All the way back to New York, I wrestle with my irrational reluctance to tell Landon about the baby. Mentally, I can’t even explain to myself why I’m hesitant. There’s no reason I can’t just come out and say it.
Landon, I’m pregnant.
How hard could it be? What’s the worst that could happen? I sincerely doubt he would conclude that he’s not ready for the level of commitment having a baby entails. That scenario doesn’t gel with the Landon I know.
But what if he decides to take responsibility but silently blames me for making him a father when he’s not ready?
I sigh.
“Are you fretting about something again?” Landon is sitting beside me on the plane. He’d been reading on his tablet, but now he’s looking at me, his beautiful cobalt eyes holding mine. Our child could have eyes like his, I think, the thought filling me with longing.
“No,” I answer his question. “No, I’m just thinking about work.”
Landon continues to look at me, his eyes questioning, and I turn away from his searching gaze, not because I think he can read my mind but because I feel almost as if I’m lying to him, deceiving him.
“No matter what you’re thinking, about us,” he says, “you can tell me and we’ll talk about it.”
I smile and take his hand. I squeeze it gently, hoping he can feel how much I love him.
I doze off watching him read, and only wake up when we’re back in New York. In the car, Landon continues to work on his tablet until we get to the entrance of the Swanson Court.
I know something is wrong long before we reach the awning. There is an enormous crowd in front of the hotel and it takes a moment for me to realize they’re reporters. They notice the car approaching and throng around it, their mouths moving as they scream their questions, which I can’t hear from inside the car.
Joe manages to get the car to the entrance, but Landon is silent, his mouth drawn into an impatient, irritated line.
“What’s going on?” I ask, even as I realize that we won’t know the answer to my question until we get out of the car to face the mob.
“I don’t know,” Landon replies.
“Do you want me to go into the parking lot?” Joe asks quietly.
Landon frowns. “No. Whatever it is, it’s better if we don’t look as if we’re running away from it.”
Joe nods and stops the car in front of the doors. Immediately, the crowd swarms around it, and through the tinted glass, I can see the flashes as they take pictures.
“Wait here,” Landon tells me, opening his door and stepping out of the car, with Joe following his lead. There’s a sudden explosion of sound, which is cut short when the doors close. Then they both appear at my door, along with some of the security personnel from the hotel, who make a path through the sea of reporters, all of them flanking me as we move toward the entrance.
The questions are rapid, melting into each other. I hear Landon’s name, over and over, and Ava Sinclair’s.
“Were you involved?”
“Did you have something to do with it?”
“Did you know?”
“Do you have anything to say?”
“Why is she asking for you?”
Landon ignores them until we’re inside the doors. In the lobby, Jed Fray, Landon’s head of security, is waiting for us.
“What happened?” Landon’s voice is an icy bark.
“We are working to get rid of them.” Jed gestures toward the reporters outside the door. I haven’t had much cause to talk to him before, but if I had to describe him, I’d pick unflappable as the most suitable word.
“That is not what I asked,” Landon says tersely, obviously not impressed with Jed’s handling of the situation.
Jed nods. He looks at me, then turns back to Landon. “Ava Sinclair was stabbed this morning in her suite at the Gold Dust in San Francisco.”
Landon stiffens, his entire expression and posture changing as Jed continues. “She’s currently in intensive care, and we know the attacker was her brother. She was obviously expecting him. The tapes show that she let him into her suite…” He stops. “She started asking for you as soon as the paramedics got there. That, coupled with the fact that it happened in your hotel, and”—he looks at me again—“your prior relationship with the victim…the press are trying to make a story out of it.”
I’m looking at Landon, watching that familiar pained expression take over his features. His eyes are on me, but it’s almost as if he’s looking through me. I swallow, willing myself not to wonder why Ava was staying at the Gold Dust, not to wonder if she was there when Landon was in San Francisco. The thought of them together…spending the night under the same roof…it makes me feel desperate. I close my eyes, willing myself to be concerned for Ava’s safety instead.
“How is she?” I ask Jed, surprised at how firm my voice sounds.
“She’s in intensive care, but from the reports I’m getting, they’re sure she’ll be fine.”
“And Evans?”
“They don’t know where he is.”
“You’ll shut this down?” I ask Jed, pointing to the horde outside the door.”
“Already on it.”
I turn to Landon. “Come on,” I tell him. “Let’s go up and decide what we’re going to do.”
He follows me to the elevators, silent. I don’t need anyone to tell me he’s blaming himself for what happened to Ava.
In the apartment, I fix him a drink and he takes it from me, his face drawn. Esmeralda is already in our room unpacking our things, and I realize I probably need to ask her to pack for another trip. I still have one day before I have to go back to work. I’d thought I would spend it with Landon, but now that doesn’t seem likely.
