He is all about coded double meanings, and hidden messages I understand later, if at all.

We survey several tables of food and stop at one filled with a variety of finger foods. We fill small plates and do our best to eat between chats with the many people who want to talk to Chris. I’m finishing a bite of a finger sandwich when out of nowhere, it seems, Gina Ray, a rather famous actress, who according to a Google search once dated Chris, appears by his side.

Her hair is brown silk, her dress red and cut to display her ample cleavage, which she presses against Chris’s arm as she hugs him. “Chris!” she exclaims. “So good to see you.” Her voice is a rich, lovely mix of wild vixen and Hollywood bombshell, just as she is.

The only thing ample about me is my insecurity I swore I left in the hospital, but apparently it’s hitched a ride to the gala. Compared to her, I feel awkward and unladylike, and absolutely not star- or Chris-worthy. I feel like the sweet little schoolteacher who has no business being here at this party with a man like Chris. I set my plate down and fight the urge to dart away, though I have no clue to where.

Chris seems to sense my reaction and dislodges himself from Gina’s embrace, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Sara, this is Gina Ray. Gina’s been a huge supporter of our charity for several years now, and”—he glances down at me meaningfully—“contrary to the paparazzi who chase her around like starving animals, I have never dated her. Gina, this is Sara McMillan, whom I am dating, and who is someone I hope you’ll be seeing by my side often.”

His announcement delivers relief and a sweet, warm spot in my chest. I melt into Chris and his fingers flex on my hip.

Gina rolls her eyes playfully. “I’ve apologized with my checkbook for that dating scandal, Chris. Stop guilting me for putting you through that.” She fixes her attention on me, and her pale blue eyes, so unlike my deep, dark chocolate ones, remind me of diamonds in the moonlight. “And very nice to meet you, Sara.” She extends her hand and I accept it. A camera flashes and still holding my hand, she casts Chris a quelling look. “It’s not my fault if tomorrow’s news is Gina Ray has run-in with ex-lover’s new girlfriend. Not. My. Fault.” Someone calls Gina’s name and she releases me. “I’ll catch up with you two in a bit.”

“You read the gossip about me dating her,” Chris accuses the instant we are alone again.

“Why do you say that?” I ask guiltily.

“You almost choked on your sandwich when she hugged me.”

I shrug. “She’s a movie star. I was starstruck.”

His lips quirk. “Is that so?”

“Okay. I might have googled you at some point.”

“Anything else you discovered I need to explain?”

“No. Nothing.” And I mean it. I believe he still has secrets of his own, but none of them will be found on Google. They’ll be found in the midst of his pain, which I hope he allows me to fully understand one day. My voice softens. “I know everything I need to know.”

A hint of the torment I seem to excel in creating in him flashes in his green eyes.

“Sara—” He is cut off when we are suddenly surrounded by a group of people who all want to speak to Chris and meet me, leaving me wondering what he’d been about to say. We fade into the conversation but our eyes lock and hold, unspoken words twining between us, burning to be heard.

Over the next hour, Chris and I mingle with the lively crowd, and I’m relieved when we relax into a light, fun evening. I revel in how he touches me often, each brush of his hand adding warmth to my soul, where he has found a place and taken root. And when our eyes meet, awareness sizzles through me that that has nothing to do with the never-ending friction created by the rubies, and everything to do with our deepening bond. I am happy, and that isn’t something I remember being much in my adult life. Happy never lasts but I plan to fight for it this time.

I spot the waitstaff preparing a table filled with a variety of coffee and chocolate concoctions with whipped cream, and while I am dragging Chris in that direction, he is accosted by an excited, sixty-something fan. Seems she has a paintbrush he’d autographed at another event and she wants another for her son.

“I’ll be at the chocolate,” I tell him. I kiss his cheek, whispering, “Next to you, it’s my favorite temptation.”

He whispers something in French and I have no doubt it’s naughty. I bite my lip at just how sexy it sounds.

I’m still smiling inside over the exchange when I am handed a mocha with whipped cream on top. I move to a small round standing table and scoop up a spoonful. It’s delicious, like my flirtation with Chris. I’m amazed at how comfortably me I am with him.

“Hello, Sara.”

I freeze with a second spoonful of sweet cream in my mouth, and my eyes are locked on the tuxedo directly in front of me, on the familiar hand now resting on the white tablecloth. On the familiar voice that might as well be acid burning a path down my spine. It can’t be. He can’t be here. It’s been two years of silence, since I threatened a restraining order. Two years I thought would be forever.

