The Alpha Billionaire Club Trilogy (14 page)

T
he shot
of local anesthetic for the stitches didn’t hurt that badly, but seeing the needle poke through the open cut on my wrist was revolting. I knew I shouldn’t have watched. I tried not to. It was like passing an accident on the freeway. You mean to look away, but at the last second, your eyes swerve to the ravaged car, dreading to see the destruction and unable to stop yourself.

Aside from my wrist, my jaw was bruised, the skin hot and tight with swelling. The ER nurse had given me an ice pack for it. It helped, but I was getting tired of holding it in place. And it looked like I was going to have at least six stitches when this was over. Strike that, seven. Or more. Steven’s careless slash of the knife had done more damage than I thought.

Working my way across the kitchen while taped to a chair hadn’t helped. Neither had getting the tape loose enough to free my wrists. I’d maneuvered myself to the side of the kitchen cabinets where a former owner had screwed in a set of metal hooks for dishtowels. They didn’t do much to tear through the duct tape, but I was able to catch one of the hooks under the edge of the tape and pull on it, dragging it down my arm to my wrist where it was looser.

It sounds easy after the fact, but at the time, bleeding and freaked out, it felt like it took forever. Every tug on the hook had moved the tape a fraction of an inch and pulled at the open wound on the side of my wrist. Steven’s knife alone probably hadn’t cut me that much. By the time my wrists were free, I’d done more damage than he did.

Once I got the tape loose, it hadn’t been that hard to get my uninjured arm free. Painful, since it involved more yanking against my bleeding wrist, but not difficult. Cutting the tape around my torso was easy enough once I had my hands back. I hadn’t bothered to unwrap and check my arm. I’d grabbed my phone, called a cab and wrapped another towel around it.

Waiting for the cab had been terrifying. I was sure Steven had left. He was an asshole, but not a complete idiot. He would have gone straight for my car in case I had second thoughts. But what if he hadn’t? What if he was going to come back? I’d huddled in an armchair by my front window, hidden from the street by thin curtains, gripping the bloody knife from the sink in my good hand. If Steven did come back, I’d be prepared. When the cab finally showed, I dropped the knife, threw a jacket over my arm so the cab driver wouldn’t see the blood, and ran out the front door, not bothering to lock it behind me.

The hospital was having a slow night - my only bit of good luck so far. Even without my ID or insurance card, it wasn’t long before I was sitting behind a curtain, wearing a hospital gown over my jeans, and watching the doctor in green scrubs sew up my arm. Another bonus; he was a plastic surgeon they’d called down and I wouldn’t have much of a scar. Even a day as bad as this one had a few minor bright sides. They hadn’t given me anything for the pain, aside from the local anesthetic for the stitches, but I felt drugged. Maybe it was the adrenaline crash. I didn’t know. Now that I was safe in the hospital, I couldn’t seem to get it together.

My thoughts spun in sluggish circles. What if Steven came back? What if he decided to release the video anyway? What if he told the guys he owed money that I was responsible for it and they came after me? Hadn’t I seen that in some movie? The guy gets in debt with the mob and he tells them his brother is responsible for him so they went after the brother? Or maybe that was because the brother vouched for him? No, it wasn’t his brother; it was his best friend. Wasn’t it? I stared at the lights on the ceiling, trying to make sense of what was happening. Exhaustion dragged at me, slowing my mind and weakening my body.

I had to figure out what to do. I had no car, no wallet, and I didn’t want to go back to my house. It didn’t feel safe anymore. Not since Steven had been there, touching my things and taping me to my own kitchen chair, his hand on my breast, his eyes ugly and angry. I couldn’t go back there. Not tonight.

They’d asked if I had someone who could come get me. I’d said I did. I guess it wasn’t a lie. I could call my mother. Somehow I’d convince her not to take me back to the Delecta. I couldn’t go there either. Ever. If Steven caught me anywhere near Dylan, he’d release the video and all this would have been for nothing. Tears pricked at my eyes.

I gritted my teeth and sucked in a breath through my nose. No crying. Not here, where everyone could see. Later, when I’d figured out what to do and where to go. I’d cry later. A scuffle at the curtain caught my attention. I heard an aggravated voice say, “Sir! You can’t just -” The curtain was thrown back.

