A Kiss of Color: The Complete 3 Book Collection (28 page)

“You’re so beautiful.”

Her head jerked up to see her tormentor standing in the corner of the room, the thin, sharp blade he’d been using on her glinting in the early morning light. “I thought so the first time I saw you.”

The immense man took a step towards her and Helena flinched, anticipating the pain he would bring.

“I’ve watched you…” Elliot trailed his knife lightly over her skin and she inhaled sharply. “For so very,
very
long.” The tip of his weapon paused over the swell of her stomach and Helena stopped breathing. “I could get rid of this for you, you know. It would be so
very
easy.”

Her baby.

He was talking about hurting her baby.

“If you
touch
him,” The young woman surprised even herself with the vehemence in her tone. “I swear to
God
I will end you.”

Elliot’s eyes widened in momentary shock a moment before a stream of low, amused laughter emitted from his throat. “Oh, Helena…you are much,
much
more amusing than I could ever have imagined.”

Taking a handful of her dark hair, he twisted it so that her neck pulled taut and she gasped, flushing darkly as his gaze slid licentiously over her form. “This is going to be
so
much fun.”

The young woman shuddered, praying, for perhaps the first time in a long time.

It wasn’t for her own life, however, that she begged. Whatever happened – however things turned out – she wanted Xavier to be able to hold his baby.

He deserved that right.

As Elliot raised his knife again, Helena gritted her teeth against the pain she knew was coming, and prayed the cut wouldn’t be deep.

**

Despite all the interruptions, Xavier left the office with pep in his step.

The last step of the merger had gone off without a hitch. His business was golden, and he was poised to become one of the top providers of tech for the common consumer in the Northern Hemisphere.

But the moment he was in the car, speeding away from the downtown high rise, all he wanted to do was celebrate with the woman he loved.

After all this time…all the poisonous thoughts that had gone around and around his head…he had never stopped wanting her…never stopped needing her.

He’d been wrong, he realized now, to try and force her to admit that she wanted a family. With Helena, he’d always had to move slowly. They shouldn’t have spoken the way they had, and he shouldn’t have jumped all over her.

Brandy was right…she’d been scared. And he had overlooked that in his own anger.

Now he knew that fear wasn’t enough to make her give the child up – that it wasn’t enough to drive her to the dire actions his parents had tried to make him believe…all he wanted to do was hold her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her.

When he stopped into her office, both the secretary, Miranda, and Doctor Susan Forge were more than a little surprised to see him. He made a fairly dramatic entrance into the waiting room, making several children stare up at him curiously.

“Where is she?” He demanded, unable to keep the longing from his voice. “Please. I need to see her.”

Miranda arched a brow, looking from him to her boss and then back again before the Doctor stepped forward, her expression neutral. “Xavier…Helena is not here. She didn’t come in this morning.”

“Did she call out sick?” He found himself asking, running a hand anxiously though his hair. “Please, Susan. I know what you must think of me, but I need an address.” He took a deep breath. “I need to make this right.”

The Doctor peered at him with narrow eyes for a very long beat before she finally shook her head slowly, turning from him to gesture to Miranda. After a moment’s hesitation, the young woman handed over a pad which the doctor then dropped into his hand.

Xavier glanced down to see an address there before sighing in relief. “Thank you, Susan. Really.”

“Don’t thank me yet.” The elder woman’s lips curved upward into a small, reluctant smile. “Thank me when that son of yours makes his way healthily into this world.”

“I will.”

With those words, Xavier turned on his heel, racing for his car, his heart in his throat. It had only been a few months, but for the months that he’d been without her, he hadn’t felt alive.

He was a fool to think he could have lived without her.

It took a scant five minutes for Xavier to reach Helena’s apartment from the office, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her car in the parking lot.

She was home.

He took the steps to the second floor two at a time, reaching her door in seconds. Only then, did he pause.

Xavier was sure he looked a mess, hair disheveled, his suit damp with sweat. He did the best he could to straighten his glasses and make himself presentable – and then he raised his hand to knock.

That’s when he heard it.

The short, soft, quickly stifled cry of a woman in pain. Xavier immediately tensed.

He was hearing things. He had to be.

But there it was again. Low, curt…and very familiar.

Catlike, the young man moved over to the window where only a tiny slit of the curtain didn’t shield from the outside world. And through that sliver, Xavier witnessed a sight that made his heart stop.

Helena. He hadn’t seen her for an eternity, and here she was…but this…this was hell brought to life.

She’d been suspended from the bottom two posts of her bed and hung between them, limp, barely clothed. The swell of her stomach stood out, prominent on her tiny form...and then, there was the blood. There seemed to be rivulets and rivulets of it streaming from her, and the lovely face that haunted his dreams was pinched and pale with pain.

Someone was hurting her.

And he didn’t have to wait long to discover who.

Within minutes, a tall man he recognized from the images his parents had provided him with stepped into Xavier’s line of sight. He held a gleaming switchblade stained with Helena’s blood – and it was very obvious that he delighted in her pain.

He was more massive, even, then Xavier’s lofty height – but at that moment, the programmer hardly cared. All he wanted to do was hurt the bastard…and hurt him
badly
.

Barely able to contain his fury, Xavier returned to the door, trying the knob. It was, of course, locked, and he barely hesitated a moment before kicking down the door in a smooth, powerful motion.

Within seconds, he had barreled through the doorway, and Helena’s torturer exited the bathroom, his face a disturbing mask of satisfaction.

“Well, well, well. If it isn’t the ex. Welcome to the party.”

He dove at Xavier, and the dark-haired man spun out of the way in the nick of time, the blade grazing his side. He reached blindly for the first object he could find, which happened to be a lamp. The porcelain smashed over his assailant’s head, fragments scattering throughout the room.

