He’d come up from the bar to wait for her and
must have fallen asleep watching television. When she got home, she
didn't wake him. Instead, she sat on the floor next to him and fell
asleep.
He looked at his watch.
Four thirty?
Shit, how long had she been like that? And most importantly, why
hadn’t she left his ass where he was and gone to bed so she could
sleep comfortably?
Fighting against the aches and pains—which
really pissed him off because they served as a reminder for how
lazy and out of shape he was—he pushed to a sitting position, then
scooped her up in his arms.
She came awake fighting. The kicking and
flailing caught him off-guard, and he nearly dropped her. “Shhh…
Shhh… Sunny, you’re all right. It’s me Gavin. I’ve got you.” She
looked around frantically, then took a deep breath and settled her
head on his chest. “You fell asleep by the couch. I’m taking you to
bed.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “Sorry.
I was having a nightmare.”
“Want to tell me about it?” he asked, gently
laying her on the unmade bed.
She unzipped her jeans and shimmied out of
them. “In my dream you weren’t really who you say…” Her words
trailed off, and she momentarily froze. She bit her bottom lip and
yanked off first one pant leg, then the other. “It was
nothing.”
Bullshit. Whatever was bothering her in the
bar was now haunting her dreams. Four-thirty in the morning wasn’t
the time to harass her about it, but tomorrow morning… later this
morning, he would get to the bottom of it.
He stepped out of the bedroom and checked
Robby’s room. “Robby didn’t come home. Can I trade in the couch for
your bed? I’ll set an alarm and move back out there before he comes
in.”
Her eyelids slid shut, and for a minute, he
didn’t think she would answer. But then she patted the sheet next
to her and said, “Shut my bedroom door. He won’t be home until
later in the afternoon, and even if he does come home, it’s okay.
He’s expecting you to be here.”
He kicked off his jeans, pulled his shirt
over his head, and crawled into bed beside her. For the first few
minutes, she remained as rigid and unmoving as a piece of concrete.
But when he wrapped his arm around her head and rubbed her scalp,
she made a soft mewling sound, then relaxed and scooted over
against him. She propped her head on his shoulder, and within
seconds, she’d gone back to sleep.
***
For the second morning in a row, Sunny woke
to the mesmerizing sight of Gavin lying next to her. She liked
having him in her bed, sharing her space. She liked the way his
long lashes curled and how his features softened with sleep. The
stubble on his face was sexy, and the way he rested with one hand
over his heart was sweet.
The major difference between yesterday
morning and today was her mood. Yesterday, she’d awakened with a
smile on her face, filled with happy on the inside. This morning,
she had a headache and was filled with hurt and confusion.
Gavin stretched and rolled onto his side,
facing her. “Good morning,” he said with a smile and a wink.
She tried to smile but found the task too
difficult. She also didn’t believe the morning, or the day for that
matter, would bring anything good, so she gave a non-committal,
“Morning,” and left it at that.
While she’d been lying there watching him
sleep, she’d been thinking. Using him for mindless sex while she
figured out his tactics for acquiring her building sounded great in
theory. But it would be impossible for her to pull off. She was
terrible at acting, especially when it came to faking her feelings.
Gavin had even commented on the way her expressions gave away her
thoughts. She’d never make him believe something she didn’t believe
herself.
Despite her agreement with Robby, she needed
to revert to plan B: confront Gavin. However, she couldn’t do that
while lying in bed with him, so when he reached for her hand, she
slipped out of his grasp and climbed from the bed.
He narrowed his eyes and pushed up onto his
elbow. “Okay, Sunny, spill it. What’s going on?”
She gathered her hair at the nape of her neck
and used a Scrunchie to hold it in a ponytail, then pulled on a
pair of shorts and a T-shirt—a barrier of protection in case he
denied everything and tried to seduce her back into bed.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were
second-in-command at Holden Enterprises?”
She watched his face for signs of surprise,
but he didn’t react in any way. He simply held her gaze and
shrugged. “What’s it matter?”
