“What the hell?” I say to Hunter as soon as I arrive.
“I told him to keep the fuck away,” he says, then takes a sip of his Scotch. “I got you a Cosmopolitan. It seemed like a fun treat.”
I, however, am not interested in the drink. “You just sent him away?”
“Yes,” Ryan says.
I shake my head, a little bit baffled, a little bit angry. Honestly, I’m not sure what I’m feeling other than a little pissed off. Hadn’t I already taken care of the asshole myself?
“I don’t need you to step in to play guard dog for me,” I say. “I dealt with the guy myself, didn’t I? I’m not one of your job responsibilities.”
“You’re right,” he says, and his tone is clipped enough that I can tell he’s irritated, too. “You’re not a job responsibility. You’re the woman I love.”
I freeze, his words hitting me with the force of a slap. Automatically, I shake my head. The woman I love.
I want to believe it—god, how I want to believe it. But it can’t be true. And even if it is...
I run my fingers through my hair. “Hunter,” I say. “Hunter, don’t.”
“I love you, Jamie. Stay. Don’t go to Texas. Stay with me.”
I am shaking my head, fighting to make reason take over, because if I run solely on emotion, I know I will be lost. That’s the old Jamie, after all. The one who fucks up. The one who gets all twisted around and makes a mess of her life and has to run home to Mom and Dad to get her head back on straight.
The new Jamie thinks.
But damned if the new Jamie knows what to think about this.
He looks blurry, and I realize that I am crying. Brutally, I wipe the tears away with the back of my hand. How can I be so miserable, I wonder. This man loves me. And yet...
“You can’t possibly,” I whisper. “You barely know me.”
True. Yet wasn’t I falling in love with him, too? Hadn’t I told myself that already? Wasn’t I already trying to hide from reality?
“We barely know each other,” I add, this time speaking to the both of us.
“Why does it have to take time to fall in love?” Ryan asks. “If the push is hard enough, the fall is going to be fast.”
I only look at him, wanting to believe.
“And has it really been that fast, Jamie?”
“We haven’t even dated,” I protest.
“I’m not the least bit interested in dating you. Dating suggests an exploration. A process of discovery. But I already know you, Jamie. I know you, and I want you. And I love you.”
He takes my hand, and for a moment all is right with the world. But then I glance across the bar, across the lobby. I see Bryan Raine arguing with a bellman, and my stomach twists as I am reminded what a mess I am.
Raine is the epitome of what I am running from—bad decisions.
But how the hell do I know if Ryan Hunter is a good decision or a bad one?
“I’m sorry,” I say as I tug my hand free. I want to say he is everything I have ever hoped for. I want to say that I love him.
Instead, I say, “I have to think. I’m sorry, Ryan. I have to go.”
Chapter Twelve
The highway stretches out in front of me, and I keep driving, thinking that if I can just get a little farther, maybe to that next mile marker, I will figure it out. But the highway always stays ahead of me, and there is always another mile marker, and I fear that I am thinking too hard.
What am I doing?
I know the answer, of course. I’m running.
What I can’t figure out is why.
I tell myself that I am right to leave him. Maybe not forever, but for a while. While I get my head together. While I stick with The Plan.
Because isn’t the point of The Plan to keep me from doing exactly what has happened with Ryan—to keep me from getting twisted up with a guy?
That’s true—except it’s not.
Because Ryan hasn’t twisted me up. If anything, he’s untangled me.
I reach into my pocket and close my hand around the lock as tears sting my eyes. What am I doing? Who in their right mind runs from love?
Because I do love him. More important, I know that he truly loves me.
I lift my foot off the accelerator, cringing a bit when I realize that I’ve pushed the Ferrari past one hundred. But she really is a sweet ride.
I slow, planning to turn the car around and head back, but something isn’t right.
Once again, the car is making an odd noise, although this time when I listen more closely, I realize that the thwump-thwump isn’t coming from the Ferrari, but from somewhere outside the car.
Frowning, I glance at the land off the shoulder. It is mostly dirt, but that dirt is billowing now, blowing and blustering, forming small dirt devils that spin and spin.
A shadow passes over. And I slam on the brakes as a sleek black helicopter with Stark International emblazoned on the side lands on the shoulder ahead of me.
I kill the engine and race out of the car. I don’t see him, not yet, but I don’t slow. I know he is there. I know he came for me.
And then there he is, jumping from the helicopter to the asphalt below. He ducks to avoid the wind that the still-spinning blades are kicking up, and when he is clear, he makes a twirling motion and the helicopter ascends once again.
I throw myself in his arms. “You came for me,” I say, my voice soft with wonder.
“I will always come for you.” He kisses me. A hard, deep kiss that claims me as his own, and that I feel profoundly all the way down to my toes.
Even after we break the kiss, I cling to him, wanting to reassure myself that he is real. “I was about to turn around and come back.” I tilt my head up at him. “I needed to get to you. To tell you. I love you, too, Ryan Hunter.”
His smile lights his eyes. “I know.”
“And I found the answer,” I add.
“Who is Jamie?”
I nod. “She’s yours,” I say, and though I expect his answering smile, his words come as a surprise.
“No,” he says. “She is her own. But I am the man who loves her.”
His words move me, and I pull him close and kiss him again.
“Do you still want me to take you to Texas?” he asks when we reach the car.
I shake my head. “I’m going to call Georgia. I’m not going to take the job.”
He has opened the passenger door for me, but now he pauses and takes my chin in his hand. “You’re sure?”
“It’s a great opportunity,” I say. “But only if I want to be in Texas. But I don’t want to be there. I want to be in Los Angeles. I want to be with you.”