Chapter Thirty-One
Tiffany stumbled through the next couple of hours in a haze of Luke, Dakota, the police, and even Luke’s angry girlfriend. Tiffany still hadn’t caught her name, and right now, she didn’t give a shit.
Thomas stayed glued to her side the entire time. His hand—on her back, around her shoulders, or just holding hers—anchored her as the world dipped and swirled around her. It was late into the night when she and Thomas finally climbed into his truck. Dakota and Luke followed them back to the motel to pick up Dakota’s stuff.
“Fuck,” Thomas said as they started driving.
Tiffany nodded. Fuck indeed.
The motel looked strangely normal as they drew up and parked. The rest of the world had a perfectly normal day, while she got held up at gunpoint.
“Get your stuff,” Luke said to his brother. They would spend a couple of days in Utah, let Luke get himself organized, and then go to Chicago together.
Dakota went straight to his room.
She and Thomas stood clustered with Luke around his car. There must be something to say, after what they’d been through, but Tiffany had nothing.
“The drug thing.” Luke cleared his throat. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Good,” Thomas said. “Because next time, Tiffany won’t be here to save your asses.”
“There won’t be a next time.” Luke stiffened and shut up for a moment—not nearly long enough—then turned to her. “How long have you been like a walking calculator?”
She shrugged. “Pretty much always, but you know my father.”
“Yeah.” Luke snorted. “He still writing those books?”
“No.” Tiffany folded her arms. She’d almost forgotten about the books.
“What books?” Thomas glanced at her.
Luke gave a short bark of laughter and shook his head. “Do yourself a favor, read one some time. I think it will explain a lot.”
“Books?” Thomas turned to her.
She wanted to duck the question, but Thomas didn’t judge and they were way past the point of her giving a shit. “When I was little, my dad wrote a series of books. Sort of princess type things. He had a publisher friend and they were out there for a while.”
“Books about you?”
“Sort of.” Why had Luke brought up those awful books? “They were called The Pretty Princess Pearly Perfect.”
Luke shook his head. “Read one.”
Dakota reappeared with his backpack in hand, Beats dangling around his neck. He slouched over to Luke. “Take care.” Dakota jerked his chin at her. “That thing you did, way cool.”
Tiffany’s eyes pricked with tears. Coming from Dakota, it was the equivalent of a heartfelt hug and a bunch of roses. “Pay me back by not making me do it again.”
“You got it.” A shy grin tilted his mouth up. He looked exactly like Luke when he smiled. “So long . . . Barbie.”
“Bye, Tiff.” Luke bent and kissed her on the cheek.
She folded her arms around him. It hadn’t been all bad. And it was over now.
“When are you going to stop being Daddy’s Princess?” Luke said against her ear.
Good question. She pulled out of Luke’s arms. “Take care of Dakota.”
“Sure.” He followed his brother to his SUV and climbed inside.
“So long, big guy,” Dakota called to Thomas.
Thomas wrapped his arms around her from behind. Tiffany leaned into his weight and let the sheer awfulness of the day melt away. Her senses reacted to his nearness. Not a flash-fire reaction like before, but a slow burn of need that made her press into him.
His breathing hitched in her ear, and his erection hardened against her bottom.
They stood there as the red taillights of Luke’s SUV vanished down the road.
“Come.” He took her hand and led her into her room.
They touched each other with hands and mouths. Reverently and slowly he loved her, and Tiffany let herself flow with it. It wasn’t just about passion, but something deeper, an affirmation that they were together, and a celebration of life.
When they were done, Thomas tucked her into his front, his heavy arm over her waist.
Tiffany snuggled into his warmth and fell asleep. The last thing she remembered was feeling perfectly at peace.
They woke up late, made love again, and got ready for their day. By tacit agreement they didn’t talk about time running out, or going back to Chicago. First stop was breakfast. Tiffany went straight for the pancakes. Thomas lifted an eyebrow, but that was it. She ate the entire thing and then had to loosen the top button of her shorts and pull her top over it.
Next, the mall and new phones. Tiffany’s phone lit up with missed calls: Ryan, about ten, and her father, a few more. She carefully and thoroughly deleted every one. They could wait until she was ready to deal with them.
Thomas didn’t bring up leaving, and Tiffany drifted along in their stolen moment of pretend. For once, they had nothing better to do than hang out, and she sucked up each moment and tucked it away. They went to a movie—the latest geek show, Thomas assured her it would be great—had a late lunch, and drove back to the motel.
“We should talk,” Thomas said.
The bubble in Tiffany’s belly burst. They couldn’t not talk about this much longer, no matter how much she wished it so. “Yeah, we should.”
“We can’t stay in Utah forever.” Thomas sounded wistful. “So, now what?”
“We go home.” The words hurt coming out. Tears stung and she blinked them away. Home. Such an alien word, meaning an empty condo and a job she hated.
