Chapter 17
Brady
What the fuck just happened?
That was the question filling my head as I watched Lily run for the elevators, like a goddamn intruder was chasing her.
It couldn’t have been something I’d said—I’d said nothing inappropriate.
Could it have been the way I was touching her?
But she had leaned into my hand, her eyes closed, a contentment coming through her expression, as if she were on the verge of falling asleep.
And then, out of nowhere, everything changed.
It happened as quickly as the flip of a switch. Even the way she looked at me was different.
The more time I spent with her, the more questions I had, and the more confusing things got. She had just started to open up, I was finally getting some truth out of her, and once that asshole had knocked into her, nothing was the same after.
Fuck.
As I reached for my scotch, needing a full glass, which I knew I didn’t have, I saw her bag resting right next to my tumbler. There were several containers of food inside. When she’d darted away, she’d forgotten it.
I couldn’t toss it. She was probably starving and too stubborn to come back and get it.
Damn it.
I waved the bartender over. “I need my bill.”
“Sure thing.” He tapped the computer screen in front of him several times and handed me a paper slip.
I quickly filled out each line and dropped the pen, carrying the bag to the front desk, waiting until it was my turn.
“I need the room number for Lily—” My voice cut off as I was speaking to the clerk when I realized I didn’t know Lily’s last name.
I still hadn’t asked her for it.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Why wasn’t that one of the first inquiries I’d made during our flight today? I needed to think of a way around this. How could I get the room number for a woman whose full name I didn’t know?
“The corporate account of Cole and Spade Hotels reserved four rooms for tonight,” I said. “Mine, two others under male names, and the fourth is under Lily. I need the number to her room.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” She shook her head. “That’s information I can’t disclose to you.”
“But my company is the one who reserved the rooms. Why can’t I have access to room numbers that I’m paying for?”
I knew the answer. Because any employee at Cole and Spade Hotels would say the identical thing the lady was voicing to me now.
I just didn’t want to hear it.
I took out my wallet, removed the thousand pounds I had inside, and slapped the money on the counter. “How about you reconsider?”
She glanced at the money, her stare slowly rising to me.
When she didn’t move or say a word, I continued, “Mr. MacGregor—your boss, the owner of this hotel—is selling the hotel to me in about two months. Once the sale goes through, Cole and Spade Hotels is who you’re going to be working for, and I’m going to be your boss.” My patience was dying with each word. “I understand why you can’t give me that info. I’m asking you to look past those rules.” I glanced at my watch. “Don’t make me call Mr. MacGregor and ask him to get it for me since you won’t.”
I watched the information pass across her face. It didn’t take more than a few moments before her hands were on the keyboard.
“You’re Brady Spade?”
“Yes,” I all but fucking growled.
The keyboard clicked again several more times.
“I see the four rooms.” She paused. “Yours, the two that are under the other gentlemen.” She glanced at me. “And the one under Lily’s name.”
“And her room number is?”
She sighed. “Three twenty-nine.”
My hand lifted from the stack. “Spend it on something good.”
“No, no, I can’t accept that?—”
“But you will.”
I left the money on the counter and headed for the elevators, pressing the Up button until one of the doors opened. I hit the Three as soon as I got inside, slamming the button to close the doors so no one else would join me. Once the door slid open on the third floor, I was out, hurrying down the hallway toward her room, knocking the second I arrived.
It felt like twenty fucking minutes had gone by until I finally heard, “Brady, what are y-you doing here?”
“I have your food.” I held it up so she could see the bag through the peephole.
“Just l-leave it outside. I’ll get it-t in a little while.”
Was she crying? Was that why her tone sounded so off? Why was there a shakiness to her words?
“Open the door, Lily.”
“I c-can’t. I’ll see you t-tomorrow?—”
“Like hell you can’t.” I held the doorframe and leaned closer to the wood. “I’m not going anywhere until you show me your face. I’ll stay here all night if I have to.”
“My f-face?”
“I need to put my eyes on you. Once that happens, I’ll leave. You have my word.”
“Why are you d-doing this?”
“Because I fucking care about you. That’s why.” My forehead pressed against the door, my fingers gripping the unforgiving lip of the molding.
What was she thinking? What was she going through? Why was she keeping it from me?
“Whatever you’re hiding from, whatever you’re running from, whatever the case is, you don’t have to feel that way with me.”
There was silence.
“Let me in.”
More quietness ticked from the other side of the door until, finally, there was the sound of the chain moving and the lock turning, the door gradually opening just enough that her face appeared through the narrow crack.
“Baby,” was what left my mouth before I could stop it.
But, goddamn it, I had zero regrets as it did.
Especially because I was taking in her flushed cheeks and puffy, red-rimmed eyes. Whatever makeup was left was smudged, the tears bringing the black flecks down her face.
I opened the arm that wasn’t holding her food. “Come here.”
A hand went over her mouth, her eyes filling even faster. “If I do that, I’ll lose it.”
“I think it’s too late for that.”
I reached through the doorway, my fingers wrapping around her waist. I wanted nothing more than to take the fucking door off the hinges and pull her against me. But her emotion was preventing me from doing anything that aggressive. I certainly didn’t want to upset her more than she already was.
