Midnight Sun (20 page)

“You’re not going to run out on me again, are you?” He pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Couldn’t if I wanted to.” She nestled her head against his shoulder, her fingers playing in his chest hair. He shifted her to deal with the condom, then settled her back beside her. His movements slow as he drew the covers over them. Within moments, the steadiness of his breathing lulled her to sleep.

Marcus slipped back into bed after taking a pill to relieve the throbbing in his leg and hand. He’d been surprised to see early morning light coming through the windows when the pain woke him. That meant they’d been asleep for fourteen hours, maybe longer, since they’d arrived yesterday afternoon.

Which explained why he was so bloody hungry. But he didn’t want to wake Brylie just yet.

Things had changed since the last time they were in a hotel room together. That time they’d both been looking for an escape. This time—he didn’t know what they were looking for. He just knew he wasn’t done looking yet, wasn’t ready to walk away. She’d been amazing on the ship, braver and stronger than any woman ever he’d known. She’d made him feel braver and stronger. He liked the person he was when he was with her.

He’d thought maybe he’d look into being in charge of security now, and hit the seas with her, but the season here was over. Their cruise had been the last until next December. Would she return to her friend’s restaurant in San Francisco?

The idea hit him hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He knew how to keep her close enough to figure out what it was she made him feel.

A few hours later, he woke her up with a smack to her ass. “Wake up, lazybones.”

She stretched like a cat beneath the blankets and squinted up at him through a tangle of red hair. “What is it?”

“I have a surprise for you. Get dressed.”

Brylie tucked her hands into her front pockets as she stared up at the brick building with the large plate glass windows looking out on the street that had very little traffic—lots of empty buildings, though many looked to be in the middle of renovations. Marcus rocked on his cane beside her.

“What is it?” she asked finally.

“A restaurant. Come on in.”

He pulled out a key with a tag on it, unlocked the door and pushed it open for her to precede him. She did, cautiously. The place was spotless, with dark wood floors and brick walls, roomy enough for two dozen tables. A mahogany bar ran down the side of the wall, with mirrors behind to open up the space, and recessed lighting to illuminate the shelves that would hold the liquor. He guided her to the kitchen, which was open and spectacular. She could already envision the stainless steel appliances that would line the walls, could already see the layout, could already hear the sounds of the staff rushing to meet orders.

Marcus watched her, his eyes bright. Her stomach tightened.

“What is this?” she asked, though she was pretty sure she knew.

“Your restaurant. You could name it Brylie’s, paint it right across the window there.” He gestured. “The neighborhood’s not much yet, but they’re revitalizing, you know, to bring in the tourist trade. I think it would be an amazing place. My sister told me about the plans for the neighborhood when I called and—”

She held up a hand, his words flowing over her, making it impossible for her to process them. “My restaurant?”

“Right. You were saving money and you wanted to run your own place and I thought this would be the place.” His words faded. “You don’t like it.”

“I—” She leaned back against the pass-through and folded her arms over her chest. “Why?”

The pleasure on his face faded, too, and she felt like the world’s biggest bitch. “I thought that would be obvious.”

“What I’m thinking—that can’t be. So spell it out for me.”

He squirmed. “I—thought it would make you happy.”

“Marcus. The fancy hotel room made me happy. The great big bathtub, the great big bed. This—” She stretched her arms out to encompass the building, her voice bouncing off the brick walls, her pulse thundering, a combination of fear and sorrow. He was giving her this place? And then? She’d had the rug snatched from under her before. “This is something else.”

“You’re right.” This time he folded his arms and leaned back against the brick wall.  “It is something else. It’s—I don’t want you to go back to the States.”

She stepped back. He was asking her to stay, have a future. And when she looked at him, her heart turned over. So why was she so scared? “My life is there.”

“What life? You work in someone else’s restaurant, you said yourself you work and go home. What are you going home to?”

She regretted those confessions now. “My dreams.”

His eyes narrowed. “Of owning a restaurant.”

