The Millionaire's Wish (13 page)

Rick stared after her for a minute before turning back to Paul. The wave of jealousy he felt was almost crippling, it was so swift and hot and blinding. How the hell could this balding lawyer have such a hold on her after so many years?

His hands clenched into fists. “How often have you two seen each other since high school?”

“Never,” Paul said in a low voice. “This is the first time I've seen Allison in ten years.”

He looked upset…almost sick to his stomach. Rick would have felt better if he seemed unaffected by the meeting. Judging by the expression on his fiancée's face, so would she.

The hot, nauseating rush of anger was making him
shake. It felt familiar, too, in a horrible way, like remembering a nightmare. He'd better get the hell out of here before he said or did something unforgivable.

“Excuse me,” he said abruptly. He left the dance floor and went to the restroom. It wasn't until he was staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror that he realized what was so familiar about this feeling.

He looked like his father.

Gripping the edge of the sink with his hands, he remembered the senseless, jealous rages, when his father had accused his mother of being with other men.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to calm down. A momentary flash of jealousy didn't mean he was turning into his father.

He just needed to forget about Paul and think about Allison.

His mind went back to the moment before they'd bumped into the other couple, the moment on the dance floor when Allison had looked up at him with such resolve in her eyes.

I'm ready.

If that meant what he thought it did, an army of balding lawyers wouldn't stop him from being with her.

He made his way back to their table, but Allison wasn't there. Carol and her husband had arrived, and Derek was there with his date, and Rick made small talk for as long as he could stand it. Then he excused himself and went to look for Allison.

 

Allison paced back and forth across the empty conference room she'd found near the lobby. Her arms were wrapped around her waist and her stomach was in knots.

Why should she let Paul affect her like this? He'd hurt her once, why should he get to do it again?

Because she'd never dealt with it. She'd done exactly what Rick had done with his pain—denied it, ignored it, refused to give it any place in her conscious mind.

She remembered that night in the hospital, after she'd sent her parents away to be with Megan. She'd lain awake with tears leaking out of her eyes, her injuries making it so painful to move she hadn't been able to wipe them away.

There were tears in her eyes now, she realized, just as Rick came through the doorway.

They stared at each other for a moment. Her heart was beating so painfully her chest ached.

“I'm sorry, I don't feel well,” she said as she brushed past him. “I'm going to take a cab home.”

“Allison, wait. At least let me—”

She almost ran across the lobby toward the front doors.

Rick was behind her, calling her name. She couldn't face him now, she just couldn't.

All she could think of was the night she'd broken up with Paul. He'd been drinking—one of the many reasons she'd ended their relationship. It was after the spring concert at Fisher Academy and the school was mostly deserted.

She'd tried to run, but he was faster and stronger than she was. She'd made it outside to the soccer field but he'd grabbed her by the equipment shed and dragged her inside.

The hotel door was held open by an employee, and she walked swiftly through. Relief swept through her
once she was outside, but then she realized she didn't have her purse—or money for a taxi.

She'd have to go back inside, but not right now. She couldn't face Rick, and she didn't want to deal with people.

To her left a tree-lined walkway led around the side of the hotel. Other than tiny white fairy lights strung on the trees, the path was in shadow. She hurried down it, walking and then running, until she found herself in a walled garden.

Dead end. She didn't see a way out, other than the way she'd come. Before she could get her bearings, Rick was there. “Allison!”

She retreated into the far corner of the garden, even though she knew there was no escape that way. Her hands clenched into fists as her thoughts, despite her almost violent efforts to keep them in the present, wrenched back to that night ten years ago.

He followed her. “Allison, are you all right?”

“I'm fine.” Her arms were wrapped around her middle, and her muscles felt tense to the point of rigidity.

“No, you're not.” Rick put a hand on her shoulder and she twisted away from him, backing up when there was nowhere to go. There was a brick wall behind her, and Rick in front of her.

And no place else to run.

 

Rick went still. It was dark where they were, but he could still make out the fear and panic on Allison's face. He took a step back.

“I'm fine. You didn't have to follow me. I was just looking for a way out.” She took a deep breath. “I want to go home.”

“Because of Paul?”

There was a long silence.

“Allison, I'm not going to stop you from leaving if that's what you want. I just wish you'd talk to me first, tell me what's going on. Then I'll drive you home myself if you want. Okay?”

They stood there in silence for a moment. He wanted to touch her, to comfort her, but he forced himself to keep his hands at his sides. He knew he couldn't crowd her right now.

“Okay,” Allison said finally.

He felt a quick rush of relief. He looked around, and saw a wrought iron bench several yards away. He went over to it, and Allison followed. He was careful to leave a foot of space between them when they sat.

“So can you tell me why seeing Paul upset you so much?”

The trees in the garden had been strung with tiny white lights, winking like stars among the leaves. They created a dim, ambient radiance, enough that he could see Allison's expression. Her face was tense and unhappy. When she spoke, her voice sounded hopeless.

“It's not important,” she said softly.

His jaw tightened. “It is important.
You're
important. And why shouldn't you be upset? You saw an old boyfriend you haven't seen in ten years. A guy you're still in love with.” He knew he sounded bitter, but he wasn't sorry he'd spoken the words out loud. Why not get it out in the open?

She shifted on the bench to face him. “Is that what you think? That I'm in love with Paul?”

His heart twisted. “It's true, isn't it?”

“No,” she said, her voice trembling. “God, no.”

She took a deep breath and let it out. “I
was
in love with him, once. Back in high school, when we found out Megan was sick.” She shook her head slowly. “The next two years were so hard. She got worse and worse…and we found out we were going to lose her…and I felt so dead inside, so lost, and I was trying to stay strong for her and for my parents…and sometimes I just wanted to run away. To forget about all the sadness and feel like a normal teenager for a while.

