Burned (3 page)

‘I’m not responsible for their bad behaviour. A woman should be free to walk where she likes without fear of being accosted by losers.’

‘You put yourself in a position where those losers could have hurt you.’

‘So you’re saying it’s my fault they behaved badly?’

He clenched his jaw. ‘No, I’m not saying that.’

I kept my hands clasped in my lap because the craving to touch him was scarily strong. ‘I didn’t know they were behind me. I wasn’t paying attention. I was upset.’

‘Because that guy told you to learn to bake cakes?’

No, because I’d seen
him.
All I’d wanted to do was run.

I was a coward. I prided myself on being gutsy and strong and I’d fled like a rabbit being chased by a fox.

‘I didn’t see any point in prolonging the evening. I’ve had a long week.’

‘Did you run because of me?’

‘Oh, please....’ Now I was doing a Brian, leaving my sentences unfinished, but in my case it was because I didn’t want to tell the truth and I was a hopeless liar.

Hunter didn’t bother inserting the words I hadn’t spoken. He didn’t have to. He already knew the answer to that one. He’d always been able to read me. We probably could have had an entire conversation without opening our mouths.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the road, he drove past the Houses of Parliament up to Buckingham Palace and then drove through Hyde Park, headlights bouncing off trees and sending a shimmer of light across the Serpentine pond. I didn’t own a car. For a start, I didn’t have the money to run one, but in London there was no point. Why spend the whole day sitting in traffic?

Hunter reached into a pocket in the car and handed me a dressing pad. ‘Your head is bleeding.’

‘It’s nothing.’ A bit of blood was the least of my worries. I had bigger concerns, like the fact my heart was hammering. It didn’t feel normal to me. ‘I had the situation under control. You didn’t need to help out.’ I took the pad, ripped it open and pushed it against my forehead, wondering what else he carried in this car. I hoped he had a defibrillator, because I was pretty sure I was going to need one.

‘If I hadn’t arrived when I did, you’d be a crime statistic.’

‘I was doing just fine.’

‘Your balance was wrong. You need to watch the way you drive your leg. You’re straightening too soon and losing power. You need a ninety-degree angle. You need to bend more. And turn your hips.’

I was trying not to think about my hips. I was trying not to think about any part of my body, especially not the parts that were near my pelvis. I was worried I was about to catch fire.

For a moment I wondered if I was the only one feeling this way and then I saw his knuckles, white on the wheel, and realized he was struggling, too.

‘Why did you follow me?’

‘Because I knew you were upset. I wasn’t going to leave you alone in that situation.’

‘Why? You left me without a backward glance five years ago, so it’s a little late to develop a protective streak.’ I thought it was hypocritical of him to pretend he cared about my well-being when he’d once left me in a million pieces bleeding. Maybe that’s a little dramatic, but that’s how it felt.

His shoulders tensed and I realised that, far from seeming indifferent, I’d just revealed a wound the size of a continent.

CHAPTER THREE

Oh
,
crap.

The first thing our mother taught us was never to show a man you’re broken-hearted. I’d virtually dropped the pieces of mine in his lap.

‘What I mean is, I’ve learned to look after myself.’ I realized we were in Notting Hill and felt unnerved. ‘How do you know where I live?’

‘There are some things we need to talk about, but first I want to check that head of yours.’

I wanted to check my head, too. What had possessed me to climb into a car with Hunter Black? Obviously I had a concussion. I needed a health check, or at the very least a reality check.

‘We don’t have anything to talk about, but I do want to know how you have my address.’

He didn’t answer me. Instead he took a right and then a left into the leafy, tree-lined street where I lived with my sister.

Our apartment was on the top floor of a lovely brick building, with views over the rooftops toward Kensington Gardens. If you stood on tiptoe and stuck your head out of our bathroom window, you could see Prince Harry (only kidding, sadly). We were right in the middle of shops, restaurants and the market. I loved it. Of course, since Hayley and Nico got together—you probably felt the ground shake—I’d had it to myself quite a bit. I didn’t mind that. It meant I could practise in the living room without accidently kicking her or getting yelled at when I knocked a lamp off the table. Normally coming home soothed me. Tonight I was officially freaked out.

‘Good night, Hunter. Thanks for the lift.’

‘Is Hayley home?’

‘How do I know? And why do you care?’

‘You had a blow to the head. I’m not leaving you alone.’

‘I want you to leave me alone.’ I was fumbling with my seat belt, fingers slippery and shaky with nerves. Turned out I couldn’t even do that without help and I felt the warm strength of his hand as it covered mine.

His fingers were warm, strong and totally steady and it irritated me that he had so much control when I had none.

He leaned forward and his jaw, dark with stubble, was only inches from my eyes. I looked at the sensual curve of his lips and the urge to press my mouth against his was almost painful.

And then he looked at me and I knew he was fighting the same urge.

For a moment we sat there, the moment of intimacy disturbed by the flash of headlights from a passing car.

Mouth tight, he unclipped my seat belt. ‘You’re bleeding. I should have taken you to the E.R.’