But his opponent kept on coming.

Turning on his heel, the green-eyed maniac came for him again, and this time, Xavier put a couch between them before diving for the kitchen. As many times as he’d messed around in the gym with partners, this was something completely and totally different. This was life or death, and he was running on adrenaline.

His fingers found the handle of a cast-iron pot, which he flung at the man behind him. Xavier missed, and the heavy metal hit the wall, tearing a hole in the sheetrock. His opponent growled almost ferally, raising his knife in a clear threat as he leapt forward.

Xavier dodged, mere millimeters from having a new mouth carved in his abdomen. He hit the floor, hard, and crawled from the kitchen, leading the madman as far away from Helena as he possibly could.

When a large hand closed around his ankle, he turned immediately and met the assailant’s grinning face with a foot to the teeth, which earned him enough time to straighten and gain his bearings. There was precious little in the tiny kitchen that he could use to defend himself. All he could see was a heavy wooden chopping block, and when Xavier’s eyes fell on it, he knew he would only have one opportunity.

His attacker recovered in minutes, launching into action once more with an impassioned yell of bloodlust. This time, Xavier let him come. He felt the knife enter his side, forced himself to breathe through the searing pain, and lifted the ten pound chopping block to smash down atop his head.

At the first blow, the man grunted. The second made him stumble, and at the third, he finally crumpled to the ground. But, that didn’t stop Xavier. He hit the man three times more, until his face was a bloody mess. Only then did he drop his weapon, racing for the bedroom.

Immediately, he reached for Helena’s bonds, untying them so that he could take her in his arms as they sank to the floor.

“Helena…” Frantically, Xavier cupped her face to him, cradling her body delicately. “Helena, speak to me, please.”

She looked so tiny, so vulnerable smeared in her own blood, her belly swollen with the child she’d hidden from him for so long.

Her eyes were closed, her face deathly pale, and Xavier’s heart pounded in his chest. No, no
Fuck
no. He couldn’t have come this far just to lose her! Not like this! “
Helena
,” He begged, torturously, beginning to tremble as he fumbled for his phone to call nine one one. Her breathing was so ragged…so shallow…

And all he could do was hold her…and pray to whatever deity that existed that his pig-headed stubbornness hadn’t cost him the family that had always been in his heart.

***

God, she felt absolutely awful.

Her head was pounding, her mouth was dry, and she was ridiculously nauseous. With a low groan, Helena turned onto her side, opening her eyes to tiny slits as she slowly came back to the world of the living.

It was…bright.

Much too bright, actually, and she blinked at the harsh light as her eyes adjusted to her surroundings. There was very little in the white room she found herself – a chair, a small TV, and a bed…in which she found herself currently situated.

A hospital. She was in a hospital.

Everything came rushing back to her in a flood.

Elliot had followed her to her car in the parking-lot, forced her to drive him back to her apartment and then…he had starting cutting her. Even now, imagining the pain was enough to make her shudder and she instinctively raised her arms to wrap around herself. She found them both weak. She was barely able to lift them, and when she did, Helena discovered the limbs swathed with white bandages.

She remembered…she remembered the sound of the door being kicked in. Elliot had left her, and she remembered being supremely relieved that the pain had stopped, just for an instant. Then, she had fallen down…down into a dream. It must have been a dream because she remembered Xavier’s voice, calling to her.

Desperate.

In an instant, Helena found herself lurching upright as she clutched at her stomach, her eyes wide. The baby! Was her baby OK?

“The baby is fine.” The young woman looked over to the other side of the room, and felt her heart seize for a moment.

He
was
there.

After all this time…Helena drank in the sight of his sharp, angled face, the shadow of stubble on his jaw and his intense, vibrant blue eyes. When she caught sight of the blood on his pristine white dress shirt, she gasped in horror. “Oh, Xavier, what happened to you?”

The man’s eyes widened incredulously. “What happened to
me
? Jesus Christ, Helena, what the hell happened to you? You were bleeding
everywhere
…you were unconscious and that guy…that guy would have…” Xavier broke her gaze for a moment to take a deep breath, visibly composing himself. Then, slowly, he rose from his chair to cross the room to her side. “I’m fine.” He managed, sinking into the chair beside her. There was a heavy moment that passed between them before he raised his gaze to hers once more and the desperation she saw there took her breath away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice was barely a whisper as he gazed over her battered form, his eyes lingering on the curve of her stomach. “Jesus,
Helena
…”

She felt tears rising to her own eyes at the pain in his voice and shut them, letting the moisture trickle down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Xavier. I was scared…
so
scared. I’ve made…so many mistakes in my life and this…this is a
child
. A living thing. I didn’t want to fuck that up.”

“You could
never
.” The man returned intensely, reaching out to take her hand between his own so warmth flooded her system from his mere touch. “I will be there
with
you, Helena, and you will be the most
amazing
mother in the cosmos. I know you will.”

A soft sob escaped the young woman as she attempted to wipe her tears away. “I wouldn’t have kept him from you, Xavier. I would never have done that…you’ll still see him, still spend time with him…whenever you want-”

“What are you saying?” The man interjected lowly, his gaze piercing her with its bright vigor. “That we stay apart? That we pass our son back and forth on weekends and birthdays and share him, but not each other?”

The very notion drew a low moan of longing from Helena’s throat. “I…I hurt you, Xavier. And I know I still have a lot to work on. I wouldn’t want…I wouldn’t want to put you through that again-”

Before she could say a word more, she was in his arms.

Helena stiffened for a moment – just the barest moment – before she collapsed against him with an anguished cry. His scent, his strength…
he
was what she needed these last few, long months. She needed to be with him, to be reminded of what they were together. For all that she had speculated – for all that she’d thought she might be able to do without him…she now realized how foolish she’d been.