“I want to come in, Lily.” When she didn’t move, I added, “I just want to hold you.”
As her hand left her mouth, her lips quivered, and she backed away, releasing the door so it began to shut. As if that was my cue, I grabbed the edge, pushing it open enough that I could step in. I set the food on the floor and wrapped my arms around her. As I pulled her against me, she felt weightless, as though she were the size of a doll and I was a giant, and I squeezed my body around her.
My lips went to the top of her head, and I breathed her in. “I’ve got you.”
The clothes she had been wearing earlier were off. The only thing covering her now was a towel, but even if she was cold, I didn’t believe that was the reason she was shaking.
“I’m not going to let you go,” I whispered into her skull.
She became more emotional, her body quivering even harder.
So, I held the side of her head, pressing her other cheek onto my chest, and placed my thumb under her eye. I didn’t want her to have tears, I certainly didn’t want them to fall, but if they did, I wanted to be there to catch them.
Fuck, what would cause her to cry this hard?
I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to break this moment and make her talk about something that was obviously tearing her up.
But, shit, I wanted her to open up to me. I wanted to do more than just hold her.
I wanted to take whatever was eating at her and make it stop.
She gripped my shirt, clenching it into her fist, and when I thought she was going to use the tension to push me away, she did the opposite.
She held on tighter.
“Baby …” I exhaled again, but this time, she could feel the word as it came out of me.
I didn’t let go.
I didn’t move my mouth from her head.
I didn’t stop circling her back and rubbing her neck and whispering, “I’ve got you,” so she could hear it repeated over and over and know I wasn’t going anywhere.
I didn’t know how long we stood there or how long my fucking heart was tortured by the sound and wetness of her crying, but eventually, she lifted her head and looked up at me.
“Brady …”
“Tell me how to fix this.”
A statement I’d never spoken to another woman. But I hoped she would trust me enough to take me up on it.
While she wiped her cheeks and the sides of her mouth, it appeared like she was attempting to catch her breath. “I’m going to go to the bathroom and clean myself up a little bit. I need a minute … okay?”
“Okay.”
She was gone, locked behind the door of the bathroom, the faucet loud enough that I could hear it from the other side.
Jesus Christ … what was all that crying about?
I leaned against the wall behind me and dragged both hands across the top of my hair, recounting the last few minutes.
I needed answers.
I needed to know what the fuck was hurting her because that pain was deep. An ache so buried within her that I could feel the trembles inside my own body.
Even though there was a door between us, it didn’t feel right to stand here. She deserved more privacy than that. So, I grabbed the food off the floor and carried it into the room, setting the bag on the dresser. Right beside it was her phone, the screen lighting up and vibrating as a call was coming through.
A call from someone named David.
As it continued to ring, I was unable to look away, not even when the call went to voice mail.
Once that screen cleared, the notifications showed.
And what it revealed was that this wasn’t her first missed call.
It was her fourth.
All from David.
Who the fuck was David? A sibling? A friend? Her ex?
Someone she was currently talking to?
But she’d told me there hadn’t been anyone else in the last year.
There had only been me.
The bathroom door clicked, and I turned around just as she was walking into the bedroom. Her cheeks were still red, and so were her eyes, but the emotion had died off, and the makeup was gone, and so was the towel. She’d changed into a pair of cotton shorts and an oversize University of Georgia T-shirt—an outfit that was adorable.
But she looked exhausted, like she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Are you all right?”
She took a seat on the bed, near the pillows, resting her back against the headboard as she tucked her legs up to her chest and circled her arms around them. “I’m sorry you saw that.”
I held the edge of the dresser with both hands. “Don’t be.”
“But I shouldn’t have broken down like that. Not in front of you anyway.”
“Why? Is there a rule that you can’t cry in front of me?”
“Brady”—her head dropped as she placed her forehead against her knees—“when I told you I was a mess, I wasn’t kidding. I hope you believe me now.”
“I never doubted you. I just didn’t care. Because being a mess doesn’t scare me.”
I wasn’t sure why. If a woman had ever said that to me in the past, I would have run for the fucking hills.
But Lily wasn’t just any woman.
The way her pain was eating at her, the need to have her was doing the same thing to me.
There was no one in this world I would beg for.
That I would get on my fucking knees for.
But her.
When she lifted her head, her long blonde hair was in her face, and she pushed it away. “You’re telling me that nothing you just witnessed—not me leaving you at the bar without any explanation or crying in your arms—bothers you? That you’re not even the slightest bit alarmed that I’m a living, hardly breathing disaster?”
“No.” I nodded toward her. “Stop looking for reasons that don’t exist in my head.”
She folded in even smaller and rocked back and forth. “What I’m doing is showing you the real me.”
“And I’m still here.” I walked to the bed and sat on her side, crossing my arm over her bare feet. “And now, I’m even closer.”
Her eyes began to plead with mine. “But you shouldn’t be in here.”
My brows lifted. “Is there a rule about that too?” I moved her hair behind her ear when it fell back into her face and kept my hand on her cheek once I was done.