A world-class restaurant. One that would make her the toast of San Francisco. Not—a bistro in Hobart. “I don’t own it. You do.”

“So?”

“So when you get tired of me, or of this, what happens? I’m out on my ass and having to start all over again.”

“The asshole in New York?”

“Was my boss.”

His forehead smoothed and his eyes went flat in an expression she’d seen when he spoke to Harris. Masking pain. “You think I’m like that?”

She couldn’t take that chance. “Marcus, you hardly know me. What if we do this,” she flipped her finger between the two of them, “and you decide you don’t like the real me, the everyday me? You’ll be invested in this restaurant and can’t just walk away and you’ll end up hating me.”

“I won’t.”

She shook her head. “I can’t depend on anyone else. I need to depend on myself, find my own success or it will never be mine.”

“Bullshit,” he said, and she pivoted. “Bullshit. We got through that because we knew how to work together. We were good together. I’d let you do what you want in the restaurant—you know better than I do. And if it goes to hell between us, well, we can have that written into the contract, some kind of out. I’m sure a lawyer can come up with a reasonable solution. But I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t have some faith here.” He uncrossed his arms and held out a hand to her. “Do you have faith?”

Temptation tugged. It was a pretty place, in a pretty town, and the gesture—she couldn’t even call it a gesture because it was so huge—was so generous, just because he wanted her to be happy.

“I never thought you’d want anything past—what we have.”

His jaw tightened. “Is that why you slept with me? Because you figured once we got back to Australia we’d be done?”

She felt her face heat. “It occurred to me.”

A disbelieving smile canted his lips. “And you’re afraid that I’m the one who’ll walk away?”

“You don’t even know what you want in your life. Why would I think we could have a future? I can’t give anyone else that control, ever again.”

“So, I take it back.” He lifted his hands in surrender. “I thought I was giving you something you wanted.” His jaw tightened and he pushed himself away from the wall. “You say you want control, but you’re still giving him that control.”

She drew back as if he’d slapped her.

He leaned heavily on his cane. “You’re letting what he did to you make your decisions now. It’s making you scared to trust, scared to let go of any control.”

She squared her shoulders, feeling completely vulnerable because of his words, wishing she had a purse or bag or something to use as a shield between them.

He wanted her. But for how long? A future with him was out of her control, something she couldn’t bear.

He’d gotten her through the worst ordeal of her life with his bravery and his humor. She just didn’t have room for love in her life, didn’t have room for a man who didn’t even know what he wanted to do with his own life.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, Marcus. No one has ever done anything like this for me before, but I can’t.”

His lips thinned and he bounced the keys in his hand. He inclined his head toward the door. “Let’s go, then.”

She hesitated. “There’s—really nothing I need at the hotel. Maybe I should just get a cab from here.”

He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded, tightened his grip on his cane, and walked away.

The Ice Queen was due into port tomorrow, otherwise Brylie would have flown back to San Francisco immediately, put as much distance between herself and her insane longing for Marcus as she could. She’d tendered her resignation with the cruise line, and waited for her father’s arrival in a hotel nowhere near the one where she’d stayed with Marcus, while she mourned the way she’d hurt him.

Hurt herself. No man had ever wanted to give her something like that without wanting something for himself. He hadn’t asked for anything from her—only wanted to give her what she wanted because it made her happy. He’d even offered her a solution for an exit if their relationship failed, and had done so good-naturedly, as he’d done everything. And she’d shoved it back in his face.

She tried to tell herself that he would want something from her eventually, but the short amount of time they’d spent together told her he wouldn’t. If she didn’t give him what he needed, he might move on, but he wouldn’t ask her to hand his gift back.

But she knew that she couldn’t live with either of those choices, and she was too jaded to believe in happy endings. She’d never witnessed one outside of movies—and even those were written that way.

She couldn’t, however, stop herself from visiting Harris, to see how he was faring. She’d depended on him a lot when she’d been on the ship, when Marcus had sacrificed himself to the terrorists to keep her and the other passengers safe.

