Crazy Love - Krista & Chase (13 page)

“How long are you staying?” He could hear the desperation just under the surface of his mom’s timid voice. It was as if she were terrified to hear the answer.

That was the second time he’d heard that question today. And just like the first time, he still didn’t have an answer. “I’m not sure.”

Abby’s face fell in disappointment, but she tried to answer him in an upbeat tone. “Okay.”

Seeing her struggling to hide what she was feeling broke Chase’s heart. He’d seen her do that with his dad his whole life. Whether she was scared, sad, mad, hurt, she put on a brave face and covered all of that up.

“Don’t.” His tone came out much harsher than he’d meant it to.

She froze and some of the color drained from her cheeks. He wanted to kick his own ass for speaking so gruffly to her.

Reaching out, he gingerly covered her hand as he apologized. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’ll be here until I know you’re okay.”

At his calming tone and comforting words, her face lit up again.

She started telling him how proud she was of him, how much she’d missed him. He’d heard those same words on messages she’d left for him over the years. Seen those words on e-mails and letters she’d sent him. But there was just something so different about sitting in front of her and hearing them. They washed over him like they never had before.

As he moved the topic along, asking her about her life, he couldn’t believe how much Krista’s name came up. Krista this. Krista that. Chase wasn’t sure if his mom was just strapping on her bow and arrow to play cupid or if Krista was actually her only form of social interaction.

After seeing the condition of her house yesterday, he didn’t think she was in the habit of having people over. When he was growing up, Chase’s mom hadn’t been
allowed
to have friends. His father had strictly forbidden it.

For some reason, Chase had just assumed that after his dad died his mom would move on with her life. She would be free. Free to have her own life. No one to scare her, hurt her, keep her under lock and key.

Now, he was starting to get the feeling that, even though that might be the case, his mom had still lived like it wasn’t. Guilt began to creep up as he spoke to his mom and got an idea of what kind of condition she was in.

Yes, she’d told him to get out and not come back. Yes, she hadn’t left his asshole of a father. Yes, he wished his childhood would have been different and his mom was partly to blame for that.

But Chase was a man now, not a boy. He was successful. He was wealthy. He’d been living a privileged life for years and his mom, it seemed, hadn’t been living at all.

Before Chase made any decisions about the future, he needed to get to the bottom of this, find out what was really going on with his mom. And he knew exactly who to ask.

Krista.

A
loud growl sounded, vibrating off the walls of the elevator. Krista’s hands flew to her stomach. She was hungrier than she’d originally thought.

Just a few moments ago, she’d been on her way to the cafeteria to grab a sandwich when she’d been called to a meeting in the north wing of the hospital, where the admin offices were located. Her supervisor Marina had been very vague with the details, but when she’d asked if she could run and grab something to eat, she was assured that there would be food provided.

The elevator doors opened and she started down the long corridor to conference room B. Although Marina hadn’t wanted to tell her what this was about, Krista had a pretty good idea. Her contract with the hospital ended in two months. By then, she’d have the necessary hours to become board certified. She was one of the best PTs they had at HCCH. Money was not everything, but she did hope that they took both her job performance and pursuit of board certification into consideration when they renewed her contract.

Krista knew her worth. She just hoped that they did. Unfortunately, they probably also knew that this was the only hospital she wanted to work in. Sure, she could commute to Chicago, to the larger hospitals. However, that was the last thing she wanted to do. So chances were, whatever they offered her, she would take. Which was why she was not looking forward to this meeting. She only liked to negotiate things when she had the upper hand. In this case, they did.

On the upside, at least this little interruption to her day was diverting her mind from the thing it had been obsessing about for the last twenty-four hours—no matter what she did to try and stop it!—Chase. Not even a minute had passed without some Chase-related thought popping up and making itself known. It was really beginning to piss her off.

Two days ago, Krista would have admitted—only to herself, of course!—that she thought about Chase
way
too much. She had even put in place self-imposed guidelines in an attempt to limit such wasted time. The rule was that she allowed herself one hour per day, which she normally utilized at night while listening to his music, to think about Chase. Said allotted time was the only time that she permitted herself to indulge in missing him, thoughts of him, fantasies starring him. It hadn’t been a complete success, but it had helped her to not obsess, which she took as a win.

Now
, her entire game plan had been flipped upside down and inside out. Every minute of every hour was Chase filled. It seemed like there was nothing she could do about it.

So she’d had to revise her Chase strategy. Her mind was a goner. It had gone to the dark side and there was nothing she could do that seemed to control it. What she could control was her response to her obsessive thoughts and Chase’s presence. Keep her guard up. Not let him get a foothold into her
psyche
or her
panties
.

With that guy, it wasn’t ‘give him an inch and he would take a mile.’ Nope. It wasn’t even Chase who she distrusted. It was herself. She had to protect herself from herself, and that meant keeping her distance from Chase Malone.

At this point, she would consider it a victory if she was able to make it through his visit without spending any length of time with him—and of course without having any sexual-in-nature incidents. Krista was hanging on by a very thin, rapidly fraying thread. Looking at Chase as the enemy was the only way she would survive. Her happiness, her heart, and her
sanity
were on the line.

Her stomach growled once again, and of course Chase’s voice popped into her head when he’d asked her to dinner. “
From what I remember, you do like to eat.”
Ugh. He could be such a smartass. He got away with it because he was a sexy, hot, sexy, gorgeous, sexy, talented—oh and had she mentioned
sexy
—smartass.

