Reckless Hearts: A Billionaire Romance (20 page)

At the car, I opened the door and folded the front seat down. And just as with the jacket, Owen didn't care about the car either. He laid the animal down on the back seat.

"You should sit back there with him," he said.

I did, resting his head on my lap and running my hands over the dog's face and behind his ears where I thought and hoped he wasn't hurt. His tongue lolled out of his mouth a couple times, trying to give me a lick. It was as dry as his nose and it cracked my heart to see.

"Good boy. Don't worry, it'll be fine," I said, cooing to him.

If Owen disagreed, he didn't say anything. He didn't try and warn me that it didn't look good. That neither of us knew how long the dog had sat in the ditch, waiting and hoping for help. He didn't tell me to prepare for the worst.

And I loved him for that.

"Hurry," I said.

Again, no disagreement. And like that, I forgot about our near miss at the airfield.

I don't know if he knew about a vet clinic nearby, if he used his GPS, or managed to find his way to one through sheer manly intuition. I didn't care, either.

It was a blur, mostly. Me soothing the dog, feeling the life drain from him, Owen looking back to check on us.

I don't really remember anything until we came to a stop and looked out the window to see the walkway leading up to the front door of Kingdom Animal Hospital. We were in a strip mall area, the vet flanked by a 7/11 on one side and a cigar shop on the other.

It was the reverse of getting the dog to the car. Owen picking him up and holding him, me supporting his head, then getting the glass front door.

The receptionist manning the desk stood up when she saw us.

"What happened?" she said. She was a plain woman with her black hair tied back in a ponytail.

"We think he got hit by a car," I said.

She grabbed a clipboard from her desk and then led us back to an examination room. "Set him down here."

Owen put the dog down on the paper-covered and padded table. The dog wagged his tail again. Under the harsh fluorescent lighting of the room he looked in even worse shape than back on the roadside.

"You think?" she said, scribbling on the clipboard.

"We don't know. We found him like this," Owen said.

The veterinarian came in then, a man somewhere in the midst of his 50s with grey hair, kind eyes, and a lab coat. He touched the dog's side and frowned at the way the animal moaned.

"I can't promise anything. I'm Dr. Bauman, by the way," he said, bending to examine the dog further, "At least two broken ribs. His leg's broken in three places. Hips too, if it was a car. Maybe internal damage."

"Can't you save him?" I said.

"Miss? I don't suppose you know his name?" the receptionist said, her pen poised.

Owen started shaking his head, but then it came to me. I didn't feel too guilty, either. Owen was right, the poor thing was probably a stray.

"Georgie," I said, "His name's Georgie."

Owen jerked at that. The receptionist didn't pry, didn't ask how we knew or if it was our dog. She wrote the name down.

Georgie seemed happy with it, too, when Dr. Bauman said, "That's a good boy, Georgie. We'll have you right soon enough." Georgie's tail thumped the table, the paper over the padding crinkling.

He gave Georgie a needle that seemed to help with the pain, then asked that we go to the waiting room. We sat there on a set of old, vinyl-upholstered office chairs. Mine had a rip in the seat.

When Owen saw how nervous I was, he took my hand and squeezed. We sat there for a few minutes holding hands like that, even though my palm was sweaty and probably stand of unwashed dog.

Dr. Bauman came out, this time holding the clipboard.

"I think we can save your dog. But I have to tell you, it's not going to be cheap. Compound fractures like that are difficult, not to mention the antibiotics, the future check-ups... I'm not trying to sound insensitive here, but I know that all too often money can be an issue."

Dr. Bauman's kind eyes got a tired cast then, as though this was an issue he ran into far too regularly.

"Money isn't an issue. Save the dog. Georgie, I mean," Owen said.

Dr. Bauman sighed, his shoulders relaxing, relieved at the answer. "Excellent. I'm glad to hear that. If you could just fill out this intake form and give it to Joanne when you're finished, that should do for now. Now if you'll pardon me, I have to work quickly."

"Of course," Owen said, accepting the clipboard.