She made sure Marcus wasn’t around when she approached Harris’s room. This felt too much like New York and her fear of running into Ethan in those weeks following her humiliation, before she could get out of town.

But no Marcus in sight, and when she walked into Harris’s room, she knew why. He had his computer set up on the table in front of him and was haranguing someone on the phone while a nurse urged him to be quiet. His demeanor changed when he saw Brylie, and he actually smiled as he gave the person on the other end a list of orders and hung up.

“Feeling better, I see.” She stopped at the foot of the bed.

“I’ve been better. Would be better if these people would let me get back to work.” He sent the nurse a glare.

“I’m sure they wish they could.” Brylie offered the young woman a sympathetic smile as she left.

“Where’s my brother?”

Her stomach tightened though she’d expected the question. “I don’t know. We parted ways.”

“Figures he’d blow it.”

“No, he—he was great. I was the one who walked away.”

“If he’s so great, why did you walk away?”

“I’m going back to the States as soon as I see my father, so there was no point dragging it out.” She squirmed under his scrutiny, and admitted that part of her wanted him to prompt her further. That traitorous part wanted to talk about Marcus, who she hadn’t been able to get out of her head. “Has he not come to see you?”

Harris scowled. “He’s been a couple of times, the ungrateful boof head. Always walks out in the middle of an argument.”

“Arguing about what?” She sat on the edge of a chair near the window.

“His worthless life, that’s what. Almost thirty years old and doesn’t know what he wants to do. Bought a restaurant with my sister’s help and now he’s looking to sell it after only two days. Thinks he wants to be in security, now. What the hell does he know about security?”

“He kept a lot of people safe on the ship.”

Harris shot her an annoyed glance. “Figures you’d stick up for him. Women always do. My wife, for instance. Tells me just because he’s not like me doesn’t make him a bad person. Hell, sometimes she tells me it makes him a better person.”

Turned out she didn’t want to talk about Marcus, especially not how other women stood up for him. “I’m sorry we couldn’t get you the money back.”

He lifted his eyebrows. “What money?”

Brylie tensed in surprise. She knew they were wealthy, but to forget about ten million dollars blown into confetti— “The ransom money.”

He scowled. “There was no ransom money. Not what they asked for, anyway. We know how to deal with people like that. It was a few thousand real, and several million counterfeit.”

“So why did you accompany it?”

“To make it look real. Do you think a person in charge of that much money would just send it with lackeys?”

“And you nearly got yourself killed.”

“That was unforeseen. In any case, that’s the position Marcus wants now.”

“I think he’d be good at it.”

“Until he gets bored.”

That Harris and she had the same concerns about Marcus’s level of commitment irritated her. She felt like she should have more faith in him. One of them should, anyway. “So how are you feeling? Getting out soon?”

“Tomorrow, they say.”

“It’s going to be a long day for them.” Brylie inclined her head toward the nurses’ station.

“I’ll leave them alone if they leave me alone.”

She stood and crossed to the bed to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for everything. And don’t be so hard on Marcus.”

“He never should have let you walk away. You’re the best thing that could happen to him.”

She shook her head, smiling sadly. “I wouldn’t want to change who he is.” And she would, with her constant expectations that he would leave her. “If you’re ever in San Francisco…”

Harris made a face. “Why would I ever want to do that?”

She pinched his arm and walked out.

The Ice Queen came in that night and Brylie spent the evening with her father fussing over her. She’d avoided meeting him at the dock because she didn’t want to deal with all the passengers, but when he met her for dinner, he told her that Marcus had been there.

A twinge went through her. She was both grateful to have avoided him and proud of him for being able to do something she couldn’t.

“I think he was looking for you,” her father said. “I thought you two would be together.”

“We parted ways a few days ago.” Had he been looking for her? What would he say to her after the way she left him? She was too embarrassed to know what she’d say to him.

Her father didn’t pursue it, and she was grateful. “He said he’s going to be working with security for the line now, based here.”