Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Declan hadn’t meant to overhear Fawn’s side of her telephone conversation.
But after undressing down to his boxers and lying between the cool sheets on his bed, then tossing and turning for several minutes, he realized he really wanted a bottle of the cold water stored in the refrigerator in the kitchen.
Fawn’s bedroom door hadn’t quite been closed when he stepped out into the hallway. Which was how he came to hear, and couldn’t seem to stop himself from listening to, her talking to someone she called River.
When Declan had asked earlier, Fawn had told him that staying at his apartment for the next couple of weeks was “of no inconvenience to anyone who may be in my life.” But she hadn’t outright said she didn’t have a live-in boyfriend.
Or a husband, come to that. Only that he wouldn’t be put out about Fawn’s current living arrangement with Declan.
From what Declan had overheard, it sounded very much to him as if the man Fawn apparently shared an apartment with was quite happy to sit back and allow her to be the breadwinner in the relationship.
Which was absolutely none of Declan’s business, of course.
Except he liked Fawn. More than liked her! He certainly didn’t like the idea of her being taken advantage of by anyone. He?—
“How long have you been standing there?”
Declan turned to face Fawn as she now stood in the doorway of the bedroom across the hall from his. She looked very young with her hair loose down her back and wearing a blue T-shirt and fitted blue jeans. The evidence of recent tears lingered on the pallor of her cheeks.
The latter made Declan’s chest ache. “Long enough to hear you talking on your cell phone to someone named River.” He had no intention of pretending otherwise.
Why should he? This was his apartment. “Who sounds like a bit of a loser, if you ask me, when he expects you to be the one to earn the money that is obviously providing for his current lifestyle. Whatever that is.”
She gasped. “How dare you?” Her brow was lowered in an accusing frown. “You know absolutely nothing about my life. Or River’s current lifestyle.”
“I heard enough to know that financially, it seems like a pretty one-sided relationship?—”
“You know nothing of the sort.” New tears glistened in her amber eyes.
Declan didn’t know if they were from anger or because his words had upset her.
“Damn it, this isn’t going to work.” Fawn turned on her heel to go back into the bedroom, only to appear in the doorway again seconds later, packed bag in hand.
“I’ll let Mr. Wynter know that he’ll need to send someone else to babysit you. ”
Declan, having reached out to grasp her arm as she would have stormed off down the hallway, instantly hissed with the pain it caused to have his stitches and muscles pulled as she continued walking.
But not enough for him to release her. Or to react to what he knew to be deliberate provocation on her part with the babysitting remark.
“I’m sorry, okay?” He frowned. “I didn’t mean to upset you.
Certainly not enough for you to walk out.
” His mouth twisted. “Especially when it seems this River guy is seriously in need of the extra money you’ll be earning by staying here with me for the next two weeks. ”
Fawn wrenched her arm out of his grasp, probably bruising herself in the process.
Her cheeks were flushed, leaving Declan in no doubt that her current emotion was anger.
“You can put your money in the same place you wanted to stick the hospital board’s policy about patients being required to leave the building in a wheelchair.
In fact, why don’t you just stick the whole wheelchair up there! ” She stormed toward the elevator.
“Fawn!” Declan called after her. “Please!”
For several seconds it looked as if she would just keep walking away from him. Before her steps faltered. Then came to a halt. She drew in several deep breaths before turning.
Her face was pale again rather than flushed with anger, those gorgeous amber eyes shadowed. “Have I asked about or made any comment on your life, private or otherwise?”
“No. But if this man is coercing you in any way?—”
“He isn’t,” she snapped. “And even if he was, it’s absolutely none of your business.
” Her eyes flashed her displeasure at this verbal intrusion into her life.
“I was employed to take care of you for two weeks, after which I very much doubt the two of us will ever have reason to see or speak to each other again. Unless you get shot and end up in hospital again, of course,” she derided.
His mouth twisted. “I’ll try not to do that.”
“Like the last time, it might not be your choice.”
His eyes widened. “Are you threatening me?”
She snorted. “Now who’s being ridiculous? I am merely commenting on what appears to be the day-to-day danger of your own chosen lifestyle— What?” she prompted suspiciously when she saw Declan’s frown.
