Hero Book 3 - The Battle: Military Romance (12 page)

My stomach clenched at the words.

“I don't have anything else.” He didn't look at me as I stood up.

He knew where I was going.

Leighton's laugh stopped me half-way down the hall. Devlin's words echoed in my head. If Leighton was indeed trying to move on instead of getting back to the way things had been, then I was nothing more than a constant reminder of the worst times, the times she was trying to get past. The person she didn't want to be anymore.

I turned around and headed back to my place. After all the hours I'd spent in the car, I needed a shower. Maybe a nap since I knew Leighton was in good hands at the moment. Shandra scared the shit out of me. I had no doubt she'd be able to protect Leighton if necessary. Besides, the last thing I needed was to see Leighton go from being happy and comfortable to stiff and distant, all because I'd walked in the room. I knew she could do anything she put her mind to, but I didn't need to make it harder on her.

The shower was welcome, relaxing me enough to snag a couple hours of shut-eye, but hunger drove me from the guest house a few hours later. I planned to slip through the gardens and into the pantry, a quick in and out without being seen. Shandra had stocked one shelf with extra food supplies for me, but I'd kept forgetting to bring it to the guest house. I was going to grab a box of pasta and a frozen steak and head back to my place for dinner.

“Look out!” Leighton called from behind me,

I stopped just before I walked right into the path of her demolition team. With a start, I saw that the pool house was now missing an entire wall. When Devlin said she was remodeling, I'd imagined something like her previous projects. Lots of paint and throw pillows.

“It'll look a lot better once this wall is Roman columns instead,” Leighton said, her tone light.

I stepped around the debris and tried to keep going without looking at her. “I'm sure it will be great.”

Leighton tossed her head, but her curls were tied back. “I know it seems like a stupid, trivial thing to someone like you. Just a rich girl playing house.”

I instantly regretted how dismissive I must've sounded. What she was doing here was amazing. She had a natural talent for design and interior decoration. I'd seen that already. But she also had a deft touch with contractors, workers, and artists. None of the people working here were treating her with anything less than respect. Standing next to her project, she was a natural-born leader, but even as I watched, she curled her arms around her waist and slumped.

“I get it,” she said quietly. “You think I'm just spending all this money for fun, keeping myself from getting bored while I'm here.”

“Why are you here?” I asked, curious. “Don't you want to be out shopping or going to lunch or dancing or something?”

Her head jerked up, eyes flashing. “That's all I'm good at, right? I would've thought you'd be enjoying the break from baby-sitting.”

I followed her as she stalked away. She was using the old tiki bar as a desk, and on top of a pile of tile samples and swatches was a piece of paper. I picked it up before Leighton could snatch it away from me, and was surprised to see an elegant sketch.

“I didn't know you could draw like this,” I said, stunned.

“Guess you don't know me as well as you think.”

The sketch was done in light colored pencil and showed the renovated pool house. The front wall was four large Roman columns with large sheer curtains draped between. Wide sofas with a faded nautical blue and white stripe faced each other on either side of a large gilded coffee table. The back half was divided into two dressing rooms, the doorways curving like large seashells.

“You have real talent,” I said, ignoring her comment.

“It looks like a third grader drew it.” She snatched the sketch away from me and turned to go to the main house.

Hell no.

I caught her waist and spun her around. The moment her eyes flew up to meet mine, I forgot what I planned to say. My mind jumped to kissing her hand after the premiere, to holding her in bed, our bodies curled tightly together, to her smiling up at me the first time we met.

I let go as if I'd been burned. “You need to learn to take a compliment, Leighton. I don't say things I don't mean.”

“Sure you don't.” She spun around and was gone before I could stop her.

I didn't try to go after her. What good would it do? I couldn't tell her how I really felt. What I could do was leave her alone.

Avoiding anyone else, I retrieved my food supplies and headed back to my place. I needed to stop thinking about Leighton and getting back to work seemed like a good way to do that. So, after eating, I studied the coffee shop receipt more carefully. The time stamp was for early morning, and while it was possible the person I wanted to speak to didn't have a set schedule, it made more sense to wait.

The negative side to a couple hours off was that my brain kept wanting to veer back to Leighton. So I worked out. I caught up on emails. I flipped through the channels on the flat screen television, but time was moving too slowly, and I couldn't even come close to sleeping. By the time it was midnight, I was still wide awake and restless.

Leighton and her team had ceased work before dinner. With nothing else to do, I wandered through the garden to see their progress. I stood by the pool house, letting myself see what Leighton saw. The night was quiet and, for the first time in a while, I felt hopeful of what the future might hold.

And then the night was shattered by Leighton's screams.

Chapter 12

Leighton

I
was wound too tight to sleep, and it wasn't just because things were going so well with the pool house. Haze's compliment kept repeating itself in my head. He thought I had talent. Now I had to show him that I was going to use that talent for more than decorating the homes of the rich and famous. It'd be easy to use my friends, and even my grandfather's colleagues, to start an interior design business, but I wanted my work to help people who needed it.

I just needed to figure out how to do it. So I did what anyone in my generation would've done. I went to the internet to research.

Since I was already thinking pools because of my current project, I started there. I'd been thinking about maybe a children's pool, but then I stumbled across an article that stopped me. A veterans' rehabilitation center connected to Cedar-Sinai was trying to raise funds for a physical therapy pool.

My heart twisted at the thought of all those injured men and women who'd given so much for their country. Men like my brother who would fight tooth and nail to be able to continue. Men like Haze who had lost that part of their life forever.