I watch him drink some of the scotch I gave him. “Please don’t blame yourself,” I urge, recognizing the note of pleading in my voice. “There’s already so much you feel responsible for.”
“But I am responsible.” His voice is tight with emotion. “She was meeting him, probably trying to talk him out of his insane vendetta, and he stabbed her, his own sister, because I put her in a position where he saw her as an enemy.”
“Landon, he’s clearly insane. You can’t blame yourself for that.”
“Can’t I?” He downs the Scotch. “He wasn’t insane before I bought the Gold Dust out from under him. He was happily running it into the ground, but at least he was sane.”
“Landon…”
“Don’t you see how messed up everybody around me is? Evans is crazy. Ava is fighting for her life. Aidan is dealing with severe depression…did you know that?” His eyes are dark with pain. “Sometimes he goes off the rails and disappears for days.” He laughs bitterly. “You already know about my mother and my father, that miserable… We might as well have killed him, you know? Me and Aidan. That’s why Aidan can’t bear to look at himself at times. The last thing he told our father was that we were all better off without his alcoholic, useless presence, and I stood there and said nothing, because I felt the same. Maybe I thought there was some truth in the stories that drove my mother to her death. Maybe I was sick of watching him drink himself to death while ignoring his sons.” He shakes his head. “But I stood there while Aidan shredded him, and the next morning he was dead.”
“Stop this…” I whisper.
“How long before it’s you?” His eyes are desperate, hopeless. “Aren’t you afraid you’ll end up like us?”
“No.” I take both his hands in mine. “Because I don’t see anything wrong with you, Landon. I love you.”
He ignores me and rises to his feet. “I need another drink.”
I get up and face him. Somewhere inside, something is tugging at me, some insecure thought. He’s unraveling because of Ava, because he’s devastated, because he still loves her, because… I silence the thought. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” I say firmly. “This is not the time to fall apart. Think of the negative press, the questions people will ask about the security at the Gold Dust. Think of the fact that Evans is on the run, of how much he hates you. You have to pull yourself together and manage this.”
Landon sighs and lowers himself back on the seat. His eyes close and I swallow a lump of pain. He’s falling apart because of her. My hand goes to my belly, hovering protectively over where my child is growing—our child.
“I’m going to ask Jed to call the pilot and make sure you’re ready to leave in a few hours,” I whisper. “The whole world knows she was asking for you. You have to go.”
Landon nods and opens his eyes, and I remove my hand from my belly, afraid he may have caught the gesture, but once again, it’s almost as if he’s looking through me. I’m going to have a baby. The words play at my lips, but it doesn’t feel right to tell him now, when he’s so haunted by another woman’s pain.
A woman he still cares about, obviously.
“You’re right,” he says. “Of course. I have to go.”
I nod, my mind churning with all the insecurities I’m trying to push aside. Ava is the damsel in distress, and when my prince rides to the rescue, will he become her prince? Is a prince allowed to rescue more than one damsel? Who decides which damsel gets the happily-ever-after?
I almost laugh, the turmoil in my heart verging on hysterical. I have to call Jed. I have to arrange for the plane and tell Esmeralda to pack a suitcase for Landon. I start to walk away, but Landon’s voice stops me.
“Will you come with me?”
I turn back to face him, and this time, he’s really looking at me, and there is entreaty in his blue gaze.
I close my eyes. “Of course.”
IN San Francisco, a car is waiting at the airport to take us straight to the hospital. Outside, a respectable distance from the entrance, there’s another small crowd of press and photographers.
I follow Landon inside, ignoring the camera flashes. An orderly leads us to the ward, outside which there’s a small group of people I assume to be some of the Sinclairs. They greet Landon, but not very warmly, and they totally ignore me, which is fine as far as I’m concerned.
A doctor soon arrives.
“You’re Landon Court?”
“Yes,” Landon replies, taking the doctor’s proffered hand. She is looking at him with a mixture of respect and admiration, and I wonder vaguely if the hospital is one of those he sponsors. “How is she?”
“She’s asleep right now, as you can see,” the doctor replies, pointing a hand toward the window of the private ward where Ava is. “And she’s healing nicely. The attacker missed any major organs, so she’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”
I tune out the rest of the words. Through the open shutters, I can see Ava, looking small and weak in her bed, hooked up to a variety of machines.
Landon’s eyes are turned in the same direction. There’s no way he won’t hold himself responsible, I think sadly.
The doctor says something else to Landon that I don’t catch, and then she turns and walks away.
“She looks…” I shake my head, unable to reconcile the figure on the bed to the beautiful, confident woman I remember.