“You could come with me.” Thomas broke into her thoughts.
“To Willow Park?”
“Wherever.” He shrugged. “I want to be with you, babe. I don’t give a crap where that is.”
“And when you go back to Africa, or wherever else you go? What then?”
Pushing his fingers through his hair, he stared at the ground. “I don’t know. I don’t have all the answers. This thing between us, it happened so fast. I’m not even sure where we go from here. I just know that wherever I go, I don’t want it to be without you.”
Until he said those words, she had no idea how much she wanted to hear them. And oh, God, she did want that. To go with Thomas. He made it sound so simple. Could it be that simple?
“Babe, I’m not leaving for another couple of weeks. Once I get the results back to my partners, I’m taking some time off. Being with my family. We could spend that time together, see where this thing leads.”
“I want to be with you, too.” But Ryan was back home, and Daddy. She didn’t know what she wanted to do about Ryan, but he did deserve an explanation. “I just don’t know . . .”
Thomas pulled into the motel parking lot beside an imported sedan.
“Fuck!” She wasn’t ready. Not like this.
Thomas glanced at her. “What?”
“Daddy.”
A silver-haired man waited inside the sedan. He caught sight of her and his face split into a beautiful smile. When she’d been a little girl, she’d thought her daddy was a movie star.
“What?” Thomas peered at her father.
She was too much of a coward to look at Thomas. “That’s my father.”
Carter Desjardins unfolded his tall, lean form from the sedan and raised his hand in greeting. Tiffany waved back.
“What’s he doing here?”
“Looking for me.” Reality pressed against her chest, and Tiffany barely got the words out. She opened the truck and slid to the ground like there were lead weights attached to her ankles.
Her father held out his arms to her. “Princess.”
“Daddy.” Tiffany did as he knew she would and walked straight into his embrace. The familiar smell of her father surrounded her, leather, fine wool, and spicy aftershave. The smell of comfort, only . . . not so much anymore.
Daddy pressed his lips to the top of her head. Putting her at arm’s length, he studied her.
Tiffany was suddenly conscious of her cheap jeans and the hair she hadn’t styled that morning, of her face bare of makeup.
“Princess, I know everything.” Her father had a voice like a movie star, too. Rich and smooth, “Trust me,” it said, “trust me to make the bad thing go away.”
“You do?” This had been the thing that sent her running in the first place. Her greatest fear came true, right here and right now and—nothing. No guilt, no fear, just nothing.
“Yes.” He nodded, his hair gray catching the light. “And you are a very silly girl to think you had to lie about your divorce. If you’d come to me, I would have had it all fixed by now.”
Tiffany blinked up at her father. He wore his disappointed face. The familiar knot tightened low in her belly. She hated that face. “I know, Daddy, but I was ashamed that I hadn’t done anything about it. I wanted to sort this out on my own.”
“Princess, why would you do a thing like that? That’s my job.” He smiled and tugged her back into his arms. “Anyway, I’m here now and everything is going to be all right.”
She wanted to tell him that she would get it done herself. She thought she might explain about Luke and her trouble with letting go. Tiffany opened her mouth and shut it again. Daddy wouldn’t understand about Luke. He didn’t hang on to past regrets. Onward and upward, that was how her father rolled.
“I’m Thomas Hunter.”
And Thomas? How could she explain about Thomas when she didn’t even have the answers for herself?
Her father stiffened, and she stepped out of his embrace.
Daddy looked at Thomas with a speculative gleam, the questions building and building in his gaze.
“Thomas helped me find Luke,” she said. “He was also looking for Luke, so we decided to team up. Thomas has been with me the whole time.” And so much, much more. Somehow Thomas had become . . .
“Carter Desjardins.” Her father’s expression softened marginally, and he took the hand Thomas offered. “You’re a brave man to take on the role of protector to my Princess. She has an unerring ability to get herself into trouble if you don’t watch her.”
Thomas glanced from her father to her. “Actually, I find she takes care of herself, and sometimes me while she’s at it.”
Her father stilled. “Do you?” His voice went silky. Holy shit, she knew that voice, and Tiffany stiffened. “How long have you known Tiffany, exactly?”
That found its mark, and Thomas’s face tightened.
Her father took his silence as agreement and nodded. Point made. He turned back to her. “It would be best if we could get Luke to Chicago for the divorce.”
Wow, her father really did know everything. “I know, he’s already agreed to do it.”
“Then you’re done here,” Daddy said. “And I can take my Princess home.”
Thomas watched her like a hawk, catching every nuance, assessing every word. Daddy’s words sank in. He had come to take her home. That meant her time with Thomas was over. She swung her head to look at him. The question lurked in his beautiful blue eyes. Everything. He silently asked her for everything. His look searched and seared inside her mind. She dropped her head quickly. God, the wanting to be the woman Thomas saw clawed inside her chest.
