Chapter 4
Chapter Four
“YOU MUST THINK I’M a total cry-baby,” she said, toying with her fingers in the back of his impossibly plush car.
She hadn’t noticed that the night before, either.
She’d been vaguely conscious of bleeding on the upholstery, of it being nice enough to not want to ruin, but in the fresh light of day, she couldn’t help but register that it was a seriously luxurious vehicle.
He shifted to look at her as Garrett drove the car through the streets of Manhattan, the private clinic several miles behind them.
“Must I?”
“A sprained ankle and I can’t walk?”
“I don’t mind carrying you.”
Heat flushed her entire body. She looked away quickly, the rapid tumble of emotions something she wasn’t prepared to deal with.
But as they continued to travel in a silence that sparked with awareness, she couldn’t shift the concern that he might be regretting his insistence that she stay.
A sprain was hardly a break, and it didn’t matter that the doctor had said sprains could hurt just as much, Kate still felt that maybe this had changed things for Roman.
“I have crutches now,” she pointed out, flicking a glance towards the boot of his SUV. “I’m officially back on my feet.”
“Except I want you off them.”
Her heartrate quickened and she sucked in a sharp breath.
“You heard the doc. You’ll recover faster if you rest.”
She fidgeted with her fingers, wishing her body wasn’t tingling the way it was. Wishing a thousand things, like that she hadn’t had a lifetime of knowing she was unwanted, of leaving before she could be asked to leave, which was colouring everything she felt now.
It seemed impossible that someone like Roman would want her to stay.
Impossible that he’d care.
Why would he?
She was missing something here, and Kate didn’t like that. But she had very few options besides taking up his generosity. She couldn’t work with her ankle like this, and without work, she had no money, even for the tiny hostel. She couldn’t even afford a flight home.
It had all seemed simple at first. An adventure, even.
But her stubborn determination to find her father, to know finally that she wasn’t alone, had meant she’d taken stupid risks and was now utterly without a buffer of any kind.
For the first time in her life, she’d been reckless, and if it weren’t for Roman, she hated to think where she’d be. On the streets?
The car approached a building she recognised—Roman’s penthouse was right at the top—and pulled over.
“Give me the address of your hostel.”
She was starting to realise that Roman didn’t ask questions when commands would do just as well. She pulled a face, wanting to say as much to him, but Garrett was watching them in the rear-view mirror.
She gave the address matter-of-factly. “Why?”
Roman threw her a dark glance. “Seriously?”
“What?”
A muscle throbbed in his jaw, as though he were forcing himself not to say whatever he was thinking. “We’ll talk inside.”
He stepped out of the car so Kate threw a confused glance at Garrett before Roman was at her side, one arm moving around her waist, the other unclipping her seatbelt.
A shiver ran through her body at the way he seemed to envelop her.
His ultra-masculine fragrance, all pine needles and outdoorsy, and his body, so big and strong with those hair-roughened arms and broad shoulders.
“I can use the crutches,” she said into the sweep of his neck, telling herself she should be more insistent even as she breathed in more deeply so she could taste him in the back of her throat.
“I’m sure you can.” Close like this, she could feel the growly roughness of his words, and it made her lips twitch with appreciation.
The doors opened automatically and a moment later, they were stepping into the elevator and being whooshed up to his apartment.
There were more details in here she hadn’t been in the right frame of mind to realise before now, like the crystal chandelier in the elevator, and the fact it seemed to be twice the height of a normal lift.
Even the elevators were fancy in Roman’s world.
The doors opened and he strode out, still holding her pressed to his body as though she were special and precious, as though she were all his to protect—when none of that was true. They were virtual strangers. “Couch or bed?”
Her heart twisted at just the mention of bed.
At the thought of Roman carrying her through his apartment and placing her down, just as he had the night before.
What if she suggested his bed? The errant thought came to her out of nowhere and took a hold in a way that terrified her.
She was too dependent on him to ruin it by making a pass. As if he’d look at her in that way…
Except, hadn’t he been looking?
Hadn’t he stared at her lips that morning as though he was fantasising about them? As though they were the beginning and end of what he wanted? She sucked in another sharp breath and tasted him all over again, her pulse fluttering in her veins.