Slowly, I set down my spoon on the saucer and curse the tremble of my hand I know he will see. He is a manipulator, a user. A bastard I never wanted to see again but I am not the girl I was five years ago or even two years ago. I will not cower.

Steeling myself for the impact, I lift my gaze, but I do not see the man whom most see as personifying tall, dark, and handsome. Nor do I feel the striking impact of his crystal blue stare the way others do, the way I once did. I see nothing but the monster I discovered the last time we saw each other.

“Michael.” I hate how his name rasps out of my mouth, how my throat tightens uncomfortably. How I am letting him have an impact on me. I feel a moment of panic, a sense of the ground falling out from under my feet. No. This isn’t when or how Chris was supposed to learn about my past. He has too much on his shoulders this weekend to carry my load, too. Which is why I cannot crumble. I won’t. I will be strong.

My fingers curl into my palms. “What are you doing here?”

“I saw your picture in the paper, and needed to take a trip to our research facility in Silicon Valley anyway. Your father and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to contribute to a good cause and catch up with you at the same time.”

My father—who has not made one single attempt, with all the resources he possesses, to contact me in five years. Who wasn’t even at the event to honor my mother, and where I last saw Michael. I hate how much his actions still twist me into knots. I hate how much I ridiculously yearn for a parent who never gave a damn about me, who never gave a damn about my mother, who loved him with all of her heart.

My lips tighten. “We both know my father didn’t send you here.”

“Actually, he did. See, we keep tabs on you, Sara. We always have. That means we keep tabs on the people you include in your life. Which brings me to the here and now and your recent choice in companions.”

Heat floods my face and my heart races wildly. “What does that mean?”

“It means that Chris Merit has some interesting diversions, don’t you think?”

My heart explodes in my chest. Chris. He’s using Chris against me. He knows about the club. That has to be what he means. This can’t be happening. It can’t be happening.

He continues, “We’d hoped you’d realize his destructive nature and walk away, but now that you’re going public with him, getting your picture snapped and slapped in the newspapers, we can’t stay out of what could be damaging to you and us.”

“Us?” I demand. “You’re not a part of any ‘us’ I am a part of.”

“Wrong again. See, as your father’s new VP, what hurts him hurts me, and vice versa. And I’m quite certain a children’s charity would be more than a little disturbed by Chris’s interests. Don’t you think?”

He’s obsessed and sick. “You just want me so I can inherit and you can take my money.”

He leans closer and it’s all I can do not to jerk back, to show weakness. “I just want the woman I love to come home, Sara.” There is no love in his voice, only possessiveness, ownership. “I’m at the Marriott airport hotel. I expect to see you soon.” He steps around me and he is gone, leaving me in the quicksand of his threats.

I stand there frozen, eroding inside. The room falls away and there is nothing but what happened two years before, and the black hole of my torment. And the certainty that I brought this on myself and Chris, with my actions, my foolishness. My weakness. I’d just been so damn alone, so lost, and Michael had been the one connection I had to my mother, and the father who seemed to want nothing to do with me. And he’d seemed different. Or maybe I just wanted him to be different. Deep down, I’d craved an excuse to go home, to have a home. Michael had been warm and charming, and I’d felt like I was meeting him all over again, that I’d judged him harshly in the past. But I’d been wrong, so very wrong.

I can feel myself spiraling down into the hell of that night. I’m starting to crumble and I know I have to get somewhere private and pull myself together, to think and find a way out of this. My gaze lifts, seeking an escape route, and collides with Chris’s from across the room. I see the worry in his face, feel it from a distance. That’s how powerful our connection is, and the vise around my chest tightens. Oh, God. I love this man, and I’m about to destroy him. I turn away from him and weave through the crowd. I cannot face him until I pull myself together, to get through tonight without a public meltdown.

Darting away, I weave through the crowd, worried Chris will catch up to me before I gain my composure, before I figure out how to fix this mess, but I have no idea where I’m going. I’m just walking, weaving, blindingly seeking escape.

I grab a passing waiter. “Ladies’ room?”

He points to a sign and I rush away, turning a corner, close to escape, when I bump right into Gina. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

She grabs my arms to steady me and casts me a concerned look. “Are you okay?”

“Yes. Yes. I ate something that didn’t sit well. I need a bathroom.” It’s a horrible excuse but it’s all I have.

“Okay.” She steps aside and calls, “Do you want me to get Chris?”

