South Beach: Hot in the City (7 page)

And somewhere in those hazy moments after, she became unerringly aware of a couple of different things.

First, they hadn’t used a condom. That had seemed so important last night, and there had never been a time in her life when she wasn’t judicious about that—yet somehow, now, it had totally slipped her mind. But she wasn’t worried—as they’d talked last night, he’d told her he was always safe and careful, and she believed him. And fortunately, she was on the pill, too.

And second—oh boy, this one was scarier because it was the fact that…she felt attached to him now. More than attached—deeply…joined. Exactly what she supposed he’d wanted when he’d propositioned her earlier tonight. And exactly what she’d been so determined to avoid when this had started.

And yet…it wasn’t a horrible feeling. She didn’t hate herself.

In fact, if she was honest, she felt…happy. Almost…elated.

She felt…alive. Alive in a way she maybe hadn’t experienced since…oh Lord, since she’d left South Beach ten years ago.

Whoa.

She had to stop thinking for a minute, catch her breath.

What on earth are you letting happen here? This is a total betrayal of everything you stand for, a betrayal of everything you wanted when you first saw him yesterday.
And oh God, this had only started yesterday? It seemed, already, as if he’d been back in her life for so much longer. It seemed, in a weird way, almost as if he’d never even left.

And yet, again, she just…couldn’t fight it right now. In fact, at the moment it seemed all too easy to simply let herself give up the struggle and just bask in the moment.

And then there was Trey, leaning over her in the bed, letting her feel his warmth, pulling her back into his strong embrace. There were Trey’s eyes, drawing her in, capturing her very senses. There was Trey’s body, making her somehow feel protected and adored, just by virtue of holding her, making her feel…as if she were where she belonged.

“I used to dream of this, Holly,” he told her softly, “back when we were young. I used to dream of getting older together, of having enough money to take you on expensive trips and give you this kind of room, and of making love to you all night long. I never could have imagined, though, that we’d end up
here
, like
this
.”

“I…I couldn’t have imagined this, either.”

“And the truth is,” he went on, “I’m not sure I ever completely quit loving you.”

Holly’s heart threatened to beat through her chest. She so wanted to be the hip, cool, aloof chick she’d been with him just a day ago. She so wanted to keep that illusion in the forefront—for both of them. But the real, honest, and even painful truth was…“I don’t think I ever quit loving you, either.”

She pulled in her breath after realizing the words had left her mouth. They felt like blasphemy of the most horrific kind.

But then Trey was kissing her, deeply, passionately, and then the words didn’t feel so awful at all. In fact, the longer he kissed her and the more she let herself stop thinking and simply absorb everything passing between them, the more it began to feel like…everything was okay. And like maybe, just maybe, this was somehow all meant to be.

They didn’t talk much more after that, but they didn’t have to—it was as if that one little confession, on both their parts, had been all that was necessary. Suddenly, as if by magic, they were on the same page here. They wanted the same thing: they wanted…more. Of this. Of each other.

They made love twice more through the night—and Holly couldn’t deny it, it had truly
been
making love. Though after those particularly pleasant little tussles, they did talk. Or, more specifically,
she
talked.

She never meant to exactly, and she never made the conscious decision to do so, but before long she heard herself telling him—admitting—the real truth about her career, that she’d let herself down by abandoning her aspirations to be an attorney. She didn’t go on—she didn’t explain that it had anything to do with him—but maybe she just felt close enough to him in this moment that she’d suffered the urge to share…something. Something that was big to her, personal. Something she hadn’t felt comfortable confiding in him up to now.

“It’s never too late,” he’d told her gently.

And she supposed that was true. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she’d started feeling older than her twenty-eight years. But here, now, with Trey, she suddenly felt much younger again, as if so much of life suddenly stretched before her.

“Maybe you’re right,” she whispered in the dark, nestled against him. “Though, for now, I’m just happy enough to have gotten my paralegal training. And as soon as I get back to Vegas, I’ll be ready to start sending out resumes.”