“You make millions of dollars every year and
stand to make even more when you take over.”
He had the audacity to look perplexed. “I
don’t understand what my income has to do with anything.”
She waved her hands in frustration. “You told
me you’d help protect my property.”
“And I will.” He rubbed his eyes and sighed.
“I’m sorry. I’m not following this conversation at all.” He threw
the sheet off and climbed out of bed with a moan. “Can we get some
coffee and talk about this over breakfast?”
She forced her eyes to stay on his face,
rather than granting them permission to take in the hard planes of
his chest and stomach, as they desperately wanted to do. “You lied
to me.”
He swiveled his head in her direction and
arched an eyebrow as he pulled on his jeans.
“Well, you didn’t exactly lie. You just
didn’t tell me the whole truth.”
His frustration with her was obvious as he
pushed his fingers through his hair. Without verbally responding,
he shuffled—barefoot and shirtless—to the kitchen.
Sunny’s mouth fell open in disbelief. How
dare he act like he already owned the damned place. She stormed
into the kitchen, intent on giving him a piece of her mind, but
he’d already popped the top on the coffee can, and the aroma
filling the air mellowed her out.
Coffee was good. And she couldn’t deny she
enjoyed having him fix it for her. It would be even nicer if he
brought it to her in bed like yesterday morning.
Dammit, Sunny, focus.
Annoyed with herself as much as him, she
crossed her arms over her stomach and tapped her toe. Those kinds
of thoughts were the reason she’d crawled out of bed and gotten
dressed. Hell, he didn’t need to do anything to seduce her. She did
a fine job of getting lusty on her own.
Once the coffee was brewing, he turned and
rested a hip against the counter, then crossed his arms over his
chest. “Okay, let’s start from the beginning… which seems to be
sometime after I left yesterday.” He glanced to the ceiling, as if
he would find the answer tacked up there, then looked back at her.
“Does this have anything to do with how angry Robby was when he got
home yesterday?”
She diverted her gaze and grabbed a sucker.
She didn’t want to bring Robby into it, because this was between
her and Gavin. But Robby had been the one to find the information.
Without his research, she’d still be blindly following Gavin’s
lead, allowing him to pull the strings and work her however he
wanted.
“While Robby was at his friend’s house, he
searched your name on the Internet. That’s how we found out who you
really are and what your position is.” He looked more intrigued
than anything, which threw her off-balance and caused her to lose
her stride. “I don’t believe you’d risk your career in order to
save…” Robby’s words came back like a slap across the face. She
turned away from Gavin and stared out the window. “There’s no way
you’d risk all of that to save this bar.”
“Sunny, I never said I’d risk anything. I
said I’d figure out a way to fix things.” He stepped up behind her,
then turned her to face him. His eyes were soft and concerned and
he seemed so damned sincere she couldn’t meet his gaze. “If
anything, having me as second-in-command should make you feel
better. That gives me more leverage.”
Well hell, when he put it that way…
She was so confused and wrapped up
emotionally, she didn’t know what to think or believe anymore. “I
guess the problem is that I don’t know which Gavin is the real you.
And if I don’t know you, how can I trust you?”
He let go of her arms and turned his
attention to the hissing coffee pot. “What do you mean, the real
me?”
“It’s like you’re all these different people.
The rich guy—although I didn’t realize you were
that
rich—who came in here that first night and swept me off my feet.”
By the time Gavin left for the second time that night, she hadn’t
given his social status another thought. “When you came back the
next morning, you were a business man, but you were still the same
Gavin that… ummm…” She smiled against the blush heating her face.
“You know.”
She reached for the cup of coffee he offered
and took a sip. “Then you dressed down in Robby’s clothes and
talked about being a farm kid. You were laid back and relaxed and
seemed to fit in perfectly with the crowd around here. I guess I
forgot who you’d been when we first met.”
He sipped his coffee and patiently listened
to everything she had to say. Although he wasn’t verbally
responding, his facial expression and body language said a lot. His
brow was furrowed, his jaw popped, and his shoulders were tense and
battle ready.