“All right.” Her father broke into the moment. “Let’s get going.” He held out his hand to Thomas. “Thank you, Mr. Hunter, I am most grateful for the good care you took of my Princess.” Daddy turned to her, brow raised in a silent question. Only it wasn’t a question at all. “Go and pack your bits and pieces, Princess. Call me and I’ll carry your bags.”
And here it was, go with Daddy or stay with Thomas. To go ahead with her engagement or not? These were not the sort of decisions you made standing in a parking lot. A parking lot she stood in because she’d just extricated herself from her last impulsive decision.
“I’ll do it,” Thomas said.
“Great.” Her father beamed at him, sure in the knowledge she would do as he asked. “I’ll wait in the car, Princess.”
She nodded obediently. “Okay.”
She opened the door to her room. It wouldn’t take long to pack her things. Replacement makeup lay scattered on the vanity top. None of it she’d ever use again. She swept it all into the garbage. It lay in the bottom of the bin like downed pins. She liked that lip gloss. That she would use again. Tiffany reached into the bin and pulled it out. And the mascara wasn’t all that bad. Next, she examined the clothes she had left. So much had happened since that day Thomas walked into the studio.
The door opened and she half turned. Thomas blocked out the light as he stepped through and closed the door behind him. Tiffany busied herself folding her clothes.
Silently, he folded the clothes on the bed.
“You don’t have to do that.” Her voice came out in a breathy whisper.
He shrugged. “I know.” He stood right beside her folding her jeans, but he could’ve been a thousand miles away. His face gave her nothing.
“It’s been fun.” What a lame thing to say. Fun. God, it had been so much more than that.
“Fun?” He sneered the word as if it were dirty.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just said it because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.”
He gave her a hard look. He shoved the jeans into the plastic bag so hard his fist came out the other side. “Fun it is, then.”
“What do you want from me?”
“More than ‘thanks, it was fun.’”
“I told you, I didn’t mean it.”
“I don’t care about that.” He came as close to yelling as she’d ever heard him.
She couldn’t breathe, and dropped on the edge of the bed. “What, then?”
“I want to hear you say that this was just sex for you. That you are happy to walk away and go back to Ryan and Daddy and that asshole you work for.”
Tiffany blinked at him. His words brought up a flood of feelings. Outside, her father waited. Waited to take her back to her life. And in this room with her, Thomas. “I need to go home,” she said. “He needs me to go home.” She made a jerky motion with her arm to the car outside. It was getting hard to breathe and the room swam in front of her. “I can’t drop everything, everyone, and disappear with you. As much as I might want to.”
He didn’t speak for so long she risked a look at him. He seemed to be tossing something over in his mind. “Look,” he said. “We haven’t known each other that long.”
“A week,” she said. “Just a little more than that.”
“Right.” He blew out a long breath. “That’s not long at all, but I want you to think about something for me. Can you do that?” Like she would be doing anything but thinking. She nodded. “This thing between us.” He motioned her and him. “I think we both know it’s more than sex. I think it could be a lot more. If you gave it a chance.”
“But you’re not sure.” Tiffany’s heart pounded in her ears. “You can’t say for sure, can you?” And she needed sure, needed to know this wouldn’t turn out to be another Luke. And that meant time away from Thomas. Time to find out who Tiffany was.
“Nothing is for sure,” he said. “But what we have feels good. More than good. It feels right. Not just the sex, but all of it. You could give us a chance.”
“My father needs me. I can’t leave him like this.” Splinters of glass pressed against her lungs, tearing into her. “He’s always needed me. My mom died and—”
“Nobody’s asking you to leave your father. But I am asking you to think about what you want. What do you need, babe? Not your father and certainly not that pompous prick you were almost engaged to. Not even me, but you, Tiffany. What do you want?”
Him, she needed him, but she couldn’t get the words out of her mouth. It wouldn’t be fair to him, because more than that, she needed her. All the disparate parts of her fighting it out for space were exhausting. Somewhere between Wild Tiffany, Daddy’s Tiffany, and the woman Thomas saw was the real Tiffany.
His stare bored into her, stripping her right down to basics, and she couldn’t lie. “I need some time,” she said. “I need some time to sort this out in my head.”
He dropped his head forward, shielding his face from her. “Fuck.”
“Please, Thomas.” What was she asking for exactly here? Don’t give up on me? Don’t walk away? More time? All of that and more. “I know this is not just sex. I know things are great between us, but this has all happened so fast. Go back to your family. They’re waiting for you. Let me have some time.”
“Okay.” His stormy glare tore right through her. His jaw worked as he clenched it together. “Take your time, but do me a favor. While you’re thinking about us, and what we have, think about yourself and what you want. Find out what you want to do about that incredible brain of yours. Think about what makes you happy, babe. And don’t get married before you know. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes.”