Smokin' & Spinnin' (35 page)

“No!” he exclaims. “Don’t you fucking dare! You kept me from this that morning, damn it, and I’m not gonna let you do it again! I have had to relive that moment every single day for the past six weeks. I have to get this off my chest!” He’s angry now.

“OK, OK…” I hold up my hands in defeat to let him continue.

“You have no fucking clue, Whitney. I mean, I didn’t even realize what had happened until I had gotten out of the car. I swear I never saw you! Colton was shouting your name. I couldn’t even process what had happened. Then…there you were.” He motions down to the floor as if we are standing back in the middle of the garage lane. “All I could see was your hair on the ground, sticking out from under Colton’s car!” He pauses and runs his hands through his own hair in exasperation. “I lost it. I went out of my fucking mind! I had to get you out from under his car! I…I thought you were dead. I have never ever been that scared in my
life
. And I have been through some bad shit on the track. Do you understand me?” Ryan takes a ragged breath.

He is exhausted. I don’t say anything. I let him continue, but I can’t look at him, so I look down at my hands, tears pooling in my eyes. It has been such a long day, yet still he goes on.

“Everyone was shouting, and no one would let me move you. Then, I smelled the gas. It was pouring out of Colton’s car. I guess I busted the fuel tank. I panicked, thinking the car would catch on fire with you under it. Several of the crew guys helped me lift and roll the car back over you. As soon as I saw your face, I-I just grabbed you in my arms and held you until the paramedics arrived.”

Wow. This is too intense
. I have never had anyone give me a play-by-play of what happened that day. I have really vague memories of the accident, thankfully. I do remember seeing Ryan’s face, but I thought I had dreamed it.

I keep my head down. It’s too painful to look at him. I understand now. While I felt and have had to deal with the physical and emotional pain, he has had to relive daily the repercussions of his actions. I feel a huge sob welling up in my throat.

“Whitney! Look at me!” Ryan snaps.

His sharp tone makes me shudder. I raise my head, and hot tears cascade down my cheeks, and a terrifying sob emits from my throat.

Ryan is beside me in a second. “Please, please don’t cry,” he pleads. “I don’t want to upset you with all this, but I just needed you to know how I felt, is all. I wanted to die. Every night I am haunted not only by the accident, but you forcing me to leave you at the hospital. It’s not only then, but now too. When I saw you for the first time today, it all came roaring back to me again. I just can’t believe that this happened to you and that my anger and arrogance caused it. These bruises, this horrible scratch on your beautiful face, and your leg with that damn cast, I can’t stand it. I can’t stand myself!” He stands up with disgust.

It’s a surprise. His words. His apology, especially! Ryan Carter does not apologize. I learned that early on. I don’t know what to say, so I
continue to cry softly. Ryan drops down to the floor in front of me. He positions himself in between my legs so that his face is peering up into mine. He softly caresses my cheek in the way that he does. It takes my breath away.

Ryan’s touch still has the power to burn me. My breath hitches, and my tears momentarily stop.

“Whitney…I…” He falters. “I can’t explain these feelings that I have for you. I don’t understand them myself. All I know is that I need you so much. I lov—”

I immediately stop him. “No! Don’t you fucking dare!” I jump up off the sofa and walk away to create some distance in between us. I rest my tired body against the wall. My leg is throbbing. With my back to him, I question, “How can you say that to me after you’ve slept with her last night?” It’s too much to take. I know I love him. I’ve known it for some time. But I can’t bear to hear him say the words after all that has happened.

“I didn’t sleep with her, Whitney!” Ryan admits, still seated on floor.

I turn back to him sharply. I give him my best “don’t think for one second that I believe you, Ryan Fucking Carter” look. He recoils. Mission accomplished.

“Whitney,” he pleads, and I roll my red-rimmed eyes at him. “She came to my bus last night to talk to me about Colton. She confessed that he was pursuing her while she was with me. And that she continued the relationship after she quit as my public relations manager.”

I cock my head to one side. “So, all that stuff that was delivered to my hotel room in Sonoma was from Colton?” I ask, but already know that it is true. My gut instincts are always right on.