‘It’s nothing.’ I was struggling to focus, but it had nothing to do with the blow to my head. There was something about being close to Hunter Black that made the most level-headed of women dizzy. ‘I’ll be fine. Good night. Great to catch up with you again after all this time. Have a nice life.’

I never was any good at delivering sarcasm, a fact confirmed by his smile. It was a slow, sexy, slightly exasperated smile that acknowledged everything that lay between us. I didn’t want to acknowledge it. I preferred to step over it with my eyes shut.

Desperate to get away from that smile, those shoulders,
the man
, I virtually scrambled out of his car and sprinted to the door.

‘Stairs or elevator?’ He was right behind me and I gritted my teeth. When I was eighteen, he’d left me at acceleration speeds that would have left his car standing, but now I couldn’t shake him off.

‘You’ve spent too long in Hollywood. We say
lift.
And you can go now.’

‘Not before I’ve seen you safely home.’

‘I’m home.’ I didn’t feel up to the stairs—not that I would have admitted that in a million years—so I stepped into the tiny lift but the moment he stepped in after me I realized my mistake. We were on the second floor. To be honest, it was crazy that we even had a lift in this building. The space was barely big enough for two people. It certainly wasn’t big enough for two people who were trying to keep their distance. My arm brushed against his and I flattened myself against the doors.

It was only two floors but it felt like going to the top of the Empire State Building. Every one of those floors felt like twenty. Every second felt like an hour. I could feel his gaze on me and it took all my willpower not to look at him.

I was determined not to.

I wasn’t going to.

I wasn’t......

Crap.

I turned my head.

My eyes moved to his chest, to the narrow strip of his tie, the silk of his shirt and upward to the dark depths of his eyes. I hated him for walking away so easily, for not finding me impossible to leave—and I hated myself for caring so much—but that didn’t change the fact he was spectacular. His features were intensely masculine, his hair black as the devil, cropped too short to soften those hard features. No one would argue that Hunter’s hotness factor was right up in quadruple figures. And I didn’t need to wonder what it would be like to be kissed by him. I knew. The memory was embedded deep in my brain. I hadn’t been able to delete it.

I told myself it was the bang on my head that was making me feel swimmy. Anything other than admit it was him.

I hated him for making me want him again.

‘It’s good to see you again, Ninja.’ The combination of his tone and the way he was looking at me made me feel as if someone had kicked my legs out from under me.

‘I don’t feel the same way. And don’t call me Ninja.’

It made me think of the day we’d first spoken. I was sixteen and I’d lost a competition to a girl from a rival karate club. I’d been furious with myself, not least because I should have won. I would have, but I hadn’t been concentrating. Instead I’d been glancing around the room to see if my parents were going to show up and embarrass me. They went through a hideous phase where they both showed up to everything, not because they cared but because they were trying to outdo each other in proving who was the better parent. In the end neither of them came. I probably should have been relieved they hadn’t been there to witness my humiliation, but I wasn’t. It just proved what I already knew. Th at neither of them cared.

I sat at the edge of the gym on my own, putting more energy into holding back tears than I’d ever put into beating my opponent, when Hunter squatted down in front of me.

I knew who he was. Who didn’t? All the girls were crazy about Hunter. He was twenty years old, a skilled fighter, the youngest black belt our club had ever had and seriously hot, but he was too focused on training to be interested in a relationship, and anyway, he wouldn’t have noticed me, because I was too young. Right at that moment I would have fast-forwarded time if that had been an option.

‘Are you all right?’

I looked at him. ‘I lost. I made mistakes.’

‘That’s the past. Next time you’ll win, Rosie.’

For some reason the fact that he knew my name made me feel better.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway,’ I muttered. ‘No one will be watching.’

‘I’ll be watching.’ He held out his hand and pulled me to my feet. ‘Now go back out there, forget what’s in the past and start fresh. Watch your balance. Keep your focus and concentration. Mistakes are learning experiences. Move on. Forget everything else in your life. That’s what I do.’

I looked up at him, skinny, angular teenage me, and tried to imagine this broad-shouldered god having anything in his life he needed to forget. ‘You have stuff you need to forget?’

He gave a faint smile and brushed a stray tear away from my face with the pad of his thumb. ‘Everyone does, Ninja.’

Ninja.

I liked the name. It made me feel strong and suddenly I didn’t feel like crying anymore.

He might have said something else but at that moment my sister flew across the room, school bag heavy with books banging against her hip. Her hair had half escaped from her ponytail and her breasts were doing their best to push the buttons of her shirt right out of the holes.

‘Sorry I’m late. I had extra maths tuition and then Mum and Dad were arguing about where we were going to spend Christmas, so I gave up and left them. I ran all the way.’

My parents hadn’t made it but my sister was here.

Hunter smiled at me and let his hand drop. ‘Now you have two people watching you.’

I fell in love with him right there and then. Not because he was hot but because he cared.

There were a hundred other things he could have been doing, girls he could have been smiling at or flirting with, but he’d chosen to spend his time watching gawky, awkward, messed-up sixteen-year-old me in her karate competition.