“Couch or bed?” he repeated, as he stopped walking and stared down at her. The pulse that had been rioting went into absolute overdrive, rushing through her veins like a tsunami, so loud she could hear it.
“Couch.”
It felt safer, and the shift of his features showed he understood that. “Good choice.”
Flames seemed to lick the soles of her feet.
He placed her down with so much care it made her ache, because she’d never known anything like it, and that was a horrible thing to realise.
Maybe her mother had cherished her like that?
Kate couldn’t remember. All she’d known for a very long time was a combination of short-term foster care and paid carers.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked, staring up at him.
That same muscle jerked in his jaw as he ground his teeth, his expression unfathomable. “The fact you booked a hostel bed in that part of town. What were you thinking, Kate?”
She toyed with her fingers, caught off guard by his defensiveness, and the way he was staring at her.
“It’s fine,” she brushed aside his statement. “I mean, it’s not the worst.”
“That is hardly a ringing endorsement. Do you have a death wish?”
She flinched. “I’m tougher than I look.”
He crossed his arms, staring down at her for so long her skin tingled with a need to be touched.
She looked away quickly, towards the magnificent view, wondering what it was about this man that could so easily unnerve and unsettle her.
“You are tough,” he conceded. “But not unbreakable, and staying somewhere like that is just begging for trouble.”
“So you’re saying this is my fault?” she asked sharply, gesturing towards her ankle, surprised by how much that stung.
“Of course not. No one has a right to touch you, to hurt you. But you have to take better care of yourself. Starting with not putting yourself in situations like that hostel, or walking alone at night, down dark alleys…”
“I got lost, I told you.”
“And not getting lost,” he added.
“I didn’t plan…”
“You didn’t plan to take good enough care of yourself.”
“Roman—you can’t—” she shook her head, words failing her. She wanted to tell him he couldn’t talk to her like this, that he had no right, but the words choked in her throat because his concern was so obvious. And she hadn’t known that in forever.
“Stay here,” he said, reaching for the remote control and placing it beside her.
In doing so, he bent down, his face only inches from hers, so she could feel his warm breath.
“Be safe, be sensible.” And he reached out, almost as though he couldn’t help himself, and brushed a finger over her cheek, tilting her chin so her face was angled towards his, their eyes locking in a silent battle of the wills that felt charged and important.
He stalked into his office as though a tiger were on his tail; as though the flames of hell were following after him, and sat down heavily in his chair before standing again and pacing to the window, staring down at the far away street with a racing heart and an overheated body.
He’d wanted to kiss her.
Hell, he’d wanted to do more than kiss her. He’d wanted to take her, to make her his, to make her scream; he’d wanted to own her, to possess her, to make her beg for him. He’d wanted so much more than to just keep her safe, and it made a mockery of the idea of what he was doing.
How could he want her? How could he be fantasising about touching her? Not twenty-four hours ago, he’d saved her from the depraved attacks of two mad men, and now he was keeping her prisoner in his penthouse and dreaming of making her his?
Thank God he’d had the sense to leave, he thought with a grimace, as he reached for his phone and started to make calls.
Focusing on the practicalities brought him back to reality, and by the time he’d finished organising the pieces of her life, and had caught up on some work emails, he was ready to see her again, ready to be in the same room without imagining his body over hers, or the way she’d sound when she came.
“For God’s sake, you are impossible.” His voice was like a whip, startling her out of her quiet reflections.
Resting in the kitchen with her body weight on one foot, waiting for the coffee machine to spit out another perfect coffee, she glanced back at Roman, who was striding swiftly towards her. “I told you to stay where you were.”
“I wanted a coffee.”
“And you didn’t call for me, because…?”
“You were busy,” she shrugged, not meeting his eyes. Her skin had felt like a rose petal when he’d touched it, soft and flawless. His fingers itched with a need to touch her anew.
“Did I say that?”
“Well, you sort of stormed out of here,” she said with a small smile, because he’d done exactly that, leaving as though his life depended on it.
He moved closer to her, his eyes boring down on hers, setting her pulse racing all over again. “Let’s get one thing straight. You’re here to recover. That means staying still, not hobbling around my apartment. If you want something, I’ll get it.”