“Robby hits me yesterday morning with all
these articles of you with Max Holden, looking very much like his
protégé… you know, the ruthless guy who won’t stop until he gets
what he wants. There were pictures of you with socialites and at
social events costing thousands of dollars to attend.” She flopped
down in the kitchen chair. “Then you came into the bar last night
wearing those worn-out jeans, a T-shirt, and work boots, and I lost
track again. Which Gavin is real?”
A series of emotions crossed his face as he
seemed to carefully consider his words. Finally, he said, “I don’t
know what to say.” The light in his eyes dimmed, and he shrugged.
“I could stand here all day and give you reassurances, but you
won’t believe them.” He pushed off the counter, dumped his coffee
into the sink, then put the cup in the dishwasher. “I guess my
actions will have to speak for themselves. I’ll go back to Myrtle
Beach and work on things from there. I’ll keep you posted.”
That’s it? No argument? No trying to justify
anything?
Too numb to move or even think as he turned
and walked away from her, Sunny sat glued to her chair. She held
her breath, waiting for him to come back for more conversation, but
he didn’t.
She heard him moving around the bedroom, and
several moments later, he returned, dressed, with his overnight bag
slung over his shoulder. He opened the door, and, without turning
around, said, “I’ll let you know what’s going on sometime
tomorrow.”
She wanted him to leave, right? She couldn’t
trust him, and she couldn’t keep seeing him without falling even
deeper under his spell.
So, if this was what she wanted, what she
believed was best, why did she feel like a piece of her ripped from
her chest and walked out the door with him?
“God dammit!” Gavin grabbed the file he’d
been analyzing from his desk and launched it across his office. He
pushed his fingers through his hair, then shoved back from his desk
and began pacing the floor.
He’d spent the past four hours going over
every scrap of information he could find on the Anticue property,
only to find the situation worse than he thought. Online tax
records indicated, just as Max claimed, he owned all the property
surrounding Sunny’s.
For the past several years, he’d been buying
up property as it became available. Some of the parcels were in
Max’s name, some were in Cynthia’s, and two, including the old
fishing pier, were in Callie’s.
He’d probably also used that time to fund
several county commissioners’ campaigns, ensuring he had
his
people in place to vote for the required ordinance changes. Gavin
tried to figure out a way to incorporate the bar into the resort,
but Max would never go for it. Sunny’s whimsical style and the
worn-down structure wouldn’t gel with the lavish opulence of a
Holden Resort.
He dropped into his chair and let his head
fall back. Beating his head against a brick wall for the past four
hours had made him angry and frustrated and left him with a
pounding headache. The headache, however, was nothing compared to
the searing pain in his chest.
No matter how hard he worked to forget, his
mind insisted on replaying the conversation with Sunny like a CD
stuck on repeat. The problem was, her comments were painful because
they were so damned accurate.
For nearly a year, he’d been unhappy with
life. He knew it stemmed from job dissatisfaction and his
disappointment with some of Max’s decisions. But he thought the
feelings would pass once he stepped into Max’s shoes and could do
things his way.
Then, months ago, he started to question if
he had what it took to fill Max’s shoes. The Anticue situation was
a perfect example. He’d never have the heart to ruthlessly pursue
the purchase of Sunny’s land. And the idea of raping Anticue’s
pristine beaches made him sick.
Sunny assumed that in order to help her he’d
have to give up his career. He hadn’t thought about it in those
terms until she mentioned it, but now, he wondered if she might be
right. Was he willing to make that sacrifice? Was he willing to
forfeit not only the career he spent the past twelve years
building, but his grandfather’s farm, as well?
Granddad couldn’t afford to keep the farm
without Gavin’s financial assistance, and Gavin promised to do
everything possible to make sure his grandfather never had to move.
Without his job, Gavin wouldn’t be able to keep that promise.
Fuck.
His head spun like a damned
whirlpool, sucking him down into the drowning blackness. Maybe
getting out of the office for a while would help him find some
perspective and, God help him, a solution to this clusterfuck.