“No!” I exclaim, whirling around. “Please no. I don’t want him to see me like this.” I push open the door and walk past the woman at the sink, and I don’t dare look at her. I head inside the handicapped stall directly in front of me and lock the door. On wobbly legs, I fall against the wall opposite the toilet. This is what everything in my life has collided together and become. Me, staring at a toilet, trying not to fall apart. Somehow it’s perfectly appropriate.

A flashback of two years ago overtakes me. Of Michael driving me back to my hotel and walking me to my door. Of how gentle and sweet he’d seemed. I’d invited him in to talk. Just talk, I’d told him.

The instant the door had shut, everything had changed. He’d been angry, damning me for leaving, for making him look bad. I can almost feel the moment he slammed me against the wall and his body covered mine. And his hands were everywhere, all over me. I start to shake again. I can’t stop shaking. I hug myself and will away the memories. My eyes prickle and I will away the tears. I will not give Michael the satisfaction of making me cry. I have to go back to the party and look presentable. I have to smile. I have to get through this night without ruining it for Chris.

“Sara!”

It’s Chris’s voice, and I can’t believe he’s in the bathroom. He never does what I expect or what is normally considered acceptable. And he is always there at my worst moments. Always. The only person who ever has been.

“She’s in the back stall,” the woman at the sink instructs.

“Can you give us a minute?” he asks.

“I’ll watch the door,” she tells him, clearly knowing him. Great. Already someone to tell the world about some incident Chris’s date had tonight.

“Sara.” His voice is a soft caress, a promise he is here for me, maybe for the last time.

“You can’t be in here, Chris.” And damn it, my voice cracks.

“Open the door, baby. I need to see you.”

“I can’t. I can’t open the door.”

“Why?”

“Because if I do I’ll cry and mess up my makeup.”

“Let me in, Sara.” His voice is gentle but insistent.

“Please, Chris. I’ll be out in a minute and I’ll be fine.” But I don’t sound fine. My voice is strained, barely recognizable.

“You know me. I’m not going to leave without you opening up.”

You know me. I do know him and I know how much trust and privacy means to him. Not only did I lie to him, but he let me inside his world, and Michael is about to make it public.

“Sara.” There is a push to the way he says my name, a gentle command, but still a command.

He isn’t going away. He’s too ridiculously stubborn. I unlock the door and step back to the wall, telling myself to make up yet another lie to get him past this evening, to protect him. Once we are back at the hotel, then I’ll tell him everything. That’s my plan but I fail miserably. The instant I see Chris, my brilliant, damaged, amazing artist who’s let me into his life, and who I am about to lose, I lose it. My legs give out and I sink to the floor, tears bursting from some deep hidden place I’ve never visited but I knew existed.

Chris squats down in front of me and his hands are on my shoulders, strong and sure, and I cry harder. I can’t stop the waterfall. He shifts to lean against the wall and pulls me against him. “This isn’t how this is supposed to happen.”

“This isn’t how what was supposed to happen?” he asks, stroking my hair and urging me to look at him with a finger under my chin. “This is about the man I saw you talking to, isn’t it?”

“Michael.” My stomach knots just saying his name. “That was Michael. I . . .” I draw a deep breath of courage and rush into my confession. “There are things I haven’t told you. I meant to. I wanted to. I knew I had to but I just . . . I just wanted to forget and . . .” I bury my hands in my face. I can’t look at him. I can’t. My body shakes and I will away the tears I can’t seem to escape.

Chris slides his hands to my head and forces my gaze back to his, his green eyes searching mine, and he sees too much, he sees what I don’t want him to, what I can’t hide from. He sees the demons I’m battling and how easily they have owned me.

“We all have things we want to forget. No one knows that better than me, but you can tell me anything. You have to know that by now.”

“You’re going to hate me, Chris.”

“I can’t hate you, baby.” His thumbs stroke away my tears and his eyes soften, warm. “I love you way too much for that.”

I feel as if a clamp has just slammed down around my heart. He loves me. Chris loves me, and while it’s exactly what I’ve burned to hear, I can’t accept it now. He doesn’t know me well enough to love me. I shake my head. “No. No, don’t say that until I know you mean it.”

“I already mean it.”

