Chapter 15
I don’t know what made me say that. Tell her, this beautiful, intelligent, sunshine of a woman that I’m attracted to her.
Maybe it was her pleading, terrified brown eyes.
Her story about her spine or her father dying.
The way she’s somehow managed to dig into my soul and see its softer, finer parts.
Or perhaps it’s the way I somehow feel as though I know her when I don’t.
She reminds me of Bunny.
There. I said it.
She does.
I’ve tried for more than a week to deny it, but maybe it was Ellis’s text on the same day I met her or something else, but yeah. It’s there.
I don’t have pictures of Bunny. I don’t have her real name.
I have vague memories of a devastated fifteen-year-old girl with short purple hair and wide, tear-soaked eyes that I would have sworn were blue and not brown.
Or maybe I’m remembering them that way because Forest had blue eyes, which doesn’t necessarily make sense since they were stepsiblings and not actual siblings.
Then I have the later image of her but that never came with a face.
So yeah, I don’t remember Bunny as well as I’d like.
But the way she talks and the way she feels…
They’re not the same person. I know this. Just similar.
Which is why I’m reacting this way. All week, it’s why I’ve reacted this way. As a fucking mess. I can’t look at her. I can’t speak to her. She is a pariah to me and yet, I cannot tolerate her being more than a few inches from me.
I crave her smiles. Her small laugh. The intelligent light in her eyes. The snark in her sharp words. The sexual fire that simmers barely beneath the surface. It’s sick. It’s depraved. It’s the most fun I’ve had with a woman in forever.
I have the excuse of my job and needing her to learn it to perfection, so I’ve abused that.
Those eyes blink rapidly at me just as we pull up to the corner in front of Boston Children’s Hospital. “Ready?”
“W-what?” she sputters.
“We’re here.”
“You said all that to distract me? God, you’re such an asshole.”
She thinks I told her I’m attracted to her to distract her? If only it were that simple.
I don’t argue with her though. We’re better off if she assumes that’s what I was up to. I didn’t tell her that to instigate a conversation. I told her that to end one. To end a lot of things between us.
I need her close and yet I can’t stand it and that’s just how I roll. I want to fuck her, and I can’t fuck her. I want to claim her, and she’ll never be mine.
I want to care for and protect her the way I used to with Bunny, but she’s not fucking Bunny, and I need to separate the two of them in my head instead of tying them in as one.
Anything I think about or feel toward Bunny is fucked.
Bunny was a teenager—one I never gave a thought to beyond our friendship—and then one day she wasn’t, and I haven’t been right since.
Bianca’s hand grips my thigh, her eyes flinging left, staring out at the large hospital. “I can’t do it.” It’s a breathy plea.
I’d argue this, but she’s not the first child who had a condition that required multiple painful hospital visits who never wanted to step back within the walls again.
“Bianca Barlow, you ran out on a cheating piece of shit. Moved to a new city in a new state and took on a job you know nothing about. You’re fierce and independent and doing it. Now get your fucking ass out of the car before I have to drag you.”
The door opens right on cue, Axl, already too smitten with her for my liking. Icy snow flies in, covering her hands that now grip the edge of the seat.
“I hate you.”
“Noted.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Then you’re fired.”
“I am not.”
“You are if you can’t meet my job requirements.”
“My pants are going to stay zipped to you.”
“Lucky for me, you tend to lean toward skirts and dresses.”
A laugh and thank Christ.
“Move. Out. Now.” I give her a small nudge in the back. “We’re going in. I already told you, I’m not playing that game with you, so you don’t have to worry about that. Attraction is curable. Just like hospital phobias.”
“Kaplan…”
“I prefer Typhon or Lord Asshole. You’re freezing me and ruining my family’s car with all the snow and sleet that’s blowing in. Out!”
I don’t spank her bottom, despite the temptation, but my hand that hits her upper thigh is damn close. She emits a squeal and then hops out of the car. Her fucking hellaciously sexy heels stagger a step and why couldn’t my hot new assistant dress like Mother Teresa?
Climbing out, I adjust my suit that feels like shackles on my flesh and walk without glancing back at her toward the entrance. She scrambles after me, her steps clumsy and slippery as she tries to keep up.
“In your sleep when you’re contentedly dreaming of the death of small animals, remember that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he wasn’t a woman.”