Dylan stood there, glaring at me, his friend Axel just behind him. Relief at seeing him flooded through me. Dylan was safe. Dylan wouldn’t hurt me. Then I remembered the video. Dylan couldn’t be anywhere near me. I wanted to jump up and demand he leave, to scream that he had to go. I didn’t move. For one thing, the doctor was still stitching up my arm. And for another, I was frozen in shock. How had he known where I was?

The nurse looked my way and said, “He insisted on seeing you. Do you want me to call security?” I shook my head. Dylan didn’t speak either, his eyes flipping between me and the doctor working on my arm. A minute later, the doctor tied off the last stitch and wrapped my arm in a protective bandage. Standing, he patted my shoulder.

“Someone will be in to discharge you and give you instructions on caring for the stitches. You were lucky.” Glancing over his shoulder at Dylan and Axel, he whispered, “You’re safe here. Are you sure you don’t want to make a police report?” His eyes grazed over the bruises on my face. I hadn’t offered much of an explanation of what happened. I shook my head again.

“No. They didn’t hurt me. I promise. I’m safe with them.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. I swear.”

“Okay. I’ll get a nurse in to discharge you.” He stood, patted my shoulder once more, and left, sending a suspicious glare at Dylan and Axel as he went.

When we were alone, I said, “You have to go. You can’t be near me.”

Dylan ignored me, striding across the room to take my face in his hand. His body vibrated with fury, but his touch on my bruised cheek was gentle.

“What the fuck happened to you?” He asked, his voice quiet, but hard. “Who fucking did this to you?”

“Dylan, I mean it. You have to go. Please. Just go. I can’t help you if you won’t go.” I heard my voice rising in hysteria. He couldn’t be here. All of this was for nothing if Steven found out we were together and released the video. “You have to go. Please, Dylan, just go. Please.”

He didn’t go. Instead, he sat beside me on the hospital bed and pulled me into his arms, pressing my unbruised cheek into his shoulder. I didn’t struggle. I should have. I should have jumped off the bed and run to get away from him. But he was so strong, and he smelled comfortingly familiar, warm and clean and male. Somewhere deep in my head, I knew I was panicked and irrational.

Steven wasn’t at the hospital. He couldn’t be watching me. But logic wasn’t getting through at that moment. I was scared, in pain, and only just registering how much worse things could have been with Steven. Flashes of the bloody knife and the way he’d touched me played across the insides of my closed eyelids. I felt myself begin to tremble. I tried to stop it, but it was as if my body was no longer under my own control.

Shaking, tears warm on my cheeks, I burrowed into Dylan. I’d always thought I was a strong woman. Most of the time I was. With everything that had happened that night, my inner strength had deserted me.

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked in a low, soothing voice. “Why do I need to leave you?”

I drew in a ragged breath. I needed to tell him. He needed to know why it was dangerous to be near me.

“Steven took a video of us.” Another ragged, tear filled breath. “In the hall. The other night. It’s -” I cut off, unable to go on. I’d brought this down on Dylan. Me. It was my fault this was happening. “You can see everything.”

“Okay,” he said, voice still gentle. “We can deal with that. That doesn’t explain your face. And your arm.”

He rubbed his hand up and down my back as if I was a child woken from a nightmare.

“He said if I didn’t meet him at my house he’d release it everywhere. It’s bad. You can see our faces. I was afraid -” I stopped and dragged in a breath. “Your board. Stockholders. It was bad, Dylan.”

I felt him sigh against me. His hand on my back continued its rhythmic, soothing strokes. The worst out in the open, I relaxed into him. Now he knew. Everything he’d worked for was at risk because of me. Fresh tears spilled over my cheeks. I was so tired. Cold, aching, and tired.

“Why didn’t you wake me? Why did you just leave, sweetheart?”

“Not enough time,” I whispered. “He said I had to meet him at my house in twenty minutes or he’d send the video out. There wasn’t enough time. And he said if I saw you again, he’d send it out.”

Footsteps sounded beside the bed. “The ex,” Axel said in a low voice. “He took off with her car.”

“It was Steven?” Dylan asked, tucking a stray hair behind my ear. “He’s the one who did this to you?”

“You can’t go after him, Dylan. He’ll use the video. Please.”

“I can take care of the video, Leigha.”

I forced myself to pull out of his embrace and sit up. Meeting his eyes was harder. When he’d come in, he’d been glaring. Now his eyes were soft. Concerned. Not angry.