“I lied to you, Chris,” I blurt out. “I didn’t want you to know something about me so I just . . . I lied. I . . . told you I hadn’t had sex in five years but that wasn’t true.” His hands go to my knees, and I feel him withdrawing already, preparing for whatever I’m about to say. I press my fingers to my temples and they tremble. “Two years ago—no—that’s not true, either. Nineteen months and four days ago, I flew back to Vegas for a charity event honoring my mother. My father was a no-show and that hurt. It hurt so damn bad. Michael was there and I was alone and vulnerable and he acted like he cared, and I—”

“Wait,” Chris says, his voice sharp, biting. He rotates me to press me against the wall, his hands on my arms. “You know exactly how many days it is since you fucked him last?”

I flinch. “No. I mean yes. But it wasn’t like that, it was—”

“Do you still love him? Is that what this is about?”

“No—God, no! I love you, not him. I never loved Michael. He . . . he came to my room and I made the mistake of letting him in.” Memories rip through me, and I tilt my head down. I can barely breathe with another flashback of Michael touching me, his hand on my breast. “I let him in.” I force my gaze to Chris’s and whisper, “I let him in, Chris.”

Chris’s hands go to my face, his gaze searching mine. “Are you telling me he raped you?”

“I just . . . I did what he wanted.”

“Did you want him to touch you, Sara?”

“No,” I whisper, and the tears have faded. The cold seeps into my limbs, slithering down my spine and settling deep in my soul, settling into the space where it’s lived for two years.

“Did you tell him no?”

“Yes. Over and over I told him, but he didn’t listen.” My voice is calmer now, but strained. I still don’t sound like me but then, who the hell am I? I don’t know anymore. “And then, I don’t know what happened. I just . . . gave up.”

“Then he raped you.”

“I gave up, Chris. He told me to do things and I did them. I did them. I was pathetic and weak, and I gave up. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell you it had been two years. I just . . . If I don’t block it out, I unravel. We’d just met and I didn’t think you were . . . that we were . . .”

He strokes my cheek. “I know, baby.”

“You don’t know,” I say vehemently as I push to my feet.

Chris is there in an instant, his hand on the wall by my head, and he repeats what I’d said to him earlier in the evening. “I know all I need to know, Sara.”

I shake my head again. “No. You don’t see how bad it was. I woke up with that man in my bed and I have no one to blame but me. I let him put a ring back on my finger and order me back to Vegas.”

“But you didn’t go.”

“No.” My skin crawls just thinking about that morning, how Michael was touching me, acting like he owned me.

“Tell me,” he prods. “What happened?”

I drop my gaze to his chest and draw a breath, trying to calm down, but it seems to lodge in my throat, and I barely get it out.

Chris’s fingers slide under my chin. “What happened next, Sara?”

“I convinced him I was returning to California to pack. Then I waited until I landed in San Francisco, and I called him and threatened him with a restraining order.”

“And?”

“He laughed and told me I’d practically begged him to fuck me, and that’s what he’d tell the cops. I told him I’d go public and he said he’d paint me as the disinherited daughter looking for revenge.”

“And you said?”

“Bring it on. I didn’t care about my reputation, but he did his.”

“And he stayed away.”

“Until tonight.”

Chris frames my face with his hands and he kisses me, just lips to lips, but it’s not just a kiss. It is fire and ice, and passion and heat, and love. There is love in this kiss and I lean into him, my hands going to his wrist, and I don’t want this moment to end. His lips linger against mine, and just for these few moments there is nothing else but us, no Michael, no past, no future to worry over.

“Sara,” he whispers, stroking my hair and searching my face. “It’s a testament to how much that man fucked with your head that you’d think I’d hate you over this.”

“I hate me for that night, Chris. I hate how weak and pathetic I was. I hate how—”

He cuts me off with a kiss, then strokes his thumb over my lip. “You are the furthest thing from weak. You were very brave and smart about how you handled what happened. And he will never touch you again. You have my word.”

“Chris,” I whisper, my hand going to his wrist. “Chris, there’s more. Tonight—”

“Later. Tell me later. Right now, you stay here. I’ll come back and get you.”

He starts to move away and panic overcomes me. I grab his arm. “No. Stop. What are you doing?”

“I’m going to deal with Michael myself.”

“No!” I say quickly. “That’s what I have to tell you. I think he knows about the club, and he threatened to ruin you with the charity. He’ll do it. He’s that much of a monster.”

Chris cups my cheek. “If you think that prick is going to destroy me, you don’t know me as well as you will one day.” He leans in and kisses me again hard on the mouth. “He will not touch you again.” He’s gone before I can stop him.

I touch my lips where the taste of him still lingers, this man who swept into my life and awakened me again. What have I done by telling him about Michael now? I shove through the door and head for the exit. I have to stop Chris from doing something he’ll regret.