Ryan nods his head. “She tried to tell me that she broke if off with him because of me. Then, she made a move on me, and I told her that she needed to leave. I went to the back and got into bed. I thought she left. But when I woke up this morning, there she was, asleep on my couch. I got dressed as quickly as I could and got out of there so I didn’t have to deal with her. I didn’t even think about you coming to the bus this morning,” he says all in one breath.

I feel nauseous thinking about Colton and how I completely misjudged him—and subsequently how I got the wrong impression about Ryan, too.

I hear Ryan stand up and feel him as he approaches me. He slowly turns my body to face his. He intimately brushes my hair off my shoulder in that way he does, then runs his hand softly around my neck and back up into my hair. He angles my head back so that I am forced to look directly into his stunning blue eyes.

“I’m sorry for that, too,” he whispers softly. His eyes search mine. Then he gently says, “I love you.”

Tears fill my eyes again. I try to look down, but he is holding my head firmly in place. I nod my head in acceptance of his statement, then manage to say, “I…I have something that I need to tell you that might change your mind.” I grab Ryan’s hand and pull it down from my head, then step back as he eyes me warily.

“What is it? Or who is it, should I say?” Ryan asks, confused but scared. “What do you mean?” I snap.

“I know he called after the accident,” Ryan says, almost in a whisper. “Are you back with him?”

“What?” I shake my head, then remember that the bastard from Georgia called after my accident. How did Ryan know about that, though? “No, Brooke dealt with him. That is over. You know that! Now, sit down,” I command through gritted teeth as I point him back to the small sofa. I take a deep breath. “There is a reason why I wanted you…no, needed you to leave the hospital that morning.”

Ryan looks at me quizzically, then cocks his head to the side as if he doesn’t understand.

I continue with my confession. “Colton.”

The pure mention of his name sends Ryan’s gorgeous face into a fit of rage that emits several shades of red across his cheeks. “What about him?” he demands.

This is gonna be harder than I thought. I should have just kept my damned mouth shut
.

I take another breath to steal some courage. “Colton…umm…” Ryan angrily injects, “Damn it, Whitney! Just say it, for God’s sake!”

“OK…OK!” I take a deep breath to force down the lump in my throat. “Colton was pursuing me as well. I guess he was playing Annalise and I together.”

Ryan rolls his eyes at me. “Yes, I know he was.” I am surprised that he knew. I stop in shock, but Ryan begs me to continue. “Go on.”

“After the first race that I attended as your PR manager, Colton and I met for drinks, but it wasn’t anything. I mean…Brooke was there, so it wasn’t like a date or anything. I think I really did it just to piss you off initially. Not that you would have known.”

Ryan raises an eyebrow at me. “I knew. Even before you told me in Kentucky.”

I stand, shocked again. “How?” I mouth quietly.

“Whitney, I know a lot of things. Stop changing the subject,” Ryan demands.

“After a couple rounds of drinks, he asked me to walk him out. I did. We talked in his car for a few minutes. He made it clear to me that he wanted a relationship with me, quite clear. But I told him that I was not about to jeopardize my new job by getting involved with him.” Ryan smiles proudly at me. I hold up my hand. “But…”

Ryan’s face falls. “But what?”

I look down, not sure I can tell him the rest because I know he is going to go ballistic.

“Whitney, so help me God. Spit it out!” I take a deep breath, but before I can speak, Ryan asks me quietly, “Were you seeing him too?”

His statement takes the breath out of my lungs. I am shocked he would ask me that. “No!” I almost scream at him.

“Then what?” Ryan loses it.

“I’m…I…I’m not sure,” I stutter. Ryan’s anger makes it hard for me to concentrate, but I manage to continue, “I guess Colton was watching us closely at Loudon, maybe even Daytona. I don’t know. Maybe he saw an exchange between us or something. Again…I don’t know, but he somehow knew that we had become involved.”

“So what?” Ryan barks.

Then suddenly I can see the light bulb go off in his head as I say the words to him. “Colton wrecked you intentionally because of me, because I got involved with you and not him.”

Whew! There, I said it
. I cover my eyes with my hands, waiting for Ryan’s rage to blow off the roof.

“That son of a bitch!” Ryan exclaims as he jumps off the couch. He begins to pace the floor. “I am glad that I broke his damn jaw now. Shit!”

I collapse on his vacant seat on the couch, exhausted from my own declaration.
What?

