Treasured by Thursday (Weekday Brides Series Book 7) (22 page)

They’d just complicated everything.

He couldn’t bring himself to care. It was still dark, the clock on the table said it was after three in the morning.

Gabi shifted in her sleep, and Hunter reached around her waist and moved closer. Only when his head rested on the same pillow as hers and her floral scent met his nose did he let himself relax.

He’d heard people talk about mind-blowing sex . . . rock-the-universe orgasms . . . and yeah, he’d had his share of encounters that he thought were defined in those terms.

He’d been wrong.

Maybe it was the conquest itself. The reality that the woman sleeping in his arms had told him that under no terms would she let him touch her.

Maybe it was Gabi.

Maybe unadulterated lust poisoned his brain.

He started to doze and Gabi wiggled one of her legs between his.

His body responded to her slight touch. Hunter considered taking her . . . again . . . then decided a wide-awake lover would prove better than one half-asleep. The sun would rise in a few hours.

He could wait.

Chapter Twenty-One

Hunter sat across from a bathrobe-clad Gabi as they sipped tea and enjoyed room service.

She’d been just as passionate in the morning as she had been the night before. If she was having second thoughts on what had happened, there wasn’t any sign of it in her voice, or her actions.

And since when did he want to talk about sex after he’d had it?

Since he woke up, apparently.

“Is it me?” Gabi asked as she spooned a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth, “Or are these eggs magnificent?” She licked her lips, the tip chasing a tiny speck of egg inside.

“Watching you eat them . . . that might be classified as magnificent.”

She tilted her head and gave him a slightly embarrassed smile. “I’m starving. I haven’t been awake and active that long at night since . . .” She lowered her fork and studied the ceiling. “I don’t think I ever have.”

God she was good for his ego. She’d also just opened the door to the conversation that had been on his mind since he showered. “Any second thoughts . . . on last night?”

Her eyes met his. “Probably. They just haven’t made themselves known yet.”

An honest answer.

“What about you?” she asked, forking more eggs into her mouth.

“I’m more concerned about you. You were adamantly opposed to intimacy.”

She lowered her fork and leaned back in the chair. “I didn’t know you. I probably still don’t. Not completely, in any event.”

“Couples that have been married for twenty years learn secrets about the other.”

Gabi wiped her mouth with the napkin in her lap before she spoke. “I’ve learned a lot more about Hunter Blackwell in the past month than I ever thought possible. Intimacy, however, has been something I’ve feared . . . I think you can understand why.”

He leaned across the table and placed his hand over hers.

“I’m not afraid of you,” she said. “I probably should be.”

That hurt, but he had to own her statement. “You probably should be,” he agreed.

She actually grinned with his words. “Thank you for not ignoring the elephant in the room.”

“You’re my wife,” he reminded her. “You’re not someone I can ignore.”

She removed her hand from under his and continued eating. “Would you? If we’d just met . . . no marriage contract . . . no drama? Would you ignore me after last night?”

“And this morning?”

Her fork hesitated and her cheeks turned pink.

“And this morning,” she repeated.

“Another woman? Maybe. I didn’t get my reputation by speculation alone.”

She seemed to respect his answer, so he continued, “Gabriella Blackwell demands something more. And it isn’t simply the last name . . . though I think we can both say neither of us have embarked on a sexual affair with our spouse.”

“That sounds so strange.”

“Do you have another way of putting it?”

She continued to chew as he shrugged. “Affair sounds better than a one-night stand. And is that what we’re doing?”

He lifted his coffee cup, brought it to his lips, and muttered. “One night? I don’t think so. I can’t say I know what the hell I’m doing.”

She gave up on her breakfast, dropped her napkin on her plate.

“I don’t either,” she told him. “But I do think we need to cover a few rules.”

There she was . . . the woman who stormed into his office with a contract only a fool would sign.

Color Hunter a fool. “What kind of rules?”

“We both have issues with trust . . . yes?”

“Yeah . . . I suppose.”

“So honesty above all things. I’ll start. When I put the clause in our contract about affairs, it was more to push your buttons than me caring if you slept around. But as long as you and I are . . .” her gaze drifted to the closed door behind him.

“Intimate?”

“Yes. As long as we’re intimate, monogamy isn’t something I want to live without.”

He swallowed. He hadn’t agreed to that kind of relationship since high school . . . and that was for what? Two weeks? Then again, he hadn’t thought of another woman since he’d met and encountered the force named Gabriella.

“And if either of us feels the itch with someone else, we’re honest about it,” she said.

The thought of her with another man left him colder than he liked. “I can agree to that.”

She kept her eye on his. “No matter how it might hurt the other person.”

“I promised I wouldn’t hurt you.” But could he keep that if someone else came along? God, he was such an asshole.

“That promise was physical. It’s up to me to protect my heart, Hunter. That isn’t your job. Yeah, it would hurt if you were to tell me,
last night was great, but let’s not do it again
, but that’s better than pretending attraction when there isn’t any.”

He couldn’t help it. He laughed. “
Great
isn’t a word I’d use, and
let’s not
isn’t even in my vocabulary.”

“So we agree. Monogamy and honesty . . . even if it hurts.”

“And one more thing,” he added. “Our contract still stands. Eighteen months.”

“Seventeen months, two days.”

“Did I miss a couple of weeks?”

“Our contract was signed before we said
I do
. You really should read the fine print, Wall Street.” It made him happy to see her smiling.

“Fair enough.” He lifted his hand across the table as if he was talking with his lawyer. “Should we shake on it?”

Instead of extending her hand, Gabi stood and removed the belt on the bathrobe.

The sight of her body . . . all of it, unclothed and standing in the middle of a hotel room in Dallas, had his mouth completely dry.

“I have a better idea,” she said as she started toward the stairs.