This was it. This was what I had to do. For Ian. For Haze. For all of those soldiers and officers who were someone else's brother, sister. Husband, wife. Father. Mother. These were the people I needed to do this for.

I wrote down all the contact numbers I could find, and then got ready for bed even though I doubted I'd be able to sleep. My heart raced as I thought of all the possibilities, my mind going even faster. Finally, after a couple hours of just lying there, I decided to take one of the homeopathic sleeping pills Doc Bellamy had suggested after my ordeal.

I snuggled deeper into my bed and, after a few minutes, felt the first floating effects of the sleeping pill. The deeper the sleeping pill pulled me under, the harder it was to hang on to my hopeful plans, but that was okay. I needed to rest. Sleep overtook me, and with it, a dream that swept me right back to the nightclub.

The bartender watched me across the VIP Lounge. I was used to creepy stares and unwanted attention, but something about him made me shiver. The same feeling swept over me on the stairs. Paris was gone, so was my bodyguard, and all I wanted to do was get to the car where I knew I'd be safe. It'd been foolish of me to go out without Haze.

The door opened, and everything went black.

When I woke, the darkness was still there, coiled around me, and I couldn't breathe. There was no relief from the black void, and no way to escape the electronically altered voice that haunted me.

“He'll never really want you. No one ever really wants you. They think you're a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kinda girl. And I'm going to make sure what they see is a wreck.”

I tried to push it away. I tried to crawl out from the fear suffocating me, but I couldn't escape.

“Why me?” I finally asked. I didn't expect an answer.

But I got one.

“Because you think you're better than me. You think just because people hand you whatever you want that you deserve it.”

“I'm going to deserve it,” I insisted. “I'm going to do good.”

“You're going to do what you always do. You'll try on charity like a pretty dress, and then throw it away when it's out of fashion,” the voice sneered. “You can't be good. You're spoiled rotten. Spoiled clean through.”

“I can change,” I said, unshed tears burning my eyes.

“That's what I'm here for,” the voice said. “I'm going to change you, make sure you come out of this dark room a different girl.”

I clawed against the darkness and the world shifted. Now I was in the concrete basement room, dim, dirty sunlight seeping through the narrow window. I had no blindfold on, but it didn't matter. I would hurt just the same.

The man with the ski mask came inside and slammed the door behind him. I barely saw him move before he back-handed me and the room spun. It didn't stop spinning as he hit me again, and again.

After what felt like forever, the man dropped to the floor and untied my legs from the chair. Hot breath panted against my skin, and my throat filled with bile.

He wasn't out of breath.

He was...excited.

“Just let me go,” I begged. “I can pay whatever you want.”

He hauled me to my feet and slammed me against the brick wall. He pressed against me, whispering in my ear, “I told you this job came with certain benefits. Benefits I'm sure you won’t provide willingly.”

I struggled, but he laughed as he spun me around so my face cracked against the wall. I felt his erection grow harder against my ass, and I gagged. I was frozen, too frightened to move, afraid of how much he'd like it. He shoved his boot between my feet, and pushed my legs farther apart. I tried to scream, but he ground my face into the bricks.

The door swung open, and for one moment, hope flooded me. I was rescued. Haze had come for me.

But it wasn't Haze.

I knew it wasn't him.

He wasn't coming for me.

No one was coming for me.

The man in the ski mask shoved me to the ground. I fell hard, the metallic tang of blood filling my mouth.

“I see I'm just in time,” the figure in the doorway said in its garbled voice.

I couldn't see the person because the light from the hallway was too bright, but something about them was familiar.

“I was just getting started,” the man in the ski mask said.

“Good,” the voice said. “Because I want to watch.”

As the figure started toward me, the man in the ski mask reached for me again. This time, I knew there'd be no respite, no one to stop him from what he was about to do to me...

“Leighton! It's me, sweetheart.”

Haze's voice cut through the nightmare.

“You're alright,” he continued. “I've got you.”

My eyes flew open, and for one terrible second, I thought his voice had been a dream and that the nightmare was real. Then it hit me, the sound of him. The feel of his arms around me. His scent. Everything about him told me I was safe.

Even as my body relaxed against his, I realized how awkwardly we were sitting. He'd placed me on the bed next to him, his arms around my shoulders. I'd apparently tried to get as close as possible, and was clinging to his side. Instead of turning his torso to hug me, however, he sat squarely forward, preventing me from tucking myself comfortably under his arm.

“Why are you here?” I asked softly, half-afraid of his answer.

“It's my job, remember?” His voice was quiet, but there was nothing soft about it.

I pulled back, wrapping my arms around my chest. So much for changing the way he saw me. “It's not your job to save me from nightmares.”

“You were screaming, Leighton. I had to make sure you were okay.” He looked over at me, his expression impossible to read in the dim light. “Is there anything you want to talk about?”

There were several things I wanted to talk to him about, but I couldn't. Maybe not ever, but certainly not now. I needed to have my emotions under better control before I talked about anything having to do with him and me.

“I already told you everything,” I said, keeping my words clipped. “The boss didn't know how to hit, so the man in the ski mask did it.” I tried not to shiver. “He enjoyed it...a lot. I remembered how excited it made him.”

Haze's fists clenched, a mixture of anger and disgust crossing his face.

“Nothing else happened,” I said quickly. I knew that no matter how Haze saw me, he didn't want me hurt. “The boss made him leave. I think, I think he jerked off in the hall or something.” I gagged at the mental image my words produced.