“You broke Colton’s jaw? How did I miss that?”

Ryan rolls his eyes at me. “See? You see?” he shouts, angry as hell, ignoring my question. “I have been trying for weeks to work this all out in my head. Why? Why would he purposefully sabotage me on the track? We have never really gotten along, but we have always been teammates. This is why I have never liked that bastard!” Ryan shakes his head, still radiating rage. I peer up at him, scared.

I try to fill in the gaps for Ryan. “I ran over to the garage to stop you from making a scene, but Colton stopped in the middle of the lane. He jumped out of his car, and we began to argue. That is why I was in the middle of the garage lane. He was angry with me because I was with you and not him. This all could have been avoided had it not been for me. My choices were the catalyst for all of this chaos. It really is entirely my fault,” I say firmly.

Ryan turns back to face me. “Whitney! Are you kidding me? This is not your fault. Colton made a choice to do what he did. It is none of his
damn business what you do. You obviously didn’t care enough about him to get involved with him in the first place.”

I shake my head and look away.

“Look at me, Whitney!” Ryan demands as he drops to the floor in front of me again. I look back into his eyes. “This is not your fault! Do you understand me?”

More tears flow down my cheeks, carrying weeks and weeks’ worth of guilt and anxiety for what I have caused to two people’s careers. I try to stifle a sob. “If I had just said no to you or made you leave my apartment that night, none of this would have ever happened!”

Ryan takes me in his arms as I cry fresh tears. “Whitney, you know what we had…how we feel about each other. You couldn’t deny that if you tried.” I nod because I know it’s true.

I finally manage to say, “In the beginning, I thought you were doing a fine job of ruining your own career, but I never in a million years dreamed it would have been me that helped you to accomplish that feat. I just felt like the best thing was to take myself out of the equation altogether, which is why I made you leave.”

Ryan nods, finally putting all the pieces together. “Whitney, why?” he questions me desperately. “Why couldn’t you have told me this in the hospital?” He pauses, conflicted. “I could have been there for you. I would have helped you recover.” Then he shakes his head and looks down in defeat.

He is silent for what feels like forever, then looks at me with those beautiful blue eyes. “The hardest thing…” Ryan trails off as he chokes up. “Goddamn it!” he exclaims, pumping his fist to fight back the sob
in his throat. “The hardest thing I have ever had to do was leave you in that hospital.”

I gasp.

He continues, “I swear I will never leave you again!” Ryan leans up and grabs me in an all-consuming embrace with tears on his own face.
Oh no!

My handsome, arrogant bastard in tears. It breaks what’s left of my heart. In this moment, I am lost to him. No matter how Ryan has hurt me, emotionally, mentally or physically, wild horses couldn’t drag me away from him.

Ryan pulls out of our embrace and looks at me with intense anticipation. He searches my face. “You haven’t forgotten, have you?”

I am not sure what he means, and I raise my eyebrow in question.

“Us…” he whispers. “What it was like between us?”

I shake my head at him, afraid to speak. “I tried…to forget.”

Ryan smiles warily as he tightens his grip around my body and whispers against my ear, “I have never felt this way in my life. I swear I will never let you go again!”

Watching him, I realize that this is our moment, our moment to hold on to what we had, hold on to us. I can’t deny what we had was good—complicated, but amazing. I don’t want to fight him anymore, and I no longer give a damn who knows that I have fallen under his spell.

Instead of making my own proclamation, I launch myself at him, wrapping my body around his. Ryan responds by engulfing me into a
desperate embrace. I run my hands around his neck and up into his hair. He leans in and softly presses his lips to mine. The kiss ignites that feeling between us, and the softness leads to desperation as the floodgates to our emotions burst.

There is a delicious ache deep within my body that I know only Ryan can alleviate. Our bodies are gloriously intertwined by lips, legs, and arms.

Suddenly, Ryan pulls back from our embrace. He says breathlessly, “Say it!”

I am dumbfounded. “Say what?”

He looks at me warily. “I want to hear you say the words…tell me that you love me,” he says desperately.

I look deeply into his beautiful blue eyes. “I love you, Ryan.”

My profession renews our passion, and we are entangled again. I am lost. I am so overcome with relief, desire, and love that I am nauseous. I feel like I’m going to pass out from the intensity.