Chapter Twelve
Acceptance was easier said than done. Roxana stripped off her dirty clothes and piled them into a heap of broken dreams. The stains would wash out of her shorts.
After a load of laundry, she wouldn’t be able to tell which shirt and shorts she’d worn when everything she’d known about the future disappeared.
Roxana looked away and caught her naked reflection in the mirror.
Stripped down, safe and alone, she didn’t know how she had been so oblivious or why the men she trusted thought she was weak.
They understood she was a worrier, but worrying wasn’t a weakness.
Neither was her desire for boring stability.
Wanting a predictable life wasn’t a flaw.
Yet, she’d been punished for it with their lies.
A sob caught in her throat. Though tears never helped. Only time could heal a wounded soul. Time didn’t rebuild trust, though. She didn’t know what did. Where did that leave her and Jason? Nowhere.
Anguish welled in her eyes, and she couldn’t face her reflection anymore.
Roxana opened the glass shower door, adjusted the water, and eased onto the marble bench opposite the cascading shower.
Steam curled and fogged the enclosure. She straightened her legs until the water splashed over her lavender toenail polish.
This was what she needed: to do absolutely nothing. Roxana listened to the splash of the water on the marble floor and let the steam roll over her muscles. Her eyes closed. The tension in her face unknotted. Her neck and shoulder unclenched as if every muscular fiber had gone numb.
“Food’s here,” Jason called, miles away.
Roxana considered responding, but exhaustion only let her wonder how long she’d been in the bathroom. Her chin dropped, and she leaned against the cool marble corner. She would leave her steamy oasis after a nap.
A loud knock startled her as if she’d fallen asleep. Her eyelashes fluttered and shut until a cool gust rolled over her skin.
Fully clothed, Jason crouched next to her legs. “Gotta wake up, babe.”
“In a minute.” Lethargic, her temple and cheek pressed to the wall. Sleep called louder than the shower and food. “I feel like I’m drunk.”
“Adrenaline crash on top of trauma will do that to you.” His hand rested on her damp knee. The shower pummeled his shirt, slicking its short sleeves against his biceps. “Come on, I’ll put you to bed.”
“My hair.” Her nose wrinkled. “I’m disgusting.”
“Just a little dirt,” he said.
A little dirt would ruin her night in the waiting soft white sheets. “Nope.”
Fingers rested on her wrist as if he were taking her pulse. “Did you eat anything from the bag?”
“My caramel crisp.” Her heart fluttered that he’d packed her favorite snack. “Probably should have had something more.” But she’d fallen asleep in a bush of yellow lady slippers instead. Given the choice again, sleep would still trump the calorie-protein bars. “I don’t feel well.”
Jason left the shower without the decency to shut the door.
At least he’d left her alone—for the moment.
“Babe.”
“What?”
“Open your eyes.”
She scowled and squinted.
“Both of your eyes.”
Roxana forced both open and stared at his wet jeans. “Don’t you think you’ve been bossy—”
“Eyes on the pen, babe. Keep ’em there and don’t move your face.”
Wow, he was aggravating. “No.” When he didn’t repeat himself, Roxana hazarded a glance at him. The man wasn’t going to say it again, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to pick this fight.
After a minute of her following his stupid pen up, down, all around, Jason tossed it onto the bench as her eyes sank shut.
He snapped by her ear. “Babe.”
If she’d had the strength, she would’ve snapped back. Revenge was best served cold.
“You can’t go to sleep now.” Jason reached for a washcloth stacked on a built-in shelf above her head and crouched next to her leg again. “Not until you eat and can hold a conversation.”
“We’ll see about that,” she muttered.
Jason palmed the back of her calf and lifted her leg to rest on his thigh.
A washcloth draped her shin. Her eyes widened as he left a bubbly trail of soap and erased the layer of dirt that clung to her skin.
At her bruised, scraped kneecap, he inspected and cleaned the day-old wounds, washed her thighs, and repeated the process on her other leg.
She didn’t know what to say, but no longer had trouble keeping her eyes open. He washed the nightmare away, and when she knew it was time to stand and wash her hair, he set the washcloth down and unhooked the handheld shower attachment.
Without a word, she turned away from him and bent her knees on top of the bench.
Her eyes closed as the water worked into her hair.
Even when he reattached the shower head, he didn’t ask her to reopen them.
Jason massaged shampoo into her scalp and worked the debris, tangles, and tension away.
He washed out her hair and let it drip down her back when he turned off the hot water.
