Obsession (The Plus One Chronicles) (8 page)

She stared at his hands which were covered in cuts and scrapes from getting her and the kids out of the car. They were still shiny from the ointment Kat had insisted on putting on them after she and Sloane showered. Sloane had let her care for him, and now he was trying to care for her. “I was stupid to think I could go to work in a few hours.” Sloane had known it, but he hadn’t tried to force her to take the pain pills earlier. He’d let her handle it her way.

“You have to rest.” His worried eyes captured hers in the mirror. “Kellen and his parents are going to run the bakery for you tomorrow.”

She was making it worse on Sloane. He’d been upset about Ethan, dealt with everything at the hospital, brought her back to his house, helped her shower and put her in bed. “Okay.” She swallowed the pills with the water he gave her. “Thanks. Go back to bed. I’m going to sit up for a few minutes and I’ll use this.” She picked up the cold pack. It would really help her hot and throbbing cheek.

He shifted, gently lifting her in his arms. “I’ll sit with you. Hold that pack on your face.” As he passed the bed, he snagged the quilt and then headed out the deck doors into the cool, sea-scented air. He sat on the padded bench of the wide glider and wrapped the quilt around them.

The night surrounded them, the waves rose and crashed in a soothing rhythm, and Sloane tucked her left cheek against his chest while she held the pack to her right side. He pushed the glider, rocking them slowly.

Her face was already numbing. But she hadn’t wanted Sloane to have to get up with her. “I wanted you to sleep.”

“Every time I close my eyes, I see that car swerving then heading for the block wall. I couldn’t stop it, couldn’t do a damned thing.” He sucked in air. “This is better. I can feel you breathing.”

They were both reliving it over and over. “I didn’t know what to do. Kylie cried for her dad, she was so scared. They all were.” Kat couldn’t stop the words. “By the time I realized Ethan was unconscious, there wasn’t enough time to get in the front and stop the car. I shook him, and that jerked his foot off the accelerator.”

“That saved your lives. The car was barreling through intersections, swerving all over. If it’d gone into that wall full speed and head on, you’d all be dead.”

She closed her eyes and shuddered as her thoughts bounced around. “I can still hear Ben scream when I moved Kylie off his arm.”

Sloane eased his hand beneath her shirt, bypassed her bruised ribs and rubbed her upper back in slow strokes. “You did everything you could. The doctors said it’d have been much worse if you hadn’t gotten everyone on the floor. From now on, the kids will be in seat belts in the limo.”

It didn’t feel like she’d done enough. Kat wished she could have gotten through the privacy window to stop the car entirely. “How bad is Ethan?”

“He’s banged up, but the heart attack did the most harm, causing permanent damage to his heart. They don’t know how much yet. He’ll recover, but his career as a fighter is over.” All Sloane’s muscles stiffened. “Jesus, Kat, I didn’t know. I swear it. I’d never let my fighters do steroids. I didn’t know.”

Kat lifted her head. The cloud cover shifted, allowing a shaft of moonlight to slice through and illuminate the agony in his eyes—the pain for Ethan, anger at him and guilt that he hadn’t known. Here she’d been whining about how scared she’d been when she was fine, and Sloane was hurting deep inside. “He’s one of yours? The kids you mentored?”

He kept her gaze. “Drake found him on the streets trying to get into underground fights. I took over mentoring him soon after.”

“How old was he?”

“Sixteen. Just barely.”

Old anger showed in the faint lines around his eyes. Kat didn’t ask anything else. Ethan’s past was his own. Instead she set the cold pack down and rubbed her thumb over the scar next to Sloane’s mouth. “I believe you didn’t know. The important thing is what to do now.”

“The doctor doesn’t want me questioning Ethan yet, and okay, I get that. But we’ll be questioning everyone else in our program. John and I are going to toss the guesthouse in the morning and find Ethan’s doping kit. Get that shit tested and isolated to figure out how to detect it since it didn’t show up in the drug screens we do regularly. Then we’ll retest everyone.”

