Hopeless (9 page)

Victoria would have given anything to be
able to lean back into the protective circle of his strong arms, but she didn’t
have the right to lean on him or anyone else. She was alone in this world, which
meant she had to fight her own battles. She’d learned to live with that fact a
long time ago. “I’m fine. Please…”

Jay reached out and pulled her back against
his chest, cupping her shoulders in his big hands. “Everyone needs someone to
lean on sometimes, sweetheart.”

She closed her eyes and tried to find the
strength to fight him, but she couldn’t. “You’re wrong.  I don’t need anyone.
I’ve never needed anyone.” He slid his arms around her waist and it felt so
good, too good.

“What about your family? Where are they?”

Victoria knew she wouldn’t have told him
the truth had she not been feeling so vulnerable, but he’d caught her at a weak
moment, when her defenses were down. “I don’t have any family.”

He pressed his lips against her shoulder.
“Really? You have no one?”

She closed her eyes against the sharp stab
of pain she thought had long since died. She didn’t think she was still capable
of missing the parents who’d abandoned her, but sometimes life would throw her
a curve, like today, and she’d find herself wishing she had a mom to dry her
tears. “Nope…” She cleared her throat and tried to sound braver than she felt
when she said, “Just me, myself, and I. Always has been, always will be.”

He rubbed his calloused hand up and down
her arm, making her shiver. “Did they die in an accident?”

It would have been easier to lie, but she
wasn’t a coward. “No, they abandoned me.” She brushed away the tears that
refused to stop falling. “I don’t know my old man’s story, but my mother left me
at the front desk of a homeless shelter, said she’d be right back…” She
swallowed the hard ball of emotion clogging her throat. “She never came back.
No one ever heard from her again.”

“Oh God,” he whispered, pressing his lips
to her shoulder. “I’m so sorry. How old were you when she left?”

She shrugged, trying to pretend it wasn’t
ripping her guts out to share memories that were usually buried so deep they
never saw the light of day. “I don’t know exactly, no one does. A newborn, for
sure. Maybe a few days old, maybe a few weeks, who knows?”

His voice sounded rough and raw when he
asked, “The people she left you with, did they try to contact the hospitals in
the area?”

She nodded. “I guess so, but they didn’t
have a hell of a lot to go on. Besides, they had enough mouths to feed, so they
just called the authorities and I wound up in the system. They gave me a name,
a new set of caretakers, and voila…”

“Your birthday…”

Victoria could have killed him for bringing
that up right now. She choked back a sob when she said, “I don’t have a
birthday, Jay.”

“But your birth certificate…”

“I guess they just made up a date. What
were they supposed to do?”

“So you’ve never celebrated a birthday?”

She tried to push out of his arms, but he
wouldn’t let her. Instead of feeling confined and anxious, she just felt
protected. For the first time ever, it felt like someone cared enough to want
to protect her from the evil in the world. “It’s not a big deal. You get used
to it.”

Jay turned her to face him. He gripped her
shoulders so she couldn’t flee. “I want to know what happened today. What got
you so upset?”

Given what she’d already told him, her
run-in with Rob seemed insignificant by comparison. “I went to tell my old boss
I wouldn’t be coming back to work for him.” She looked down at his chest when
she said, “I didn’t even get a chance to tell him before he came at me.”

His fingertips bit into her flesh. “What
the hell do you mean he came at you? What did he do to you?”

“Nothing…” She flattened her palms against
his chest and could feel how hard his heart was pounding, almost as fast and
hard as her own. “He just kissed me.”

Jay’s eyes drifted to her cut lip. “You
mean he tried to force you to kiss him, don’t you?”

She nodded. “Yes, but…” She reached out to
grab his wrist when he reached for the helmet hooked on the back of his
motorcycle. “What are you doing? Where are you going?”

“Where do you think I’m goin’? I’m gonna
show your buddy what happens when he’s the one fearin’ for his safety.”

She grabbed the helmet out of his hands and
put it behind her back. The look in his eyes… he was enraged. It would have
scared her, but she knew she had nothing to fear from him. “Jay, you can’t.
Please.” She feared if he started in on Rob, Jay would wind up in a jail cell
and Rob would end up in a body bag. She couldn’t live with that on her
conscience. “I’m begging you, just let it go.”

“He put his hands on you.” His eyes roamed
over her body, looking for obvious signs of struggle. “Did it go any further?
Did he—”

“No!” She smiled, trying to ease his
tension. “I kneed him before he had the chance.”

Jay shook his head, a half-smile pulling at
the corners of his lips. “Why am I not surprised?”

“‘Cause you know I can take care of
myself.” She stowed his helmet away on the storage compartment and turned the
key positioned in the small lock before handing it back to him. “You can’t be too
careful.”

He watched her walk toward the door of his
studio. “No, you sure as hell can’t. You never know when someone might come
along and blindside ya when ya ain’t lookin’.” 

Jay was still seething about Victoria’s
encounter with her boss when his brother stuck his head in the door hours
later. “What the hell do you want?”

Mike grinned. “I’m here to pick up my date.
I figured she’d still be here.”

Victoria poked her head out of Jay’s
office, where she was putting away office supplies. “Hey, I thought we were
gonna meet at Jimmy’s?”

Jay shook his head. “You’re takin’ her to
Jimmy’s on your first date? That’s classy, real classy.”

“No, I thought we’d start out at Jimmy’s.”
He raised an eyebrow when his eyes drifted over Victoria’s long, bare legs.
“Who knows where we’ll end up, right, sugar?”

Victoria just smiled and rolled her eyes,
but it took everything in Jay not to slam his brother up against the wall and
force the words back down his throat. He hated feeling so helpless. He was the
one who should be taking Victoria out for dinner tonight, not Mike. “We’re not
finished here. She’ll have to meet you at Jimmy’s later.”