“You have no idea what you’re getting involved in.” Her voice had an eerie quietness to it.
“Lily”—I chuckled—“I’ve told you I’m not afraid of anything. Or anyone. I don’t need a warning. I can handle myself and whatever or whoever is thrown at me.”
She looked at me as if she was trying to see through me. “Make me understand. Help me make sense of all this because none of it is clicking in my head. I can’t reconcile any of it, Brady. I’ve given you nothing. I’ve?—”
“You’ve given me your body.”
“But that’s it.” Her legs dropped, stretching out over the bed, her arms wrapping around her stomach. “I’ve given you nothing else besides every verbal alert I can think of and words of caution to run as far as you can. Yet you still want me. Why?”
That was a good fucking question.
I set my arm on her thighs, giving her some of my body weight as I said the first and only thing that came to me. “The moment I no longer felt like myself, I knew it was because of you. When you walked down the aisle toward my pod, you changed me without even trying. Without even knowing. And when I woke in Edinburgh and you were no longer in my bed, it was reconfirmed. Something was off, and it was you—you were gone. And I had no way to find you.” I pulled my arm back to place my hand on her shin. “My assistant can find anything online, so I put her in charge of locating you. She did everything she could, but according to her, you don’t exist.”
“She’s right. I don’t.” Her voice was still so small.
Most women her age had some kind of online presence even if that account was private. A place to post pictures, a ticker for random thoughts.
I wondered why she’d chosen to be invisible.
I didn’t want to get off track, so I said, “I thought you were gone, that I’d never see you again. A memory I’d hold on to even though the thought of that ate me the fuck up. And then I walked onto the Daltons’ plane, and it felt like my world shifted back into place. Everything that had been off for the six previous months was right again.”
She dragged a finger across my thick, scruffy cheek. “All that for someone whose last name you didn’t even know.”
“And still don’t. I was reminded of that tonight when I paid a thousand pounds to get your room number.”
Her eyes widened. “What? You didn’t really do that … did you?”
“I’d pay a million more to ensure you didn’t cry alone in this room tonight.”
Her gaze deepened. “But the truth is, Brady, what happened tonight is only a tiny piece of something that’s so much larger and so much heavier than what you witnessed. There’s history and muddiness and drama and …” She glanced up at the ceiling, her chest rising and falling so fast. “Why would you step into a sinkhole if you knew you were going to die?”
She was doing everything she could to push me away.
But I didn’t get up from the bed.
I rubbed her leg with one hand and pointed at my chest with the other. “You’ve seen this fucking body. Sand, mud, whatever it is, I’m stronger.” My hand stilled on her thigh as I smirked. “Nothing is going to drown me, Lily.”
Her fingers intertwined with mine. “The second my contract ends with the Daltons, I’m going to get another job, and there’s a very good chance it won’t be in LA.”
“I’ll worry about that when it happens.”
Because it wasn’t going to happen.
Lily wasn’t going anywhere.
“What else do you have for me?” I gave her a half smile.
As the seconds ticked by, the emotion grew over her face, but this round didn’t fill her eyes. It just made them narrow. It changed her breathing; it thinned out what I wished were a grin.
“You need to hear me when I say this … it’s not safe for you to be here.”
“In your room? With you?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“I like it when things are extra dangerous.”
“Brady, you’re not taking me seriously.”
I squeezed her hand. “You’re saying someone is going to whip my ass for being here with you. Once again, it doesn’t scare me.” I leaned in so our faces were only inches apart. “No one is going to touch me. Not with a whip or a fucking fist or even a gun.”
Was she talking about David?
I wasn’t going to ask; I didn’t want her to think I had been snooping around her phone. When she was ready to talk about him—or whomever she was inferring to—she would.
But it didn’t matter who it was or what they meant to Lily or what their past looked like; no one was going to jeopardize or threaten her safety or mine.
“You don’t even realize what you’re saying.”
As she breathed out through her nose, the air exhaling hard and fast, it hit my face.
The scent made my stomach growl.
“Listen to me.” I surrounded her hand with both of my palms. “I don’t think you realize who you’re talking to. You’re forgetting—or maybe you don’t know—that I’m a man with every resource at my disposal. Money is no object. I’ve dealt with assholes my entire life.”
The Cole brothers were who immediately came to mind, a duo who were slowly integrating into our family, but that wasn’t the way things had started off.
“Danger doesn’t turn me off, it turns me the fuck on. So, yes, I realize what I’m saying, and at some point, when you’re ready, I hope you’ll be comfortable enough to tell me what’s going on.” I kissed her without any hesitation. “But until then, that doesn’t change how much I want you, Lily. The only person who’s going to stop me from having you is you.”
She was quiet while she stared at me. “What that entails and what you’re signing up for—it isn’t light by any means.”
She didn’t kick me out. She didn’t tell me she didn’t want me.
She gave me a solid reply instead, one that had me moving even closer to her body.
“I’m still here.” I smiled.
“And if it gets worse?”
I kissed the back of the hand I was holding. “You’re worth it.”