“Ethan was getting designer steroids?” Kat sat up, adrenaline dropping into her blood, fighting the pain pills. “Testing for anabolic steroids is very sophisticated. Beating that takes a high skill level.”

“Could you do it?”

The old shame at not being smart enough surfaced, but she wouldn’t lie about this. “No. I wasn’t that good. And even if I was smart enough, I wouldn’t do it. Look at what steroids did to Ethan, and that was likely short-term use. Long-term, they’ve been linked to the destruction of brain cells, and of course ’roid rage.”

Sloane picked up the cold pack and resettled it against her face. “Are you good enough to check the results we have on file and make sure our team doctors aren’t missing it?”

“I can look it over. But Amelia would be better. Marshall could absolutely do it.”

“I want you to look first and tell me if you see anything abnormal. We have to check every damned thing, from monitored collection to results and their evaluation.” He stared at her. “I trust you—no one can buy you off, and you won’t lie to me. You know that it’s more than my business at stake, it’s the health of my fighters. I’m not going to have another Ethan because of lazy staff.”

Her heart clenched. “You trust me with that? I’m not that good.”

“I trust you. You’ll tell me if it’s beyond your abilities. I’ll have all the records sent here in the morning, and we’ll start there.” He brushed her hair back, keeping the pack on her face. “Will you do that for me?”

He trusted her. Believed in her. “Yes.”

“Good. Now lay back down.” He pulled her against him, tucking the quilt around her. “Let me hold you awhile.” He rocked the glider in a smooth, easy motion.

Kat sighed against him, starting to feel the meds working through her system.

“How come you never told me you used to dance?”

In the dark night, it all felt far away. “I just did it for fun, and I can’t do it anymore. Not like that.”

“You dance when you bake. You look damn sexy doing it too.”

Did he really think so? “Habit. I used to bake at my grandmother’s, and we danced all the time. Her name was Sylvia, she was my mom’s mom. At first, my mom didn’t want me in her dance school, but I cried when they put me in science or math programs and camps. I hated them. They made me feel stupid.”

Sloane brushed her hair. “Your grandma rescued you?”

The memories made her smile despite her sore face. “She was on my emergency-contact list. If I cried, she’d come get me and let me dance with the kids at her school. It was fun, no pressure. Grandma never cared if I was good. She only wanted me to feel the music. Eventually my parents let me have my way while they focused on SiriX and Marshall.”

“Were you good?”

“Not professionally good. I didn’t have a passion for it like that. I loved it because it was an escape, a place where I could just be me. She also supported my baking. Her favorite were my peanut butter cookies.”

“You loved her very much. When did she die?”

“A year before I bought Sugar Dancer. Breast cancer.” Kat felt herself starting to drift. “Do you know those pictures in my bakery? The ones of the dancer forms?”

“They look like they’re made of colored sugar.”

He remembered, and that warmed her as much as the blanket and his arms. “Yeah. I had those done from her still shots when she danced professionally. I love those pictures. It’s silly, I guess. I wanted her there with me.”

“Not silly.” Sloane kissed her hair, his warm breath sliding over her skin. “They are a tribute of love.”

He made her feel so safe and loved. She was drifting further, her eyelids getting heavy. “I’m falling asleep. I’ll go back to bed so you don’t have to wake me up.”

“I’ve got you. Sleep, baby. I’ll put you in bed when I go.”

* * *

Kat opened her eyes to full sunlight blazing into the room. Rolling over, she glanced at the clock and startled. After ten a.m. She vaguely remembered Sloane waking her at some point to get her to take more pills and then…nothing until now. She must have been dead asleep.

The bakery.
Grabbing her phone, she found three text messages from Kellen. All variations of,
Everything is fine here, talk later.

She texted back,
Just woke, and love you more than chocolate chunk brownie sundaes. Thanks for saving my ass.

That’s Dr. Ass Saver to you, Kit Kat. I have a PhD.

Kat laughed and regretted it when pain sliced from her eye to her cheek and twinged her ribs.
Laughing hurts, Dr. Ass.

Glad you’re alive to feel it. I’m taking home brownies and cookies as payment. Later.