“You asked me at my parents' house, remember? You asked me if I had something in my life that wasn't about Megan or my family. Well, I did. I had a crush on Paul, and when he asked me out, I was so happy. I really was infatuated with him, in the beginning.

“But it wasn't real. I was using the relationship as an escape from everything else that was going on, and Paul… He hated that I spent so much time with Megan and my family. He said that he should be the most important thing in my life. He was used to getting everything he wanted,” she said bitterly. “His father was Senator Winthrop, and Paul always had everything handed to him on a silver platter. I guess he thought I should be, too.

“For a while I gave in to him, and spent less time with my family. Every hour I spent with him was an hour I could have spent with Megan. For years I hated myself for that, for how much time and emotion I'd wasted on someone who wasn't worth a damn.

“We'd been going out for almost a year when he started pressuring me to have sex. I thought maybe if we slept together it would make things better between us. I thought if I gave him this thing he wanted so much,
maybe he wouldn't resent the time I spent with Megan. But it made things worse.

“The first time just hurt. The second time I was tense, and Paul had been drinking and he wasn't exactly patient, so that hurt, too. It never got any better. I used to get sick to my stomach when he'd pick me up for dates.”

He reached for her hand, closing his fingers around hers, and she didn't pull away. “After a few months of that I…I finally broke up with him.” She paused. “I swore afterward I'd never put myself through anything like that again. I hated myself for having gone out with him at all, for having been so stupid. I swore I'd never waste another second of my life like that, when I could spend time with family, or friends, or doing work I loved.”

She paused again. “When I saw him tonight, it reminded me of how stupid I was.”

Rick shook his head. “How old were you then, seventeen? You weren't stupid, you were just a kid. You were a kid doing the best you could, and you did a better job with the load you had to carry than anyone had a right to expect—including you.”

He tightened his hand around hers. “Do you remember when we were at the hospital, and you told me I shouldn't judge myself for the way I reacted to grief? You're always giving people permission to be human, Allison—everyone but yourself.”

There was a long silence. They sat quietly, holding hands, until he heard her take a deep, shuddering breath.

“I've never talked about Paul,” she said. “Not to anyone.”

“You don't like talking about yourself. Not personal things.”

“I know. I don't mean to be closed off or anything, it's just…I think you're probably right. I don't always let myself be human. In my work I'm always telling people to open up, to be vulnerable, when I can't do it myself.”

He stroked her wrist with the pad of his thumb. “I'm glad you talked to me tonight.”

“So am I.” She hesitated. “But I'm sorry about your charity ball. Aren't you supposed to be in there hosting or emceeing, or something? As opposed to sitting out here in the dark with me?”

He smiled. “I turned the hosting duties for this event over to my VPs years ago. They enjoy it more than I do.”

“Still…I know I ruined your night.”

“I wouldn't say that.”

He turned her hand palm up. Then he ran his fingertips softly over her skin, from her wrist to the inside of her elbow. He heard her breath catch. When he did it again, he felt her shiver.

When he thought about how Paul had pressured her and rushed her and hurt her, he had to clamp down on his anger. That's why she froze up sometimes, why she'd bolted the first few times he'd touched her.

He didn't want her body carrying any memories of Paul. He wanted to give her new memories, memories of the way it should be between a man and a woman.

Except he wasn't sure of that himself, anymore. All the women he'd been with, all the physical pleasure he'd given and received—nothing had prepared him
for the way he felt when he was with Allison. This was uncharted territory for both of them.

Her skin was impossibly soft. He brushed his fingertips higher, up her arm to her shoulder. She didn't pull away, so he traced a path across her collarbone, every nerve in his body attuned to her. He felt every tremble, heard every hitch in her breathing.

Allison couldn't think about anything but this. Every cell of her body was focused on Rick, on his fingertips stroking softly along her skin. When he brushed over the inside of her elbow she quivered. When he drew his fingers across her collarbone she felt it in her nipples, already so hard she could feel them pushing against her dress.

“There's one thing I wanted to ask you,” he said.

She swallowed. “What is it?” she asked, her voice husky.

He still held her right hand in his. “You said something on the dance floor before we bumped into Paul. Something about being ready. Do you remember?”

Of course she did. It was the thing she'd been trying to say from the moment he'd picked her up at her apartment.

“I remember,” she said.

“What did you mean by that?”

Her confidence had been building all evening, until seeing Paul had shattered it completely. But now…

It wasn't that her confidence had returned. It was more that she wanted Rick so much it didn't matter anymore.

He was here, with her, in her personal heart of darkness. He'd listened to her and comforted her, but he'd done more than that. He'd taken darkness itself and
transformed it, made it a place of sweetness and desire instead of pain.

She hadn't told him everything. A part of her still clung to that last secret, that last hidden place in her heart. She wanted to tell him, but she knew she needed a little more time before she crossed that last difficult breach.

She knew it would be hard for Rick to hear. She knew it would remind him of the violence in his own childhood. But she knew that when she was ready, he would listen to her.

He was waiting for her to speak right now. But for this particular declaration, she wanted to use body language.

She pulled her hand from his so she could put both palms flat on his chest, inside his jacket and over his shirt. She felt him still at her touch, and then take a deep breath. But he didn't move, and she knew the next step was up to her.

She ran her hands slowly up his chest, feeling the hard muscles beneath the smooth shirt. She let her hands move to his face, cupping his cheeks and brushing a thumb across his lips. She felt him shudder, and she smiled as she threaded her fingers through his hair. She'd been wanting to do that for days, and she was amazed to find it was as soft as it looked.