I clip out a short laugh, reaching down and taking her hand.
“Your misquote of The Usual Suspects isn’t helping my attraction.
” I peer down at her with an annoyed glare, but her eyes are fixed on the large revolving door of the hospital.
“You’re far from the devil with that sweet, wholesome innocence you radiate. ”
She scoffs, gripping my hand in a viselike hold. “I am not innocent or wholesome. I am fierce and will take you by the balls.”
“Promise?”
That grip tightens. Slides up a notch, clutching my forearm and drawing it closer to her quivering body. “Never. Lucky for both of us, you’re not my type.”
Like hell I’m not her type. I saw just how much I am her type in the car and in my office all week and in my apartment when she fell asleep after dinner with me.
“Lucky,” I deadpan, slipping out of her hold and reaching behind her back so I can draw her into my side as we reach the doors, practically dragging her along while garnering curious stares from people passing by.
“I know you’re still trying to distract me with this attraction BS, so I won’t focus on where we are or what we’re doing and I’ll go inside, but I can’t do it. Please. I can’t!” She grasps my jacket, yanking as hard as she can, attempting to stop me before I reach the doors.
“You’re going to ruin your heels.”
“Argh! No! Stop! I don’t feel well. Everything is spinning.”
“Move! What are you doing?”
“AHHHhhhhh…”
Her voice dies in her throat as her eyes roll back in her head and her face drains of color.
Her body lists and then falls. Somehow, I catch her before she eats shit on the concrete.
Wrapping her boneless arms around my neck, I drag her slack body the rest of the way to my chest, my arms around her lower back.
“Bianca!”
Fuck. She fainted.
I get us through the revolving door, hauling her body that is total deadweight. People are going to think I killed her.
It’s noisy as hell in the lobby, but she’s out cold.
I scoop up her lifeless form into my chest as I search left and right.
The lobby is filled with children and parents, and I don’t want to take her to the ED.
That will freak her out more. To the right is a long corridor and that’s where I go, all the way down past the bathrooms and the janitorial space beyond.
“Bianca?” I whisper in her ear, but she doesn’t so much as stir, hell.
Her head hangs limply off my forearm, her hair along with it.
What have I done to her? Holding her body closer, I adjust her in my arms, gripping her tighter.
My lips plant in her hair, her fragrance sweet and enticing and I feel like a monster.
I had no idea her panic went this far. Stupid. So goddamn stupid and arrogant.
The room back here is an open space loaded with broken hospital beds and equipment and I set her down on one of the beds that appears to be in the best shape.
She’s like a wet noodle, all uncoordinated limbs and flying hair.
The permanent rose tinge that typically stains her cheeks is gone, her complexion ashen.
My hand cups her cool face in my hand. “Bianca?”
Silence.
I check her pulse. It’s slow, but steady, same with her breathing. “This is a lousy way to get out of working with me.”
No response. Her pupils seem reactive, but it’s hard to be sure without a light and with how they’re rolled back.
“Typically, when I tell women I want them they throw themselves at me instead of telling me I’m lying about it while trying to run for their lives and then passing out. Is this your way of swooning for me?”
I rub her sternum with my knuckles and still nothing and fuck, that always works. Fear takes hold and I cling to her.
“I told you I’m attracted to you, and you thought I only said that to distract you. Do you have any idea the last time I uttered those words or anything similar to a woman? Never, Bianca. Never. I meant them, you crazy girl. Please wake up. You’re scaring the shit out of me.”
I grip my hair. Dammit! I pushed her too far.
Slipping out my phone, I dial up Luca, who is in the hospital today. He answers on the second ring and relief floods my veins. “I need you to get to the janitor’s entrance off the main lobby and bring a pen light and smelling salts.”
“Smelling salts? Are you kidding? What is this, nineteen-fifty? Do a sternal rub.”
“I did! It didn’t work. She’s still out.”
“Who?”
“My assistant. Bianca.”
“Killed her already? Are you ensuring she’s actually dead or are you attempting to revive her?”
“Luca!”
“On my way.”
The phone slips from my hand and my head falls to her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into her, my face turning so it’s buried in her neck. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you that hard.”
I breathe into her for a few minutes and when I hear someone approaching, I force myself back, away from her, sitting on the side of the gurney and adjusting her dress so it’s all the way down around her knees.
“What the hell is this?”