After a shower to loosen up, she headed downstairs and found Sloane, John and Drake at the conference table in Sloane’s home office. Bright sunlight and a cool breeze streamed in from the opened French doors overlooking the ocean. But all three men were focused on a big-screen TV mounted on the wall across from Sloane’s desk.

A serious-looking man said into the camera, “A source inside the hospital confirmed that Ethan Hunt is one of SLAM Inc’s fighters, and that steroid use is the suspected cause of his heart attack. Which led to this accident.”

Kat was stunned to see pictures of the limo with the front left end crunched against the wall and surrounded by flashing lights from emergency vehicles.

“There will be an investigation into SLAM Inc. and doping allegations.”

“Sloane?”

He rose and spun at her voice. “You’re up.”

“What’s happening?” She gestured to the TV. “How did they find out so fast? Did you tell the media?”

His mouth compressed into a white line for an instant, then he dropped his shoulders with some kind of internal acceptance. “A leak. But it’s out now, and there’s no denying it.”

“What will happen to Ethan?”

Sloane headed to a sideboard and poured out some coffee. “He’ll have to cooperate with the authorities and cut a deal.”

“Holy shit, Kat.” John stepped in front of her, a frown darkening his face. “Did you have your cheek x-rayed?”

His concern touched her. “Like I had a choice? You’ve met Sloane, right? How are Ben and Kylie?”

“Better than I’d have thought. They slept with us, mostly because we wanted to keep an eye on them. This morning, they were chattering nonstop about their big adventure.”

“Good. Tell Sherry I would have tried to stop the car if there’d been time. The brick wall was coming too fast.” She hated that feeling of not knowing what to do.

“No kidding. It all happened in seconds. Sloane was trying to get around the car to see what the fuck was happening, but it was swerving too wildly.” John put his hand on her shoulder. “Thank you for taking care of the kids. All of them. That’s from both Sherry and me. I’d hug you, but I’m afraid I’d hurt you.”

“Her ribs are little sore.” Sloane handed her a cup of coffee. “Did you eat anything?”

It took Kat a second to follow the change in subjects. “Uh, yogurt.” She sipped her coffee to help clear the residual sluggish feeling from the pain pills and sleeping so hard. It also gave her a second to take in Sloane dressed in perfectly draped pants and a pewter-colored dress shirt clinging to his shoulders and arms. Clean-shaven, hair combed back, he oozed confident and powerful elegance that dried her mouth. This was the same man who’d held her last night, telling her how torn up he was about not realizing Ethan was doing steroids.

“She needs a cold pack,” Drake said from where he sat at the table. “You should have been applying it overnight.”

“I did. Three times.”

“Three…? I only remember once.” She believed him, but why didn’t she remember?

He wrapped his arm around her. “You were sleeping. Don’t worry about it.”

Suspicion woke up deep in her brain. “You stayed awake on purpose to watch me.” Her doctor had been mildly concerned. They didn’t see any signs of concussion, but her last one had been so severe they didn’t want her staying alone overnight. “That’s why you agreed to my taking only ibuprofen for the first part of the night.”

He shrugged. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

Wrong. So wrong. Sloane hadn’t wanted her to know what he was doing and feel like a burden. She had to blink away the slight burn in her eyes. “It’s a very big deal to me,” she said softly.

His eyes crinkled. “Yeah?”

He made her feel special, like she mattered. Even when he looked suave and sexy, while she’d pulled on yoga pants and a tank top. “Yeah. Thank you for looking out for me.”

“Always. You up to going over the lab reports? I have the entire set from the group Ethan was tested with, and one other set for comparison.”

That brought her right back to the problems Sloane was facing. She wanted to help more than ever. And now she got why he’d wanted her to look over it—he couldn’t trust anyone else. He’d said it last night, but now she had a firsthand view of the kinds of leaks he dealt with.

“Sure.” She sipped her coffee and slipped into a chair next to Drake. He wore sweatpants, a T-shirt and heavy anxiety weighed down his bony shoulders.