“Or…you could send them out in Miami instead,” he suggested, his voice just as soft as hers. “They need paralegals everywhere, you know.”

And even as what he was really saying hit home and took her breath away, she realized that maybe it didn’t sound like such a bad idea at all. She hadn’t planned on leaving Vegas, but really, what did she have there? In reply, she simply bit her lip, leaned in to kiss him, and with a hint of a smile said, “Guess they do.”

After that, they agreed that they’d talk more over breakfast in the morning, about possibilities, about the idea of seeing more of each other, being together again.

And then she fell asleep in his arms, feeling safer and more content than she had in a very long time.

Chapter Eight

The bright Miami sun rising over the Atlantic came streaming in the big window to wake Trey early. His first impulse was to pull the covers over his eyes to block out the light. But then he remembered—where he was, who he was with. That his life had changed last night, that it had started changing back to what it should have been a long time ago. And that he actually didn’t mind facing the day at all.

So he opened his eyes to find the penthouse suite drenched in morning sunlight, and he glanced to his side to see…hell, next to him lay only rumpled sheets.

But maybe she was in the bathroom or something.

“Holly? Fishie, honey, where are you?”

Yet only silence answered. And sure, maybe she just couldn’t hear him behind a closed door or something. But in his heart, he knew. Last night had been too good to be true.

Still lying in bed, he crushed his eyes shut against the searing sting in his chest. Yep, just too damn good to be true, and maybe he should have realized that.

The thought had him replaying the night in his head, trying to figure out what had gone wrong just when things had started to seem so right. And hell, he began to remember parts that…well, that hadn’t seemed as important last night as they were starting to now. Just little things she’d said after she’d finally started opening up to him, really talking. Little phrases. “After that summer…” “Once you were out of my life…” “After I realized we were over…”

And…damn. Suddenly it all seemed pretty clear. She wanted him, the same way he wanted her, but despite what she’d said, she
was
angry at him for hurting her all those years ago.

And she just wasn’t willing to stop punishing him for it.

Or maybe she just didn’t trust him not to do it again.

And hell, either way, could he really blame her? It had been a downright shitty thing to do.

Leaning his head back on the bed with a sigh, that was when he glanced over to see something sticking out from beneath her vacant pillow and realized she’d left her cell phone behind. Hell—that was how fast she’d gone running away from him.

Well, maybe this was actually good news. Maybe he could reach Lori through the phone, figure out how to stop Holly from leaving—if it wasn’t too late already.

Hurriedly, he picked it up, turned it on. And…shit. She’d been texting last night at some point, texting Lori, and the texting screen was still up. He read only the last message she’d sent:
Getting in pretty deep here. But at least didn’t tell him Vegas was all because of him.

And his heart went hollow. Because he feared he was beginning to understand a lot more now than he had even just a moment ago.

Was she saying it was
his
fault the course of her life had changed so dramatically?

In a way—a terrible way—it almost made sense. After all, didn’t he remember her being innocent back then, impressionable, easily hurt?

Was it possible he’d hurt her so badly that…that
he
was what had changed her sexual attitudes, that
he
was why she’d moved across the country and changed her career plans?

It felt almost arrogant to think so…but damn, he couldn’t come up with any other way to interpret what he’d just read. He had to find her, that was all. He just had to find her.

Holly stood in the lobby, suitcase at her side, waiting for the cab she’d just requested. She and Lori weren’t scheduled to leave until tonight, but she’d called Lori’s cell a little while ago from the phone in their little-used hotel room and, getting voicemail, had just kept it simple. “I was right last night—I got in too deep—and I need to fly home this morning. Sorry—I’ll call you tomorrow.” Contacting Lori would have been simpler, of course, if she hadn’t lost her cell phone—most likely in the suite with Trey—but she certainly wasn’t going back for it. With any luck, he’d never notice it and a maid might turn it in to Lost and Found. She’d check into that later—but for now, she had bigger things on her mind.