Mike sat down in one of the guest chairs
lining the wall of windows in the open studio. “I don’t mind waitin’.”

“Well, I mind. Get the hell out of my
studio before I throw you out.”

Mike smirked. “Man, you’re stressed. When
was the last time you got laid?”

Before Jay could control the impulse, he
had Mike by the shirt and was pulling him out of the chair. He got in his face,
and he could feel his veins popping and blood pressure peaking when he said,
“You know I could kill you right here, right now, with my bare hands, don’t you?”

Victoria grabbed Jay’s bulging bicep,
trying to pull the two apart. “Jay, for God’s sake, let him go. You’re just
having a bad day. You don’t want to take it out on him.”

No, he’d rather take it out on her former
boss, but his brother was the next best target. He finally loosened his grip
and took a step back. “Get out of my sight, now.”

Mike straightened his black, button down
shirt and scowled. “And everyone says I’m the hothead. Man, you need to get a
grip.”

Victoria grabbed Jay’s arm and pulled him
away from his brother. “Um, Jay, I need your help with something in the
office.” She smiled at Mike. “Is it okay if I meet you at Jimmy’s in an hour? I
just need to stop at home so I can freshen up.”

Mike grinned. “You look just fine from
where I’m standin’, darlin’.”

Jay clenched his fists at his sides and
tried to ignore the soft pressure of Victoria’s fingertips biting into his
skin. He closed his eyes and imagined her hands clenching his back in the heat
of a passionate moment. Damn, he had it bad for this woman. “Get outta here.
We’ve got work to do.”

“All right, I’m goin’.” He walked toward
the lobby, but turned around to face his brother just before he reached the
door. “Hey, we okay, man?”

Jay nodded. “Yeah, we’re good.”

It wasn’t his brother’s fault the nagging
voice inside Jay’s head wouldn’t give him a pass just this once. Sometimes he
wished he could be more like his brother. The only rules Mike followed were
those defined by the lawmakers. When it came to his personal life, anything and
anyone was fair game as long as she wasn’t wearing another man’s ring.  

Mike winked at Victoria. “Don’t keep me
waitin’ too long, beautiful.”

Victoria chuckled as her date walked out
the door. “Why do I get the feeling he’ll be chatting up some other woman by the
time I get there?”

“Probably because he will.” Jay started
breaking down the packing boxes so he could take them out to the recycle bin
when Victoria grabbed his arm.

“I’ll say it again, if you have a problem
with me going out with your brother…” She looked up at him expectantly, as
though she was almost hoping he would object. “Just say the word, Jay. The last
thing I’d want to do is cause problems between you two.”

Jay knew he was the one with the problem,
not his brother, and certainly not Victoria. “Tell me something, you ever dated
anyone you worked for?”

“No, that’s a line I know better than to
cross.” She squeezed his forearm. “Look, I think you’re a great guy, and I’m
obviously attracted to you, but I don’t do relationships.”

He took a step back. He needed to put some
distance between them if he had a prayer of resisting the overwhelming urge to
kiss her. “What do you mean, you don’t do relationships?”

“I go out for dinner with guys like your
brother. I have sex every once in a great while, but I make sure my partner
knows the score.”

“Let me get this straight. You’ve never had
a serious boyfriend? Ever?”

“No.”

Jay couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
She was a gorgeous woman. It was hard to imagine she hadn’t turned down dozens
of marriage proposals already. “How old are you?”

She smiled. “Did you even look at the paperwork
you had me fill out earlier?”

“I haven’t had a chance. Just answer the
question. How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

She seemed so strong, but Jay was
perceptive enough to see through the façade to the scared little girl hiding
out just beneath the surface. He knew Victoria was afraid that little girl
would shatter if she ever let anyone get close enough to break her heart again.

He couldn’t even imagine what it had been
like for her, growing up alone, knowing there wasn’t a single person in the
world she could count on to look out for her. No wonder she’d taken up martial
arts. He had no doubt she’d been looking for the sense of empowerment she
thought karate could give her.

“What were they like, your foster parents?”

She rolled her eyes. “Which ones?”

Jay was almost afraid to ask. “How many?”

Victoria shrugged and he could tell she was
going for indifference, but she fell miles short. “I don’t know, six, I guess.
The last one was the worst.” She ran her hands up and down her arms as though
she was suddenly chilled to the bone. “But for the most part, they just kept
their distance. They did their thing, and they let me do mine. As long as the
government kept sending the checks, they gave me a roof over my head and food…”
She smirked. “When they didn’t lose the grocery money at the casino.”

He wanted to pull her into his arms to
comfort her, but he knew she would only resist. “It must have been tough
growin’ up like that. I can’t even imagine. I mean, my parents split when we
were young, but they were both there for us, always.”

“Then consider yourself lucky.” She bit her
bottom lip. “It wasn’t so bad. Hell, it was the only thing I’d ever known. I
think it was better in some ways.”

“How so?” he asked quietly.

He was almost afraid to spook her. His gut
told him she’d never opened up to anyone the way she was opening up to him, and
he didn’t want her to stop. He wanted to know everything there was to know
about her, and he knew even then he wouldn’t be satisfied. He imagined he could
spend the rest of his life getting to know this woman and never tire of
learning more about her.

“Sometimes I think if I’d been able to
remember my mother, it would have been worse, ya know? At least this way, I’ve
never had to miss her.”

Jay knew that couldn’t possibly be true. He
had no doubt Victoria still grieved the loss of the mother she never knew. “You
ever think about havin’ kids of your own someday? I bet that experience would
make you a great mama.”

She scowled. “How the hell do you know? I
don’t know the first thing about being a parent.” Her voice trembled when she
said, “And to answer your question, no, I never think about having kids of my
own.”