Billionaires, Bad Boys, and Alpha Males (47 page)

Finally they fell asleep, limbs tangled up in
each other.

When she awoke, Chace wasn’t there.

The smells of bacon and coffee were coming from
the kitchen.
 

Her clothes from last night lie crumpled on the
floor, so she took a chance and pulled on one of Chace’s t-shirts.

When she got to the kitchen, he was scrambling
eggs, wearing track pants and nothing else.
 
His eyes were droopy from the lack of
sleep, his hair rumpled for the same reason.
 
Her breath
 
caught as she took in his half-naked
body.
 
His chest was broad and
defined, the six pack of his abs visible over the waistband of his pants.
 

“Hey,” he said, breaking into a smile when he
saw her.
 
“You’re awake.”
 
His eyes raked up her body.

“Sorry,” she said, pulling his shirt tighter
around her.
 
“My clothes were on the
floor, and so… I hope it’s okay.”

“God damn, you look sexy,” he said.
 
His voice, just a moment ago scratchy
with sleep, had deepened even further.

He turned the stove off and came toward
her.
 
This time, he wasted no time.

He pulled her shirt off, and then he tugged off
his sweatpants.
 
He entered her
immediately, like he couldn’t take being without her for another minute.

It was just as delicious and perfect as it had
been the night before.
 
Her body
must have been on the edge the whole time she was sleeping, because her orgasm
came so fast she couldn’t believe it.

“You’re going to be hard for me to stay away
from,” he said as they lay on the couch.
 
He was playing with her hair again.

They drifted in and out of sleep, the breakfast
he’d been making totally forgotten.

When they awoke around noon, they ordered lunch
in and ate in the living room while they watched TV.
 
All of it felt very intimate and
coupley, and Lindsay couldn’t help but think maybe this was it, that maybe she
would just stay here forever, having sex and eating food and watching TV and
writing her books.

But when the HGTV marathon they were watching
was over, Chace turned to her and stretched.

“So,” he said.
 
“What are your plans for the day?”

“I don’t know,” she said slowly.
 
She didn’t have any plans.

“I have to go down to my dad’s restaurant today
on the Cape,” he said.
 
“We’re
having an anniversary party for him and my stepmom.”

“Cool,” Lindsay said, keeping her voice
nonchalant.
 
It was no big deal.
 
He had a party to go to, so what?
 
What did she think, that she was really
going to stay here with him all weekend, eating food and having sex?
 
That was ridiculous.
 
People had lives.

But still.
 
A niggling thought was eating at the back of her mind.
 
She’d had sex with him.
 
A man she’d never met.
 
She’d come to his apartment and had sex
with him twice, the very first time she’d met him. Her face burned when she thought
about the things they’d done last night, and then again this morning.

At the time, those things had seemed perfectly
natural, but now she realized she didn’t know anything about Chace,
really.
 
She’d never slept with a
man on the first night she’d met him, but that wasn’t the problem – she’d
didn’t think having a one-night stand made you a slut or that it was anything
to be ashamed of.

No, the real problem was that she was afraid
maybe it hadn’t meant as much to him as it did to her.
 
That maybe it was just sex to him, that
maybe she was never going to hear from him again.

But that was crazy, she told herself as she
changed back into her jeans and sweater.
 
Chace didn’t seem like that kind of person.
 
They’d had all those phone calls, and
he’d never done or said anything to give her the impression that he wouldn’t
want to see her again.
 
By the time
he kissed her goodbye, and promised to call her that night when he was done
with the party, she was feeling better.

That night she had dinner with her sister, but
she didn’t tell Jamie anything about the date.
 
Jamie would want all the sexy details,
and right now, it felt too raw, too private to be talking about.
 
Also, she didn’t want to jinx it.

When Chace didn’t call that night, Lindsay told
herself it wasn’t a big deal.
 
He
was busy with his family.
 
He would
call the next day.

But he didn’t.
 

Or the day after that.

She signed onto the dating site, hoping maybe
he’d left her a message.
 
But there
was nothing.

Still.
 
It had only been a couple of days. Surely at some point he would email
or call.

But as the days added up, her emotions turned from
nervousness to sadness to anger.
 
She wrote him a nasty email, but stopped herself from sending it.
 
Her pride was all she had left, and she
didn’t want him to know that he’d gotten to her.

She was extremely miserable for a while, more
upset than she’d ever been about a man.
 
But time passed, and after a while, the sting began to fade.
 
She reminded herself that she’d never
really known Chace in the first place, that he’d just been a voice on the
phone, a voice that had kept her company while she was writing.

And after she’d repeated this to herself enough
times, she began to believe it.

Until he’d shown up on her doorstep the other
night, forcing her to face the fact that she’d been lying to herself the whole
time.

C
hapter
F
ive

Chace rushed over to Lindsay.
 
She was lying on the floor of the
kitchen, her hair spread out in a tangle behind her, her face flushed, her eyes
closed.