And yeah, leaving was going to hurt, but…at least it meant that she still won. She
would
break his heart, the same as he’d once broken hers. And he’d never have the chance to break it again.

Of course, maybe that didn’t hold the same satisfaction it had a couple of days ago. But the important part was that once she got away from him and got back to her real life, everything would be okay.

As for last night—hell, this whole weekend with him—it was all just…a dream. A pretty incredible dream at times, but in the end, nothing that had happened here was real. It was no different than if she’d met a stranger and fucked him; Trey
was
a stranger to her after ten years apart, after all. That was all she could
let
him be.

And as for the tender emotions she’d experienced with him, well…those were just bits of old, leftover remnants from her youth, and she was better off without them. Someone could only hurt you if you
let
them hurt you, if you let yourself love them. And she just couldn’t risk that, not again. Not when she was finally on the verge of getting her life back on track and in order.

She looked toward the bustling lobby’s revolving door. Where was that taxi? She knew it was early, but Sunday was a busy day for hotel turnover, so the streets of South Beach should be teeming with cabs wanting to drive her to the airport.
Come on, already. I need to get out of here.

Just then, like an answered prayer, the doorman lifted a finger in her direction, letting her know her taxi had arrived.
Good. You can run away now. Just like you always do. Run, run, run from your problems to someplace where you can distract yourself with other things and don’t have to feel so much.
Curling her hand around the extended handle of her roller bag, she took the first step toward the door, toward what felt like…safety. But a whole different kind of safety than she’d felt last night in Trey’s arms.

“Holly!”

Oh God. Oh no. Her chest deflated and her body went weak at the sound of Trey’s voice echoing through the acoustically perfect, arched ceiling of the Imperial Palms lobby.

And when she instinctively stopped and turned to look, she realized instantly that everyone else in the lobby had stopped to look, too.

Yet she only really saw
him
. He rushed toward her wearing the same clothes as last night, albeit rumpled now as he’d clearly come straight from the suite—and his eyes were alight with pain at the sight of her with her suitcase.

He stopped a few feet away from her, spoke quietly. “Found your phone.” He held it up.

“Oh.” She let out a heavy breath, somehow felt a little defeated.

“What are you doing?”

But stop it, you aren’t defeated. You won.
“Leaving,” she said, proud when the word came out strong and confident, like she usually was.

“So…last night was…”

Come on, be tough, you can do this. Be…honest.
Brutally
honest.
“A game. The whole weekend was a game. To show you how it feels to be hurt and abandoned.” That wasn’t strictly true—the part that had happened last night, in bed, hadn’t been a game at all, but this just kept things simpler, cleaner. He didn’t need to know she’d ever had any doubts or wavered at all.

He simply stood there looking at her, myriad emotions passing over his face. At first, he appeared dumbfounded, but then his expression eased into one of hurt and maybe even some humiliation. And God, that kind of stung. It shouldn’t—he’d hurt her far worse once upon a time—but it still did.

Yet even so, she managed to stand there and keep her game face on. Because if she could do that for only another minute or two, surely he would finally give up and leave, and then she would have what she’d wanted—victory. Hollow now, maybe. No, hollow for sure. But at least her heart wouldn’t be back at risk, not with him, not ever again.
Keep being tough, keep being strong. You’re no one’s innocent little farm girl anymore.

“When I woke up and you were gone,” he began, “I figured out that maybe I’d hurt you so badly when we were young that it was how you got from where you were then to where you are now. That maybe that’s why you just wouldn’t talk about it. And I was sick to think I hurt you that way. I was sick and came running to find you to tell you that I love you and want to somehow make it all up to you. But I never dreamed you could be
this
cold, Holly.” And then, finally, as she’d been waiting for him to do, Trey simply set her phone on the nearest table and turned to walk away across the marble lobby floor.

And—oh God—her heart broke. Right there in the lobby of the Imperial Palms, her heart crumbled to dust in her chest. And a painful lump rose in her throat.