Joanne, the reception I guessed, had already filled out some portions of it. Georgie's name, breed, sex, that kind of thing. All that was left was the contact information and payment type.

Owen took the pen attached to the clipboard with a piece of string.

"Do you want me to fill it out?" I said, suddenly mindful of his whole Mr. X persona.

"That's fine. I'm pretty sure Dr. Bauman and his receptionist have no idea who I am anyway." He started filling it out, his penmanship neat and controlled.
Owen Ashton, Manhattan
under city, that sort of thing.

Joanne took the form and told us she would call as soon as Dr. Bauman had any updates.

By that point night had fallen, bringing with it the cold of autumn. At first I didn't want to go, didn't want to leave Georgie, but knew that I had to. Other obligations and all that.

"Thanks," I said in the car, those blue-white headlights picking up on the reflective paint lining and dotting the center of the road. "You didn't have to do that."

"I think I did, actually."

He had one hand on the shifter and the other on the wheel. I put my hand over the one on the shifter. His skin was nice and warm.

Then the words came out. I didn't think before I said them, I just let them out. "I think I'm falling in love with you."

The hand beneath mine jerked.

My mind chose that moment to catch up with my mouth, and I went stiff, too.
Did I just say that? Did I really just say that?

I did. And it wasn't what I'd meant to say, either. Though that was a lie. There hadn't been anything else on my mind.

I put it down to Georgie and the way Owen had been. He didn't complain, he didn't look down at the poor creature with contempt. Instead, he'd wrapped the dog in his jacket, laid him down in the back seat of his car, and brought him to the vet.

And when I'd told him to hurry, he didn't snap at me or tell me this was ridiculous. He'd hurried.

Just a rush of endorphins,
I told myself. That was all. I wasn't in love with him. I couldn't be falling in love with him. Not after knowing what we did to each other.

Could I?

"Owen..." I said.

"Don't," he cut in. He gave the shifter a savage jerk and the car lurched on the road, the headlights jumping against the darkness.

My hand came off his, and I wondered if that had been his goal. I thought for a moment of putting it back in place, but I didn't.

I'd only been intending to thank him for doing his best to save that dog. Not let my guts fall out.

Sometimes, though, your mind had other plans. I didn't believe in a lot of the crap I'd learned about Freud, but I thought he was onto something with those Freudian Slips.

It left me with a cold ball in my chest. Not just cold but heavy. It was that feeling of stark realization, when your heart finally convinced your mind to stop fooling itself and see what really was, instead of what it wanted to.

"Owen," I said again, "What are you thinking?"

It wasn't the question I wanted to ask. That was
Do you feel the same way?
But I was too scared to want to know the answer to that. At least the straight answer. Maybe he might say something to the question I asked him that could give me a clue.

"I'm thinking that maybe you could have done without today's lesson. I'm thinking that I need to get you back to the campus so that you can get some sleep and get back to studying, since that's so important to you."

"It was a nice lesson, though. I'm glad I did it. Aren't you?"

A reflective sign flashed by that said SNYUC 2. Almost there. I got the impression that he was slipping away from me, followed by the urge to grab on tighter.

A few hours ago you wanted to end it all. Now what? Are you gonna invite him up to your room? Maybe ask him to move in? What happened to “one more time can’t hurt”?

That was unfair. But unfair didn't mean untrue.

"More questions. Always more questions," Owen said, his eyes scanning the road, anything but looking at me.

"What is this to you?" I said. That rubber band of time started contracting again. The sign for the turn-off onto the campus reared up out of the shadows.

Either that or two miles didn't mean what it used to. A panicky thread wrapped itself around my heart, and the idea popped into my head that if I couldn't get him to give me an answer now that was it for us.

Let that be it
, part of me thought. We could stop poisoning each other. I could get back to school and he could stop trying to outrun his feeling with the pedal to the floor and the car in top gear.

"You know who am I," he said, "And I think you know who you are. Or something close to it, at least."

He still didn't look at me. Even when he had to do a quick shoulder check to get into the right-hand lane for the turn, his eyes passed through me without seeing.

