Chapter Ten

Hannah…

I don’t know what part of me is reeling more, my emotions or my body. Either way, the friction Roarke’s touch is creating in my body isn’t helping. I tug at my hand. “You can’t grab me and order me to go with you, Roarke.”

“I’m not ordering you around, Hannah,” he replies, releasing my hand as if burned. “You know that’s not me.” He catches the doorframe, holding it instead of me, and I hate that part of me wishes he would have held onto me a little longer. “You know me.”

“I don’t know anything where you’re concerned.”

“You know me like no one else but Jason knows me.”

“If that was the case, we wouldn’t have ended the way we ended. No. We wouldn’t have crossed the lines we crossed.”

“Is that what you call being engaged to marry? Crossing a line?”

“It’s the line that left us here.” I fight the urge to push him out of the way, which would require touching him. “You’re blocking me in the bathroom.”

“Blocking? Where the heck is that coming from, aside from your need to run, and you can’t run right now?”

“Run? I’m here tonight. That’s not running.”

“After running to another state.”

“At the table, I was brave,” I fire back. “Now I was running? You’re still standing in front of me.”

“Because we still need to clear the air, for us and everyone else involved in this project.”

He’s right. Of course he’s right, but I’m suffocating from this man right now. “What are you going to do? Tell me everything I think I know about the past is wrong?”

He cuts his eyes, seeming to struggle a moment before he levels me in a stare. “There’s a lot you don’t know, Hannah,” he says, “but right now, right now we need to focus on now. We need to find out how we move forward, and that won’t happen if we’re living in the past.” He takes several steps back, offering me space I both crave and despise. “But this is your decision. Start a new future or live in the past and torture everyone around us, as we do.”

I force air into my lungs and slowly push it out. “You’re right. You’re completely right. So—back to the table?”

“No,” he says softly. “We need to be alone, Hannah. To my hotel. I’m not letting you drive home.”

“Your hotel?” My heart is officially beating too fast. “Roarke—”

He presses a hand on the doorframe next to me but only one hand. He’s close again, but he hasn’t blocked me in. I wish he would. I wish he’d piss me off. “I’ll get you another room if you don’t want to stay with me.”

I blanch. If I don’t want to stay with him? What is he saying? “Is that an invitation?” I ask before I can stop myself. I turn to him and hold up a hand. “Don’t answer. I don’t want an answer. I’ll get a room, my own room.”

“As long as you don’t drive, Hannah.” He offers me his hand. “Come with me.” He pauses for effect. “Please.”

The please gets me, and not because it’s out of character for Roarke. It’s not. Roarke isn’t a man who backs away from that word. He’s not a man who demands unless we’re naked, and that’s a different ball game. That’s the balance that is this man. He’s an alpha. He’s in control, and yet, he makes me feel like I’m in control. He makes the animals he works with feel they’re in control when it’s him with the control. That’s what he’s doing to me right now, both giving and taking my control. He’s given me a choice to go with him or to refuse, but in truth, if I accept his offer, he’s won. No. No, that’s my anger at him talking. He always makes sure everyone wins. That’s the balance part of this man again. We both win if I say yes because we get to the other side of us in a more positive way.

And now comes my move, my choice.

I could withhold my hand, but I think about his words, about stepping out of the past into the future. If I hold back, if I act as if I’m afraid to touch him, then that past owns me. He owns me. And he’ll know it. He’ll know how much he affects me. A man who didn’t even come after me doesn’t get to own me.

I press my palm to his palm, the connection tingling up my arm, and it’s not just sexual chemistry, though we’ve always overflowed in that area, a volcano of pure, hot lava. This now, though, is far more scary, far more impossible to control. This is like sliding back into a second skin, into a familiar feeling, and that feeling of belonging with this man I can’t fight and I don’t even try. We do belong together; we’re a part of each other’s lives, just not as husband and wife. That was where we went wrong.

My gaze lifts to his, and we stare at each other, those intelligent eyes of his searching my face the way I’m searching his, looking for answers, though I wonder if he knows what answers any more than I do. “I’m parked near the back door,” he says, pushing off the wall and straightening. “We can get your car in the morning. If you’re agreeable.”

I nod without argument. It’s all logical. It’s all a smart choice. “Yes. Yes, that works.” He gives my hand a small tug, urging me forward, but he turns as I near, laces his fingers with mine, and guides me toward the door.

I’d call our handholding inappropriate if the floor didn’t feel unsteady, and I think he knows this. I just hope he believes it’s all about the wine. I wish that was the case.

We exit into the parking lot, into a dark, humid Texas night, no signs of fall this October evening. There are no stars in the sky, but the restaurant is smart and safe, with plenty of artificial lighting. Roarke motions to the right. “That’s me,” he says, and I’m not surprised when I see a sporty black pickup truck waiting on us. Roarke is comfortable in life. He was even before his recent fame, thanks to his veterinarian skills, but he’s not a man who laps up luxury. He’d rather buy a horse a stable it might not have than buy himself a BMW. Every man I dated in L.A. would have picked the BMW. I’d rather watch him care for a horse than ride in a BMW. We made sense right up until the point that we didn’t.

Roarke leads me to the passenger’s side of the truck and opens the door. It’s a big step up, and I know a truck and know it well, but I also dress for the country when I’m in the country. This truck is country. This man, he’s far more complicated. Right now, we’re complicated, and considering how complicated, I thank the Lord that I wore slacks. I place my high heels on the ledge and hike myself up, but my heel catches on a hole somewhere, and it’s not pretty. I start to tumble, yelping as I do, only to have strong, familiar arms catch me. “I got you,” Roarke murmurs, and the thing is, there was a time when I believed he did, when I believed he always would.

That time is now gone.

In this moment, with his hard body holding me, I don’t remember anything but need and pain. It’s a powerful feeling. It’s every question I’ve wanted answered since I left, that only he can answer. It’s an ache that seeks comfort, one no other man has soothed. And yet Roarke is the reason it exists.

He inhales, drawing in the scent of my hair, I think. He always loved my shampoo, and I want to scream at him to stop. I want to scream at him to never stop.

He sets me down on the ground, one of my heels staying behind. Roarke turns me and allows me to grip the door. He’s close, his body big, hard, heat radiating off him and smashing into me. He leans down and pulls my shoe from a hole between the step and the truck itself. “Sorry about that, Han,” he says softly, setting it down on the ground next to my naked foot. I quickly slide it into place, but when he stands up, towering over me, I’m aware that I’m naked in almost every possible way with this man. That’s a problem I need to fix. That’s a vulnerability I need to erase, and there’s only one way to do that.

I have to prove to myself, and him, that he’s no more to me than I was to him. And that’s never going to happen when I want to be naked with him this badly.