Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter
Forty-Five
Beulah
My eyes flew open. The darkness from outside was still casting the moonlight through my window and across my room. Reaching for my phone, I saw it was only two in the morning. I’d only been asleep for three hours. Sitting up, I looked around to see if something had woken me. I’d been dreaming, but there had been a sound in my dream. One that made me pause and wake up.
I was on the top floor of a very secure building. It was incredibly unlikely that someone would break in. Even if an intruder had broken into the building, Mack and Marty would have heard and intercepted them on the ground floor. I felt safe here, but I was almost positive a sound had woken me.
Footsteps in the hallway caused me to freeze but only momentarily. I listened to be sure I wasn’t imagining it before jumping out of bed. I hurried to the door and swung it open without consideration to who it might be or if I should be locking myself inside and calling for help. I’d always been the one to go charging headfirst at danger to protect Heidi. It was instinct to go face whatever was out there.
Stepping into the dark hallway I swung my gaze left then right to find Stone standing there. Only a few feet away. I was relieved. He was here. He hadn’t stayed gone. I’d known it was him. I hadn’t been fully alert yet but my instincts had known.
“You’re home,” I said as our eyes met.
“Yes,” his tone was a deep raspy sound. As if he’d been sleeping. Which he couldn’t have since he’d just arrived. Or at least I thought he had.
“I didn’t know you went out of town until today.” I blurted out. I probably shouldn’t have brought that up tonight. It could have waited.
“I needed to think,” he said, still watching me. He was searching for something in my eyes, my expression—I wasn’t sure. I felt almost naked from his intense perusal. Exposed. As if he could read my thoughts.
“Did you?” I asked him. My voice was a little too breathless. My heart was beating rapidly in my chest. Was this from the sight of him? Would I start reacting to him this way now that I had come to terms that I was more than attracted to this man?
“Did you?” He threw my words back at me.
“Did I what?” I was confused by the path the conversation had taken.
He took a step closer to me. “Did you think?”
Did I think? About leaving? Getting my own place? About the stupidity of too much wine? How when he looked at me like he was now I found it hard to breathe? Yes. I thought about all that.. “Did I think about what?”
“Me.”
My breathing stopped completely from not only the one word he had just uttered but the tone in his voice when he said it. The darkness didn’t mask the uncertainty in his eyes. Even though I could see he was tense perhaps regretting it already. I’d never seen fear in Stone’s eyes before. Not until this moment. But it was there.
“Yes.” Saying anything else would have been a lie.
He swallowed hard, inhaled deeply through his nose, and seemed to be internally battling his next move. My hands trembled, and I gripped them together in front of me. Neither of us spoke, and the silence seemed to grow thick with things neither of us were saying.
Each breath we took seemed louder and more dramatic than it actually was. I knew the thoughts running through our heads—the facts, lies, and truths—made this all harder and simpler at once.
Even though my heart raced, my body tingled, and my hands seemed incapable of being still, I knew that the one truth wouldn’t let this moment be anything more than it was. Stone loved Jasper as if they were brothers. If, by some chance, that gleam in his eyes was what my heart wanted it to be, it wouldn’t matter because attraction did not outweigh love.
That reminder helped me calm down. To get caught up in this moment was a mistake. Giving into my feelings for Stone was asking for pain and heartbreak. I would never get the chance to know the man that I had misjudged, misunderstood, and disliked so fiercely.
Stepping back into the bedroom, I reached for the door to close it. I wanted this to end…whatever it was.
“He came here before he left,” Stone said, stopping me.
I didn’t need him to clarify who he was referring to. “Yes.”
“And he still left,” he asked as if he needed me to confirm this. Wouldn’t he already have spoken to Jasper? Why ask me?
I nodded again. A brief nod. No need for more.
Stone closed the space between us until I had to tilt my head back to see his face, his eyes. I searched his expression, attempting to understand him. My heart was once again beating as if his nearness shot jolts of electricity through it. Why did Stone have to cause such a reaction in me?
“A man that deserved you. That understood what you are, what he had, and what he had lost. He wouldn’t leave even if it was impossible to hold you again. He’d want to protect you even if he couldn’t have you. If his having you meant pain to others. Even if his motherfucking chest felt like it might explode from the sight of you. He wouldn’t leave because he wouldn’t be able to. Your security, protection, and happiness would be all he could focus on. The only way he could survive.”
When he said it that way, in those brutally blunt words, it was even more eye opening than the realization I had already had about Jasper. He hadn’t truly loved me either. It had all been so fast and for a moment felt right. We had been two souls looking for someone, something to hold onto.
I wanted to believe real love meant never leaving, never running. That it meant you could never be too far away. It was the strongest most powerful emotion and when one felt it then the other person would become the most important one in your life.
“We hadn’t known each other that long,” I said in our defense. I couldn’t blame Jasper. We had both made mistakes.
His mouth almost formed a scowl. “If it’s real, does that matter? The amount of time you’ve known each other?”
I wasn’t sure. Or I hadn’t been. I’d thought I had loved Jasper without knowing him. I believed now that true love came from really knowing someone. How could you love what you didn’t know?
“Love takes time, yes. You need to earn respect, find out what the other enjoys, laugh together. If love is forever, then it should take time. More time than Jasper and I had.”
Stone’s fingers brushed my cheek as he ran one fingertip along my jawline. I shivered and fought the urge to lean into him. Standing here with him made me question if this was real or was it a dream.
“You were wearing that damn uniform Portia gave you. Your hair was pulled up in a ponytail. The elastic band holding it up was black and slightly frayed. I wondered if it was the only one you had and if it was near breaking. There was a slight stain on your collar, but it was pin-sized. You wore no makeup except for lip gloss—it was pale pink. But that was all you needed,” he paused and looked down at my bare feet. “You had a slight limp. Nothing too noticeable, but it was there. I wondered if it was permanent. It didn’t take away from your beauty. Nothing could,” he lifted his gaze back to mine.
“You worked for a monster like Portia. I thought you wanted the job because you knew about Jasper Van Allan. His weakness for beautiful things and his wealth. Just for a moment, I watched you closely, quietly, and finally saw your eyes. There was stress, pain, anxiety, but most of all, fear. That moment. When our eyes met, I saw you. Not the outward appearance, but your soul that you shared so clearly in your eyes if someone took the time to look,” he paused and he inhaled deeply as his neck flexed. There was a war battling in his eyes. Something he was fighting.
“I knew I would love you. There was sadness inside you that I wanted to heal and fear I wanted to erase. Pain I wanted to ease.” He held my chin. Not harshly, but with pressure to tilt my head back further as his dark eyes melded with mine. “I began to investigate, to search, to protect you. Understand that, Beulah. I did it all to protect…you.”