"What does that mean? What are you saying?"

"This was fun, Allison. A lot of fun. But we'd both be fools if we really thought it could be anything more than that. I've got a plane to catch soon. You've got some papers and midterms to work on."

He pulled into the lot behind the admin building. The wrought-iron lamps that lit most of the campus made the shadows pool in that structure's arches and the overhangs of its windows. There were still plenty of lights on in it, too.

He left the car running, his eyes fixed on a grey dumpster that sat beneath one of the lamps.

"Fine then. Look at me and tell me you don't feel the same way, at least a little. Take control of yourself and tell me."

His jaw tightened. Those lips that had felt like fire against mine only a few hours ago pressed into a line.

He wanted to say something, I knew. Fought to say it, even.

But that part of him, the part the world called Mr. X, didn't let him get the words out. Those died somewhere inside of him.

"You should get out of the car now. There are cameras watching. And you know Peabody will ask you why you lingered so long."

Pressure pushed at the back of my eyes. A tremble started in the small of my back and spread like fire through dry tinder through the rest of me.

This is why you never let yourself feel this way about anyone. You see?
It was my junior high crush again. The one telling me that he told me he liked my shirt because he felt bad about the other kids making fun of me. Nothing more.

Well screw Scott Jeffries and screw Owen Ashton, too.

I wiped the hair off my cheeks and forehead, taking an unsteady breath as I did.

"You're right," I said, "I should go." I unbuckled my belt, opened the door, put one foot on the asphalt lot, the cool night air swirling and eddying with the warmer atmosphere of the BMW's cabin.

"Wait, Allison."

My heart stuck in my throat, the shreds of the girlish, innocent part of me thinking he wanted to recant. He didn't.

"Yes?" I said.

"I'll have someone get in touch with you to keep you updated on the dog... On Georgie, I mean." His fingers started drumming the steering wheel, anxious to go.

Someone. Not him.

I snorted and shook my head, a mirthless grin twitching my lips. "Whatever."

I didn't look to see his reaction, but I felt it. Felt him go rigid behind me. He deserved it, though. Of that I was certain.

I got out of the car and surprised myself by not slamming the door. Then I started for the concourse and the cement path that led for my dorm. I told myself I wouldn't look back, wouldn't watch him leave.

He chirped the tires behind me as he spun the car around and he sped away down the road.

Stepping up onto the curb, I did turn back, the compulsion too strong to ignore. I saw the bright cherries of his taillights disappear.

Good,
I thought, anger heating my belly.

I got all the way to the door to my building before the thought struck me. I should have noticed it right away. I put that down to my shock at the time. The conversation replayed in my mind over and over.

Except I didn't focus on what Owen said. Instead, I focused on the words left unspoken.

I had asked him if he felt the same way about me. He didn't answer. What I took as a negative at the time didn't look like one now.

He didn't say no. He didn't say that he didn't feel anything for me.

It could have meant nothing at all. Then again, it could have meant everything.

I
spent that first night keenly aware of my lack of company between the sheets. I also spent most of it staring up at the darkness of my ceiling, an oblong of pale light from one of those lamps below thrown across it.

When I did get to sleep, those carnal dreams didn't return to leave me writhing and sweaty in the tangle of my bedclothes.

There were no dreams at all. At least, none that I remembered. Despite that, I didn't feel rested when I woke up. If anything, I felt hung-over. The lights all too bright, the
scree-scree
of my alarm slicing down into my brain, a vague sensation of sickness that turned me off the thought of breakfast.

It was fitting, in a way. I'd become intoxicated on him, on Owen. And last night the long bender came to its logical conclusion. And now my body paid the price exacted by my indiscretions.

I sat up in bed, pressing the heel of my hand to one eye and wondering if Owen experienced something similar. Wherever he was.

He'd fed a line to Peabody about Indonesia and I thought maybe there had been some truth to it. Running a huge company like that meant he couldn't spend all his time showing college co-eds what good sex was.