That was the other thing she needed to make sure she guarded herself against. She knew his game. It was so easy to be drawn into their patented banter. It was one of the things she missed the most about him.

Their relationship hadn’t been all flowers and candy. Chase challenged her and she did the same to him. They called each other on their BS, which, nine times out of ten, ended up in a fight. But those had always led to hot make-out sessions when they were pre-teens and hot make-up sex once they were teens.

Everything with Chase was hot. Too hot. They had always brought out the fire in each other. Krista had dated other guys since Chase. Some of them even semi-seriously, but she hadn’t shared the same combustible energy with any of them. She knew that if she spent any kind of time with Chase the sparks that had been flying between them would be the least of her worries. She feared that if she let her guard down, even for a moment, there would be a fiery inferno she would not be able to walk away from unscathed.

As she rounded the corner, she saw that the door to the conference room was closed. She had a brief thought that that was odd but dismissed it immediately. After turning the knob and stepping inside, she saw that there was quite a spread laid out on the light oak oval table in the center of the room. Her stomach was definitely going to enjoy this meeting even if it ended up that her bank account didn’t.

The room was empty other than the insane amount of food. Moving towards the small sandwiches that were in the center of a blue dish, she saw that they were cut in triangles. Score! For some strange reason, she’d always cut her sandwiches into pizza shapes. She still did it. Her cousins and sisters would sometimes make fun of her, but she couldn’t care less. It made her happy.

Just as she picked up one of the triangle shapes of goodness, she heard the door shut behind her. Turning her head, she expected to see the hospital administrator Mr. Fields. She almost spit out the bite of bread and lunchmeat when, instead of a short, portly, balding fifty-something man standing in front of her, there was a tall, sexy twenty-seven-year-old rock star.

“Hi,” he said casually, as if it were the most normal thing in the world for him to be standing in a
staff only
conference room.

Chewing quickly, she swallowed the bite she’d just taken (which was a difficult task, considering the fact that Krista’s mouth had gone dry at the sight of the sexy stubble that ran along Chase’s jawline). “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she barked at him. “You can’t be in here. I have a meeting.”

Sure, maybe she was being a little harsh. But did she care? No. Krista had worked hard to establish a good reputation for herself and she needed to maintain her professionalism. If Chase was here when Mr. Fields arrived, it wouldn’t look good. This was her job, and it was going to be long after Chase blew out of town again. If she sounded like a mama bear protecting her cubs, then so be it. He was a big boy. He could handle it.

He stared at her, his only reaction a slight raise of his left brow. Even that small gesture made her insides go to mush and had her fighting a massive swoon attack that was threatening to take place.

Chase stood in front of her wearing jeans, a green vintage t-shirt, and a baseball cap. On any other guy, it would look at the very best casual, at the worst sloppy. On Chase, it looked mouth-wateringly delicious.

One could use the argument that anyone could look good when you had more money than God. But in this case, she knew for a fact that Chase Malone always looked good in
anything
he wore. His wide shoulders and lean, muscular chest created the perfect frame for anything from t-shirts and sweatshirts to tuxes. All of which she’d seen him in.

He looks even better out of them,
that irritatingly nosy voice in her head piped up. She pushed it out of her mind and ignored it…mostly.

Krista knew that he was waiting for an apology for biting his head off. His sexy ass could wait all day. One was not going to be forthcoming. “I’m serious. You need to go. I have a meeting.”

“I know,” he said smugly, as if that explained everything.

Now he was really starting to make her mad. Not just because he was sexier than he had any right to be while sharing her air space. Nope, her panties were in a bunch because of his entitled attitude. Maybe he’d just been a ‘rock star’ so long that he’d forgotten what it was like to work a
real
job, with a
real
boss, and
real
consequences if you were unprofessional.

And why wouldn’t he have forgotten? What would even qualify as unprofessional behavior for a rock star?
Not trashing hotel rooms and actually showering?
She thought snarkily.

Just as Krista was about to give him a piece of her mind, he said, “Your meeting is with me.”

“What?”

“I called this meeting,” he explained as he stepped up beside her to the table and began filling a small plate of finger food.

“Are you serious?” Krista said, feeling her jaw lock with tension.

“Yep,” he said as he popped a green grape in his mouth, looking really proud of himself for orchestrating all of this.

“You did this?” she asked again as she waved her hand towards the table filled with food. She knew she was repeating herself, but she was still having trouble wrapping her mind around it.

He nodded. “Vickey helped me.”

Of course she did!

“Chase,” she spoke slowly, trying not to overreact. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, even if he made her feel like she was. She was an adult. She just needed to set boundaries. Like an adult. “You can’t come to my job and involve my superiors—”

“I needed to talk to you,” he interrupted.

This was un-freaking-believable. Who did he think he was?

“I can’t believe you. Just because you are…you, you think you can just snap your fingers and I’ll come running? I don’t care if you were named the sexiest man alive three times and you have eight Grammys. This is my job.” Krista’s heart was racing as she turned to leave.

“I need to talk to you.” His deep voice vibrated through her, but she didn’t let the fact that her body was betraying her slow her down. She reached for the door handle and was just about to flip him the bird when he continued. “About my mom.”

Shit
.

Abby. If there was one soft spot Krista could not guard herself against, the subject of Chase’s mom was it. Her Achilles’ heel. She felt like Samson getting his hair cut off. All of her fight and strength dissipated like Alka-Seltzer. She could practically hear the plop-plop-fizz-fizz. Except in her case, she felt anything
but
a relief.