Chapter Fifteen
I gripped the side of the tub while a hero in a dress shirt stood next to me and washed the bottom half of my hair. Warm water, large, competent hands, his stoic presence—for once in my life, I felt still.
Until he started talking.
“I was deployed to Afghanistan, Helmand province. Our assignment was to clear a road leading into one of the districts because the local government was boxed in and losing territories to the Taliban. The insurgents had gotten a stronghold, so we were there to clear them out. Second day out in our convoy, a man approached the side of the road dragging his wife.”
My heart sped up as dread filled my stomach.
Setting the handheld showerhead down, he grabbed shampoo and squirted some on his hand. “I was in the second vehicle. The first vehicle was forced to stop when the husband shoved his wife in front of it.” He lathered the bottom half of my hair, carefully keeping my wound and the top half of my hair dry. “I was in the front passenger seat, and I had a perfect sight line. I could’ve taken the man out, but he looked panicked and his wife had blood on her clothing around her swollen midsection. They looked desperate.” He paused, and I felt his stomach under my hands rise and fall with three breaths before he continued.
“We weren’t supposed to get out of the vehicles, but I wanted her to get off the road before she got shot. We weren’t authorized to offer medical assistance, and I could’ve faced a court martial for trying to assist, but she looked pregnant and like she was bleeding. So I opened my door and had one leg out when a concealed bomb that was strapped to her stomach exploded.”
Oh my God . “Sawyer, I’m so sorry.”
“I took shrapnel in my thigh. Thankfully the front vehicle had armor plating to protect the Marines inside.” He rinsed my hair. “I know what staples feel like.” He replaced the handheld faucet and helped me back upright before grabbing another towel. “They aren’t comfortable.” He gently dried my hair.
“Thank you for telling me.” I glanced at him.
He tipped his chin, but he didn’t look at me.
“I didn’t mean that kind of uncomfortable,” I confessed.
He tossed the towel on the marble floor. “I know.”
“Was anyone else injured?”
His expression turned to stone as he looked me right in the eye. “Besides her husband after he used her as a human bomb?”
I didn’t have to ask what happened to the man. I nodded.
“Not that day.” He stood. “I’ll get you something to sleep in.” He walked out of the bathroom and returned a moment later with a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, handing them to me. “Change and I’ll show you where you can sleep.” He walked out again, but this time he closed the door behind him.
Releasing a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding on to, I stood and used the towel around me to get my hair a little drier.
Then I made the mistake of looking in the mirror.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
Makeup ran down my face, my hair was an absolute mess, and traces of blood were smeared on my shoulder.
I turned the water on in the sink and bent to wash my face, but when my head went horizontal, a wave of nausea and vertigo hit me so bad, I thought I’d lose it. Grasping the edge of the counter with one hand, I breathed short and shallow through my nose as I frantically wet my face with the other. When I stood back upright, the vertigo eased somewhat, and I took deeper breaths until the nausea passed.
Okay, I could do this.
I wasn’t the first person to get a few staples. I didn’t need to look like a horror queen reimagined. Picking up the washcloth he’d already soiled, I rinsed it out and put soap on it. Then I washed my face and my shoulder. Rinsing the washcloth, I was wiping one more time when a knock sounded on the door.
“Need anything?”
I slipped his T-shirt over my head. “No, I’m good. Be right out.” I stepped into his sweatpants while trying not to bend over again, and rolled them a few times at the waist. Not feeling brave enough to attempt to brush or comb my hair yet, I resigned myself to crappy-looking hair and opened the bathroom door.
My heart caught in my throat.
He’d changed into gym shorts and a T-shirt. I didn’t think Sawyer Savatier could get any more handsome, but I was wrong. So very wrong.
“You, ah, look nice.” Awkwardly stumbling over my words, I blatantly stared at every one of his ridiculously formed muscles, from his giant biceps to his mouthwatering thighs.
Being the gentleman he was, he didn’t comment on my pathetic compliment. “I have a guest room all set up for you.”
“Great.” Fantastic.
He stared at me a beat. “What’s wrong?”
I hadn’t known there was a male on the planet who could reduce me to feeling like a needy, dependent child at the same time as making me acutely aware of every curve on my body. But there was, and he was blond and tall and smelled unbelievably good, and he was so out of my league it wasn’t even funny.
“Nothing.” I exhaled. “I’m just tired.”
Studying me a moment longer, he finally nodded once and turned. “This way.”
He led me back down the hall and opened a door to a smaller, but equally impressive bedroom facing the ocean.
Reaching for the prescription from the doctor that was already sitting on the nightstand, he opened the bottle, shook out a pill and handed it to me, along with a bottle of water. “Here.”
I didn’t even question his dominant, bossy routine anymore. I took the pill and drank the water, and suddenly, I was so tired, I couldn’t stand another second. “Thanks,” I muttered, crawling onto the bed.
He watched me arrange the pillows with a frown on his face that was so severe, I rolled over and gave him my back. When I was under the covers and settled on my side, he turned out the light.
“If you need anything, I’m down the hall.”
“I know where your bedroom is. I was just there, remember?” It was a shitty thing to say, but I was feeling extra ornery after the look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Genevieve—”
I cut him off. “Goodnight. Thank you for everything.”
Silence.
I counted down from ten, telling myself if I got to one and he was still standing there, I’d apologize.
I got to four.
“Goodnight.” His deep voice, smooth and refined, brushed over me like a winter chill.
A moment later the door closed.
I lay there.
And lay there.
But sleep didn’t come.
As I curled up in the softest bed I’d ever been in, in a bedroom that was nicer than the nicest hotel I’d ever stayed at, every bad part of the night started replaying on a loop in my head, and I couldn’t shut it off.
Throwing the thick comforter off, I padded down the hall. Everything was so quiet, so still, yet there was an energy here I could only equate to him, a man who moved in his own orbit. And now I was moving in that same orbit, walking past the kitchen and stopping in front of the wall of windows.
I looked out at the beginning shades of the sunrise.
Staring at the ocean, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen a sunrise… Or the last time a man had washed my hair, or given me his clothes to sleep in, or handed me medicine and a bottle of water.
I couldn’t remember because none of it had ever happened.
The first rays of a promise of a new day broke past the ocean’s border and a kaleidoscope of orange, yellow, red and pink burst from the horizon.
I didn’t realize I’d dropped to the floor and pulled my legs up, hugging them to my chest.
I didn’t know I was falling apart as the sky exploded with beauty.
Tears dripped down my cheeks as two large, bare feet appeared a second before a billionaire bodyguard sat down next to me.
“It’s beautiful,” I whisper-cried.
His arms resting on his knees, his head turned toward me, he stared into my eyes like he knew every fear and regret that was eating me alive.
I wanted to lean into him. I wanted to run away. I wanted his arms around me, and I wanted to forget I’d ever laid eyes on him.
But when he spoke…
“You’re beautiful.”
I wanted my heart back.