From that moment on I no longer minded whether my parents turned up or not. I had Hunter. He was the one certain thing in my very uncertain world. He watched every competition; he offered advice; he trained with me. I knew he wasn’t interested in me
like that.
I was just a kid. But suddenly I wasn’t a kid anymore and on my eighteenth birthday he stopped treating me as one.

Everything changed that night, apart from the fact he still called me Ninja.

It was my nickname and it made me feel warm and special.

Hearing him saying it now was like having a knife twisted in my insides because it reminded me so much of that horrible messed-up time.

I felt the breath moving in and out of my lungs and I was holding myself still so there was no chance I’d accidently brush against him a second time. I could feel the heat in my cheeks and I stared at the wall even though I could feel him watching, cool and calm.

I stumbled out of the lift in my haste to get away from him, took the few stairs that led to our attic flat and had my keys in my hand when the door opened.

Hayley stood there. She was wearing skin-tight jeans and a top that emphasized the fact she’d inherited the breast DNA. The fact that her hair was loose and messy told me that Nico had been round. ‘How was boring Brian?’ Her voice trailed off as she saw my forehead. ‘Oh my
God
, what happened? Only you can come back from a dinner date with a black eye.’

‘It’s not a black eye.’

‘Did it happen at work? You need another job. Or at least a different hobby. I recommend astronomy.’ And then she saw Hunter. She couldn’t have looked more surprised if Mars had bashed into Pluto. Her eyes went wide and then flew to mine.

I couldn’t exactly blame her for looking confused.

For the past five years I’d refused to talk about Hunter. He was a subject we avoided. And suddenly here he was, dominating our doorstep.

I could tell she didn’t have a clue what she was supposed to say.

She just didn’t get it and I didn’t blame her.

She sent me a look that said ‘WTF.’

I sent her a silent transmission.
Play it cool.

‘I’m hallucinating,’ she muttered. ‘For a moment I thought I saw a rat on my doorstep.’

‘Hayley.’ Unmoved by the less than effusive welcome, Hunter placed his hand on my lower back and urged me into the apartment.

‘She needs to sit down.’

I heard my sister mutter, ‘She’s not the only one,’ and suddenly felt a flood of relief that she was here and I was no longer on my own with this. I’d heard people say how much they loved being an only child, how great it was to have all that attention. I’d never understood that. I couldn’t imagine what my life would look like if it didn’t have my sister in it. I was pretty sure it would be awful. I’d probably pretend it was great, because that’s what people did, wasn’t it? There were some things you were stuck with and some things you’d never admit to not liking.

Being stuck with my sister was the best thing that had ever happened to me (apart from the fact she ended up with the whole breast gene. I found that hard to forgive).

‘What are you doing here, Hunter?’ Hayley sounded so fierce I jumped, but Hunter didn’t react.

‘Bringing Rosie home. I need ice and dressing pads for her head.’

‘I can sort out my own head.’ Actually I couldn’t. If I could have sorted out my own head, I would have done it long ago and I wouldn’t have been so screwed up about him. When it came to Hunter, my brain was as tangled as the cord of my headphones.

‘What happened to her head?’ Hayley sounded furious. ‘If you’ve hurt her again, Hunter Black, I swear I will donate your body to medical science.’

‘That happens when you’re dead. I’m still alive.’

My sister sent him a dark look. ‘I could fix that.’ She had her arm round me and was drawing me toward the sofa. ‘Don’t get blood on it. You know I’m a rubbish housekeeper and I’m still dealing with the coffee stain from last month.’ My sister’s idea of dealing with a coffee stain was simply to turn the sofa cushion over.

But I could tell she was worried and she paused for a moment, torn between the need to stop my head bleeding and a reluctance to leave me alone with Hunter.

Hunter didn’t wait to be shown around our apartment. He found the kitchen, grabbed ice packs out of the fridge, wrapped them in a towel and brought them back to where I was sitting.

He was a good person to have around in a crisis. The problem was that in my case he was usually the one causing the crisis.

My sister tapped her foot. ‘You should go now, Hunter.’

‘I’m not leaving until I know she’s all right.’

‘Of course she’s all right,’ my sister snapped. ‘She’s with me. Who do you think looked after her when you walked out? I did. And you didn’t exactly hang around to check on her, did you? So you can stop pretending to be caring. You left her in pieces.’

So much for my dignity. ‘Hayley—’

‘She cried every night for six months! She didn’t eat. She lost weight. So don’t think she’s going to agree to start that whole thing with you up again just because you happen to have shown up in her life again.’

Holy crap. ‘
Hayley!’

‘She pretends she’s over you—’

‘I
am
over him!’

‘—but she hasn’t been serious about a man since.’ My sister was in full flow, raging forward like a river that had burst its banks. ‘She dates men she can never, ever fall in love with, which basically means she has a boring sex life, and no girl of her age deserves a boring sex life, especially when she’s in her sexual prime! Do you know what I bought her for her birthday last year? A vibrator! And batteries are fucking expensive! And it’s your fault.’