“I know.” Landon’s voice is grave and his eyes are shuttered. “You should go back to the hotel. I’ll wait and talk to her when she wakes.”
I swallow, trying hard not to submit to that feeling of being relegated, again. “Of course.” I lean forward and place a soft kiss on his cheek. “I’ll see you later.”
The driver is waiting for me downstairs. At the Gold Dust, Claude Devin is solicitous but mostly quiet, so unlike his usual delightful self. As he personally escorts me to the penthouse suite, I feel a small surge of pity for him. It can’t be good for a manager that such an attack occurred during his watch. I undress slowly, tiredly, before stepping into the shower. I remain there for a long time, letting the water wash over my body.
We have to trust each other.
I am trusting Landon, believing, and holding on to every reason he’s ever given to make me believe he loves me. I’m holding on to all the reasons why I can’t let myself think that maybe, just maybe, Ava is more important to him than I can bear, all the reasons why I promised him I would never walk away again.
Not that I want to. How could I? I have lost myself in him so totally that walking away from him would be as effective as walking away from a part of myself.
And now, there is a part of him that will never leave me.
I imagine him in the hospital with Ava, waiting for her to wake, talking to her, telling her how sorry he is, maybe holding her hand, comforting her. From the small part of his conversation with the doctor I paid attention to, I know he must have taken over her care. It’s right that he does; it’s the least he can do. Yet, that small gesture, combined with the way he fell apart when he learned of the attack…it makes me sad, and that scares me, the fact that even though a woman is hurt, my most overwhelming emotion is jealousy and suspicion that she still holds a part of Landon’s heart.
I climb into bed and fall asleep almost immediately. I don’t wake up until Landon slides in beside me, his skin cool from his shower. His arm encircles me, his chest a firm, hard wall against my back.
“Landon,” I whisper his name, turning to face him.
“Shhh,” he whispers, kissing me. His hand slides down my naked body, heating my skin. I kiss him back, wanting him with a desperation I can’t explain.
His hands shake as he caresses me. He presses my body against his, as if he’ll never let me go. “I love you,” he whispers fiercely as he makes love to me. “I love you so much.”
“I love you,” I whisper back, holding him tight and praying that he somehow manages to exorcise the ghosts torturing him.
The next morning, he leaves the suite early, probably to go back to the hospital. I have a grapefruit for breakfast before I switch on the TV. Ava Sinclair’s stabbing is a big part of the local news. The attack on the glamorous, thrice-divorced socialite by her unstable brother, the billionaire ex-lover and owner of the hotel where the attack took place who came immediately to the rescue—it’s like a soap opera, one I don’t find particularly entertaining.
I turn off the TV, not willing to watch any more. I call Claude and ask for Jules McDaniel’s phone number. He gets it for me almost immediately, and Jules sounds delighted to hear from me then invites me over.
Their house is a charming two-story in a gated community. Cameron is at home, and Jules is obviously in the last stages of her pregnancy. We catch up and have lunch on the terrace before Cameron leaves for work. Neither of them bring up the case that’s all over the news. It’s as if they know how badly I want to escape it, and I’m infinitely grateful for that.
When I get back to the suite, Landon is alone. He’s standing by the windows, drinking from a glass clinking with ice. I have time to look at him, and I see the utter exhaustion in his frame before he turns around and sees me.
His face relaxes into an expression that looks like relief. “I wondered where you were,” he says, his voice soft.
From his face, I can see what he suspected, that maybe I’d left him again. “Claude could have told you. I went to see Jules.”
“How is she?” he asks, his eyes softening.
“Ready to pop.”
His lips lift in a small smile and he takes a step toward me. “I…” He looks down at his glass. “Would you like something to drink?”
I shake my head. “How is she?”
He knows I’m talking about Ava. “She’s doing great. Evans is still missing, but many people are trying to find him. He wanted some more money, it seems, and when he found out she met with me in New York, it drove him crazy enough to hurt her.”
I sigh, wishing the whole situation would somehow resolve itself as quickly as possible. “What will happen when they find him?”
Landon’s face hardens. “He’ll never hurt anyone again.”
The conviction in his expression is hard to look at. I can’t help thinking how he refused to do anything when Evans tried to hurt him, but obviously, with Ava, the rules are different. I swallow the lump in my throat. “When are we leaving?”
“As soon as you’re ready.”
The journey back to New York is another quiet one. Landon falls asleep almost immediately, probably from the stress. I find a book on my e-reader and try to read until I, too, doze off.
At the apartment, we have an early dinner, still in silence. I have so much I want to say, but I don’t know where to start. I don’t even know if I want to say the things on my mind. When his nightmare wakes both of us a few hours later, I find myself wondering whom he’s trying to save this time—Ava or me.