He grimaced. “Nothing.”
“It was definitely something.”
“That might amount to being nothing,” Declan insisted. “For now, I suggest that we go back to before this conversation took place?—”
“Before you insulted me and someone close to me?”
“Where I’m on my way to the kitchen to get a bottle of water,” Declan continued, unwilling to get into that argument again, “and you’re staying here as my nurse for the next two weeks.”
She studied him for several long seconds before releasing a defeated sigh when his expression remained deliberately unreadable. “But if that other situation changes, you will tell me?”
He nodded. “And if you need any help, with anything, you’ll tell me? Please,” he encouraged.
She gave an abrupt nod. “If it comes to that, okay. In the meantime, while I’m staying here, you might want to think about not leaving your bedroom in only your underwear.”
Declan looked down to his black boxers, his chest and legs completely bare. He was basically wearing the equivalent of what someone would wear beside a pool or on a beach.
Except men lounging beside a pool or on a beach didn’t usually have a hard-on tenting the front of their swimwear!
He looked back at Fawn, easily noting the blush in her cheeks as indication she was well aware of his arousal. “Is me being dressed in my boxers bothering you?” Declan turned the awkwardness of the situation back on her.
The color deepened in her cheeks. “Of course not.”
“Then why mention it?” he taunted.
Why had she mentioned it? Fawn wondered. Especially when it had only resulted in drawing attention to the muscular and almost naked body standing in front of her.
Fawn’s mouth had gone dry at the sight of Declan and the unmistakably long and thick bulge of his aroused cock clearly defined inside his boxers.
Did that obvious arousal mean Declan was attracted to her?
She had believed that time it happened at the hospital had just been a one-off reaction. And possibly not even to her. But what if it wasn’t?
Declan was a lot older than her own age of twenty-four. He also had an easy self-assurance, whereas she got by with plastering a smile on her face and hoping no one would notice that smile didn’t reach her eyes.
Declan was gorgeous, whereas Fawn knew she was only passably pretty. He was charming when he wanted to be, whereas she, again, got by with that cheery smile and the hope that the heartache behind it was never seen.
Lastly, and obviously, from the luxury of this apartment, Declan was wealthier than a mere bodyguard ever could be.
That last anomaly also made Declan an enigma within what Fawn had already considered to be a mystery. A situation that put him even further out of her reach.
But the truth was, she still needed this job.
“Truce?” she prompted huskily.
Declan gave an abrupt nod. “Truce.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Next time you need something, call me and I’ll get it for you. It’s what I’m here for, remember?” she dismissed.
He grimaced. “I’m used to taking care of myself.”
“I gathered that.” That independence was a deep-seated part of his confident nature. “But until you’re completely healed, you need to let other people help you with certain things. Think you can you do that?” she teased.
“I can try,” he said begrudgingly.
Fawn laughed, knowing this answer was the best she was going to get from a man who obviously always took charge and whose very nature, along with his career choice, compelled him to ensure the safety of others above his own.
That caring-for-others trait was such an obvious part of Declan’s nature, it made Fawn wish she knew him well enough to confide some of her problems to him.
Life hadn’t been easy since Fawn’s parents died three years ago, but at least she had already finished her nursing course at university and had been able to go out and get a job to pay for an apartment and the bills that came along with it.
An apartment that was nothing like the understated luxury of Declan’s, but it was still a roof over their heads.
River’s situation had been better three years ago too. But those intervening years had taken their toll on him and seen a definite deterioration in his condition, to the degree that he was no longer able to hold down a full-time job.
The two of them managed, but only just.
What a temptation it would be, if only for a few hours, to lay down those responsibilities and let someone take care of her for a change.
But self-pity was an indulgence Fawn rarely allowed herself. She wasn’t about to do so now either. Especially with an astute and intelligent man like Declan Quinn.
She straightened her shoulders. “Go back to bed, and I’ll bring you the bottle of water.”
“Fine,” Declan bit out from between what looked like clenched teeth.
“But if you do feel the need to leave the apartment at any time, for whatever reason, you’re going to need your thumbprint added to the security system and a number code you can put in before the elevator will work for you, up or down. ”