Roxana reopened her eyes. He stepped from the steamy glass enclosure and returned with a towel as if he hadn’t noticed that he was as wet as she was.
“Thank you.”
His chin lifted. “Can you stand up?”
“Maybe.” She took his hand and then the towel.
“You’d said something about hitting your head.
“Yeah. Still hurts.” She didn’t trust herself to bend over and dry her legs, and after wrapping the towel around her chest, she wrung out her hair between their bare feet.
“Probably have a concussion.”
Her lips rounded. “Oh.”
“You’ll be okay.” He led her out of the shower but stopped at the bathroom door and rested his hands on her shoulders. “You need to take it easy for a couple days.” His thumbs grazed over her skin. “Don’t push yourself. Okay?”
She nodded, affected by the soft concern in his words coupled with the warmth of his hands. “Thanks for the orange chews and the caramel crisp.”
He almost smiled and squeezed her shoulders. “If you’re up to it, fresh clothes are on the bed, and food’s on the desk.”
The buttery scent of room service floated in the air. “I am.”
“Good.” Jason let go and stepped back. A lonesome chill brushed over her damp skin. Though he was still close enough to touch, abrupt loneliness lodged in her heart. She turned, confused and uncertain, and drifted toward the bed.
Roxana found a short nightgown and a long, matching robe. Fuzzy slippers waited for her feet, and when she slid them on, she understood what it would be like to walk in the clouds.
She wriggled her toes and turned to Jason. He waited by the bathroom, patient and protective, and she pressed her hand against her swelling heart. “Thank you.”
He lifted his chin. “If you’re okay for a few minutes, I’ll take another shower.”
Roxana needed a second to make the connection to his wet clothing, but she laughed.
Finally, he smiled. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
She wiggled her toes again. “I’ll be fine.”
“Eat, okay?”
Growing hungrier by the minute, she agreed. “Twist my arm.”
He chuckled and shut the bathroom door. For a moment, Roxana had no words and knew a concussion wasn’t the cause.
She changed into the nightgown and matching robe and floated into the main sitting area like a princess. Three covered plates waited on the desk next to several glasses of juice and chilled bottles of water. She lifted the plate covers and found breakfast, lunch, and dinner. “Oh my God…”
Crepes with Nutella and bananas, a Kentucky hot brown, and a strip steak with steamed vegetables. She didn’t know where to begin, but sat down to her feast.
Jason managed a record-setting shower and popped his head out of the bedroom before she’d tried each dish. Rivulets of water streaked his chiseled chest and caught in the towel wrapped around his narrow waist. Worry flared in his eyes. “Doing okay?”
She shoved the fork into her mouth to keep from saying something other than “yes, fine,” and he took that as a good sign. He left her alone to finish while he dressed and brushed his teeth.
Finally, Roxana rested her fork on the side of a mostly eaten plate of crepes.
Jason walked out of the bedroom in a pair of green plaid flannel pajama pants and a tight white undershirt that hugged his chest and shoulders, then perched on the edge of the couch.
Lines furrowed across his forehead, and he leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his knees and his fingers steepled together. His gaze locked on the floor.
For a minute, Roxana had almost forgotten why she was stuffing herself in a lavish hotel room while wearing fancy pajamas. The trepidation in his posture was all the reminder she needed of what had happened. “Sorry about that little spell in the shower.”
He lifted his head. “You don’t have to be sorry.”
Roxana was unsure if she’d shocked her body with too much syrup or if their next conversation made her nervous. “Just sort of happened to me,” she rambled. “One second, I was thinking about washing my clothes, the next, I was like a drunk frat boy.”
His grin hitched. “You weren’t that bad.”
Her laughter faltered, and her stomach churned. “Maybe I should go to sleep.”
“Give it a few more minutes, then yeah.”
She dropped her gaze to the plates she’d picked apart. “If you’re hungry, some of this is salvageable.” She moved her fork. “Maybe not the crepes.”
“Nah.” Jason rubbed a hand over his face and leaned into the couch. “I’m fine.”
A distance as wide as the Ohio River seemed to span between them.
She wasn’t sure what they would talk about tonight.
Maybe they could wait for the next day to bring up his double life, Spiker and Vanka, or that his boss had tried to kill him.
Roxana stilled, unsure why the enormity of a murderous-boss problem was just hitting her.
There was so much to process. She ducked her chin to her chest and stared at her engagement ring, unable to believe that he’d proposed yesterday.
“I don’t want to lose you, Roxana.”
He’d startled her, but the raw texture of his voice made her heart hammer. A barbed-wire knot lodged in her throat.