“Lindsay!” he said. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes fluttered open, and he breathed a sigh
of relief.
 
Seeing her there, on the
floor, had made him feel like a vice grip was crushing his throat.

She swallowed a few times, and then looked up
at him.

He put his arm around her.
 
“Sit up.”

She sat up, the color starting to come back to
her cheeks.
 

“Say something,” he commanded.

She shook her head, looking a little
dazed.
 
“My wrist hurts.”

He looked at her wrist, then reached out and
touched it gently.
 

She snapped her hand back.
 
“Hey!
 
That hurts!”

“Sorry.”
 
He turned to Chuck.
 
“I’m
going to take her to the hospital,” he said.
 
“Someone needs to look at her wrist.”

“I’m okay,” she protested, trying to stand
up.
 
But she couldn’t put pressure
on her right arm, and without the leverage she ended up back on the floor.

“You’re not okay,” Chace said.
 
“You need to see a doctor.
 
Your wrist is hurt.”

“I’m
fine.”
 

“Stop trying to stand up!” Chace said.
 
“Jesus Christ!”

She sat.

“Good,” he said.
 
Then he reached down and put his arms
around her, guiding her up off the floor.
 
She smelled like strawberries and peppermint, and something else,
something that was just Lindsay.
 
He
was hit with a wave of longing, remembering the night they’d spent together,
how she’d looked that morning when she came downstairs wearing just his
t-shirt.
 
Her hair had been tousled
and long, her eyes rimmed with last night’s make up.
 
She’d looked sexy and gorgeous, innocent
and vixen-like at the same time.

The strength of the emotion shocked him.
 
It was a year ago that had happened, a
year since he’d let himself feel anything even close to what he was feeling now.
 
He knew he should take a step back, but
he couldn’t think of anything but the fact that he needed to protect her.

“I’m fine,” Lindsay kept saying, repeating it
over and over again, like if she said it enough it would be true.

“Oh, yeah?
 
Let me see your wrist.” She held it up.
 
It hung there limply, and it was already
starting to swell.
 

“I’m taking you to the emergency room.”

“No.”
 
She shook her head.
 
“I just
landed on it the wrong way.
 
It’s
just a little sore.”

He ignored her, grabbing his coat off the hook
behind the kitchen door, then leading her into the dining room.
 

“Can I have your attention please?” he said to
the preservation society ladies.
 
“We’ve had an emergency here.
 
This poor woman – ” he pointed at Lindsay
 
“--has fallen and hurt her wrist very
badly.”

A murmur rushed through the crowd as the old
women looked at each other.
 
Emergencies were something they understood.

“Finish your meal,” Chace told them, “and it’s
all on the house.
 
Chuck will help
you with anything you need.”
 
He
looked behind him to where Chuck was standing by the kitchen door.
 

Chuck nodded.

There was another excited ripple through the
crowd as Chace guided Lindsay outside.

But as soon as they hit the parking lot,
someone began calling after them.

“Hey! Hey! Wait!”

He turned around.
 
Shit.
 
It was the crazy mother.
 
Chace had forgotten all about her.

“Oh, Lindsay!” she wailed, rushing toward
them.
 
“What
happened?”

“It’s okay, ma’am,” Chace said.
 
He remembered Lindsay telling him about
her mother’s tendency to overreact, and how it annoyed Lindsay and only made
her feel worse.
 
“Lindsay hurt her
wrist, but I’m taking her to the emergency room.”

“Lindsay hurt her wrist!” the woman exclaimed,
like Chace had just told her Lindsay had been in a knife fight.

“Yes,” he said patiently.
 
“But I’m taking her to the doctor
now.
 
It’s going to be fine.”

“Oh, my God!” The mother twisted her hands in
front of her, then fluttered them like she was some kind of bird. “How is she
going to type?
 
She has a mortgage
now, you know.
 
I was always telling
her she should have gotten that disability insurance, it’s the kind of thing
young people never want to think about, but with her insisting on being
self-employed, I told her she really– ”

“Yes, well,” Chace said, wondering why she was
talking to him as if Lindsay wasn’t standing right there.
 
“Lindsay will call you as soon as she’s
done.”

He didn’t wait for her answer, just steered
Lindsay toward his truck and opened the passenger door.
 
Lindsay got inside, and he shut the door
behind her before heading for the driver’s side.

 
“You doing okay?’ he asked as he slid in
next to her.

She nodded, but her face had gone white.
 
“Do you think it’s broken?”

“No.”
 
It was true.
 
He’d been on
the soccer team in college and had been involved in enough “adventures gone
wrong”
 
-- bar fights, dares, stupid
ideas – to know what a broken bone looked like. “If it was broken, you’d
be screaming.”

“It hurts,” she said, “but not enough to
scream.”

He handed her the bottle of water that was
sitting in the cup holder.
 
“Drink
this.”“Thanks,” she said, taking a sip.