It took a minute for his brain to register, but when it did, he growled and gave chase.

Escrow closed the following Friday, and on Saturday, Samantha’s sister, Jordan, went into respiratory arrest and was on life support.

Instead of moving into her new home, Gabi was keeping pace with all the current and past members of Alliance in an effort to support Samantha and Blake.

“Is there anything I can do?” Hunter asked her over the phone when she called to tell him there wouldn’t be any moving vans over the weekend.

“It’s round-the-clock coffee in the waiting room. Unless you love the smell of antiseptic and something I can’t identify.”

They’d spent the majority of the week apart.

Dallas would never look the same. They debated separate rooms in the new house . . .

Then Wednesday came . . . and dinner . . . and the back of the limo. But Gabi was working hard to push that memory from her head as she spoke with Hunter now. “I’m sure you have some packing to do.”

“I have people for that,” he said. “Besides, I’m not moving anything from the condo, so my packing is limited to suits.”

He was keeping his place in the city, a decision made before Dallas. BD . . . an acronym Gabi kept thinking.

“So you’re bored and need somewhere to go . . . and the hospital is it?”

“Bored? I don’t know what that word means.”

She felt a smile on her face. Around her, hospital staff walked in and out of the locked doors of the ICU. The lobby was filled with familiar faces. Gwen sat next to a former Alliance employee, Karen Gardner. Karen had worked with Samantha’s sister early on and was taking this latest turn in Jordan’s health to heart. It didn’t help that Karen had recently learned she was pregnant with her first child and emotions ran high.

“If you’re not bored . . . what are you doing?”

“Multitasking.”

There was nothing laughable going on around her, yet she found herself giggling. “What does a billionaire do when multitasking?” she asked.

“This billionaire is trying to figure out how to hire a nanny without tipping off the world of my intentions while simultaneously guiding two private detectives in different parts of the world.”

“When do you think Hayden will come?”

“A month . . . maybe two. Hard to tell. I have a child and family lawyer and her team working it. If my PI can document neglect, we’ll get him sooner. Emergency case could be in a week. Who knows?”

“Want my advice?” she asked.

“Bring it.”

“Skip the nanny search. We’ll deal with that when we get him. Between the two of us, we’ll manage.”

Hunter hesitated. “I work every day. I can’t dump this on you.”

“You’re not dumping, I’m volunteering. Once we have him, we can begin Operation Nanny Search. Besides, I don’t want some beautiful, young blonde in my home tempting my husband.” She was only half teasing.

“I don’t know . . .”

“Hunter, please. Concentrate on your detective. You have two on this?”

“No, only one. The other one is on you.”

The smile on her face fell.

“On finding the name behind the trafficking of money through your accounts,” he said quickly.

“Don’t scare me like that,” she scolded.

“Seems all the secrets are on the table . . . unless you’re hiding something.”

Gabi took another look around to ensure no one was listening. “My skeletal closets are empty, Hunter.”

“Good to know.”

“Your PI doesn’t need to worry about any more trafficking. I put a stop to that.”

“You what?”

“The night you cornered me with the information I found both accounts. It only took me a few tries to figure out Alonzo’s passwords. He never was that clever about numbers. When I backed out of the accounts, I changed them.”

“Oh, Gabi . . . no. You didn’t.” Distress laced Hunter’s voice.

“Yes, I did. I don’t want someone going around using my name on an account with that kind of money in it. Freezing the accounts until I could hire someone to find the person behind them seemed the best course of action.”

“No, no, no, no . . .”

She turned toward the wall, lowered her voice. “What?”

“Think about it. Whoever has their hands on that money can no longer access it. That’s gonna piss someone off.”

The smugness of a moment ago was gone now. “I didn’t consider that.”

“I’m switching gears . . . you need a bodyguard until we have this sorted out.”

“That’s ridiculous, Hunter. I do not need a bodyguard.” Her words were louder this time, and several heads swiveled toward hers.

Gwen ended her conversation with Karen and started toward Gabi.

“We’ll talk about this later.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Hunter said.

Gwen stopped right in front of her, eyes sharp. “A bodyguard?”

Gabi lowered her cell phone from her ear. “It’s nothing, Gwen. Hunter’s being overprotective.”

Gwen placed her hands on her hips and glared. “I’ve found that when a man as rich as Hunter thinks you need a bodyguard . . . you need a bodyguard. Tell him I’ll have Neil give him a call.”

Gabi placed her hand over the receiver of her phone. “I don’t need—”

With one swift movement, Gwen snatched the phone from her hand and put it to her ear. “Hi Hunter, it’s Gwen. Yes, it’s been a long time. Right, one of my brother’s weddings . . .” Gwen laughed and then kept talking. “Listen, about a bodyguard, my husband heads up Blake’s security . . . yes, that’s right, Neil . . . brilliant. So glad you remember. I look forward to it. Anytime.”

Gwen lifted her chin, handed the phone back, and walked away.

“Happy now?” Gabi asked Hunter once she lifted the phone to hear ear again.

“Very. One less thing to research. I’m going to come by and pick you up.”

“Enough. I’m not a child.” And she was getting a little more than slightly irritated with everyone
handling
her.

“Maybe I just want to see you.”

He was lying, but the words were sweet. “Why haven’t you jumped in front of a bus yet?” she asked.

He started to laugh. “There’s my girl. You need to eat. I’ll pick you up at five in the lobby.”

“If you don’t get hit by a bus first.” There was no bite in her voice.

“I’ll try. If not, I’ll see you at five.”

“Fine, but nothing fancy. I’m not dressed for fancy.”

After disconnecting the call, Gabi returned to the waiting room couch and an internal interrogation.

“So,” Gwen started, “what’s this about needing a bodyguard?”