“What if you can’t? What if he sends it out to YouTube and all the other sites. You’ll never be able to get it back. And your company - the board. They could -”

He cut me off with a finger to my lips. Before I could think of something else to say, he looked over his shoulder at Axel, who was talking into his phone in a clear violation of hospital’s no cell phone policy. Seeing the grave expression on his face, I didn’t think Axel cared about hospital policy. Gone was the serious but relaxed guy I’d met earlier that evening. This man was all deadly focus as he gave quiet orders into the phone and hung up. His eyes met Dylan’s in a promise.

“I’m on it,” he said.

“You heard all that?”

Axel nodded. “We’ll pick him up. Get the car back. Don’t worry about the video. I’m out. I’ll have your people send a car.”

He disappeared to the other side of the curtain. Dylan reached for me, and I leaned back.

“Dylan, this is too dangerous. What if -”

“Do you trust me?” he asked, eyes on mine.

I wanted to look away. I couldn’t. It felt like he was asking for more than just trust, like he was asking me for everything. I couldn’t lie to him. I was scared. For him. For myself. My head spun, I hurt all over, and I desperately wanted to lie down and sleep. I’m not sure I could have lied to him under normal circumstances. But sitting on that hospital bed, exhausted and my emotions a mess, I was helpless to resist the force of his will.

“Do you trust me?” he repeated.

I told him the truth.

“I do.”

“That’s all I needed to hear.”

Dylan pulled me into his chest and resumed his gentle strokes on my back. I must have drifted to sleep, because the next thing I knew, a nurse came in and Dylan was gently sitting me up so she could give me my discharge papers. She said something about my not having my insurance.

Dylan pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to her, saying, “Have billing call my office on Monday, we’ll take care of it.”

The next thing I knew, he was carrying me, over the nurse’s protests, out of the hospital and to the black car waiting outside. I zoned out again on the way back to the Delecta. I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I opened my eyes to see Dylan’s soft sheets as he lowered me into his bed. A moment later, he joined me, pulling my body into his until my head rested on his shoulder, my injured arm on top of his chest. The last thing I felt before I passed out completely was the thump of Dylan’s heart beneath my ear, strong and reassuring.

I
t was
all I could do to keep from hunting down that bastard myself. The look in Leigha’s eyes when she’d seen me - relief, then terror. It tore at me. She’d done this for me. To keep me safe. Had it even occurred to her that if that video got out she’d lose her job? I wasn’t in the tabloids every week, but I had my share of attention. If the video got out, it would be huge news. Overnight, Leigha would become a sex tape star. Completely unemployable and good for little more than hosting a third rate reality tv show. Or other options far worse.

I could answer that question. She hadn’t thought of herself at all. She’d been completely out of it at the hospital, pale, close to shock, and scared. In no condition to play a game with me. She could have accused me of putting her in that situation in the first place. She never would have been in that hallway, exposed to prying eyes with my hand up her dress, if I hadn’t dragged her along. I didn’t think that had even occurred to her.

It meant something to me that she’d been looking out for me. Something big. And it said a lot about her. But fuck, he’d hurt her. Terrified her. I was taking her in to press charges in the morning. I planned to hold her hand through all of it though I’d have to watch myself. I had a feeling there was worse she was hiding than a bruise to the jaw and a knife wound.

At least the bruises were contained to her face. I’d undressed her unconscious body for bed, my stomach tight with the fear that I’d find matching bruises on her body, her breasts and her thighs. If I had, I might have left her and gone with Axel’s men to bring Steven in. Then I might have killed him.

It’s always hard to say what we might or might not do in an extreme situation. Laying in bed, Leigha’s perfume drifting up from her hair, her warm body pressed into mine, I hoped I’d be smart enough not to do anything crazy, like kill a man in cold blood. Even
my
lawyers couldn’t get me out of something like that.

At the thought that he might have hurt her worse than he already had, that he could have raped her - the ice in my gut told me there was no limit to what I would do to keep her safe.

Still, she’d earned herself some punishment. I’d go gentle, since her face and her wrist would still hurt when she woke up. But Leigha needed to learn about trust. She’d said she trusted me in the hospital. She probably thought she meant it.

More likely, she
wanted
to mean it. I needed it to be deeper than that. I needed her to trust me all the way. To her soul. And the best way to show her what that meant was with a good, old-fashioned spanking. Sometimes the cliché was true. Actions did speak louder than words. In the morning, Leigha would find out for herself.