Ross 01 Unleashed (21 page)

That’s what she wanted—no, that’s what she wanted
desperately
—to avoid. If a guy couldn’t do to her body the things Evan had done mere days ago, if he couldn’t send scores of chills up her arm just by brushing it, make her wet just by letting his gaze wander down to her breasts, she had no use for him. Evan had ruined her for anyone else, damn him. He was going to have to reap the consequences of that.

Phase One of her plan was over. Phase Two she would tackle tomorrow. God give her strength.

Todd was wrapped almost from head to toe, but Kelsey would lay bets he didn’t feel much worse than she did at the moment. His entire right leg was in a cast, as well as his left wrist. His head was bandaged and the left side of his face was purple. Thank God she hadn’t run into his mom or Courtney on her trek to his room, but they were lurking somewhere, she was sure. She had to make this as quick and painless as possible.

“Hey,” he said—it was more like a croak—and there was as much surprise in his voice as she figured he could muster.

“I’m not going to ask how you feel. I imagine that’s a pretty stupid question right about now.” He grunted some response that might have been a laugh if he hadn’t recently had surgery on his ribs. “They say you’re going to be just fine.”

His gaze followed her as she approached the side of his bed. “Yeah, it doesn’t feel like it sometimes. You…look tired.”

You have no idea.
“I’m all right.”

Todd was silent for a moment. She couldn’t see enough of his face to discern what emotions might be crossing it. “My mom told me that when she called you, you were in Hawaii with Evan,” he said.

Good. He’d had time to prepare. She’d been afraid Sandra wouldn’t tell him. “I was.”

“Are you and he…?”

“He invited me, and I went, it’s pretty much as simple as that. Or it started out that way, at least. It was the trip he should’ve taken with Courtney, as their honeymoon. But that didn’t work out, did it?”

It was hard not to look away from him as she uttered those words, but she forced herself to keep her gaze fixed on him. To not retreat from what she had to tell him. She looked him up and down and felt…well,
nothing
was too harsh a word. There was sorrow at seeing such a strong man in a nearly helpless state. But he would heal over time. Lisa’s words about begging him to take her back floated through her mind. That was, indeed, the absolute last thing she wanted in the world, especially after the beauty of last week. It would be like…tasting Rocky Road ice cream for the first time after only knowing plain vanilla, only to be told she had to go back to vanilla from now on. The vileness of her reaction to that thought seemed to give her the strength she needed.

“But whatever happens with Evan and me, I—I have very strong feelings for him, yet I basically left him to come here. I’ve been asking myself why. You made it quite clear you didn’t want me in your life, but I’ve possibly ruined something wonderful over you. Why would I do that?”

“I didn’t crash my truck into that idiot on purpose to make you feel bad, you know. It’s not always about you—”

“I’m going to stop you right there, because I heard a lot of BS from you for weeks after we split, and now I have you where you can’t run from what I have to say, don’t I?” Surprise rounded his brown eyes. “But I’m sure the doctors wouldn’t want me getting you upset. I’m not here to do that, and I hope you understand. I’m done with yelling and screaming at you about how you ripped my heart out and turned my life upside down, and you’ve heard it all before anyway. I’m just going to tell you that you’ve done it for the last time. You’ve had some kind of sick hold on me ever since what you did, and now I hear—whether it’s true or not—that you might actually
miss
me.”

“I know what I did to you was wrong. I just feel like…I need to make it up to you somehow.”

“That’s just guilt talking. I know I said some things that have probably stuck with you all this time, if you have a heart at all. You can forget all that, it was just my own anger and pain and frustration talking, wanting to hurt you like you’d hurt me. The problem was, I couldn’t do it, because you simply didn’t care. If we got back together you know as well as I the same thing would just happen again.”

“I wouldn’t—”

“I would never be able to make myself believe whatever you’re about to say. There was a time when I was pathetic and weak and desperate and I might’ve given us another chance, but no more.
No more
. I’m going to walk out the door, find Evan and try to be worthy of him. I’m afraid it’s too late, but at least I don’t have your shadow hanging over me anymore.”

His throat constricted as he swallowed, and it seemed to pain him. Her natural wifely instinct was to move toward him, try to make him more comfortable, ask if he needed anything. But she stood her ground. He was fine. She had to keep telling herself that. He would be fine, she would be fine, everything would be fine.

For a moment she thought he wasn’t going to reply, but when he did, it momentarily stunned her. “He’s a good guy.”

She nodded. “He’s the best of us all. He was at his office on his vacation just to be sure the motion to revoke gets filed as soon as possible on the guy who hit you.”

Todd swallowed again, and she wondered if that glistening in his eye might’ve actually been a
tear
. God forbid he showed any emotion. “I miss him. Wish I could see him. Will you…tell him I’m sorry? And thank him for everything he’s done?”

Her heart softened. He sounded more genuine talking about Evan than he ever had talking about her. “Of course I will. But I don’t know if it’ll do any good.”

“I know. Courtney and I…we’re not together anymore, you know. She’s here and she’s hardly left my side, but…I don’t know.”

“I imagine you’ll work it out. You should, anyway. You seem well suited for one another. She loves you, but I think you two can’t really see one another without your guilt getting in the way. You need to get rid of it.”

Todd’s jaw flexed in a smile. She could tell from his drooping eyelids he was getting sleepy. Probably pain meds kicking in. “I’ll work on it.”

“Good.” She adjusted her purse strap on her shoulder. “I should get going. I wish you the best in everything, Todd.”

“You, too. Kelsey? You look beautiful.”

She gaped for a moment. For all his praise in the beginning of their relationship, she’d hardly heard those words throughout their marriage. “You
did
take quite a hit on the head, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I think it knocked some sense into me.”

She laughed, moving toward the door. “Well, let’s hope that’s the case.”

And as luck would have it—
her
luck lately, at least—she came face-to-face with Courtney in the hall outside the elevator. She almost had to chuckle at the way Courtney’s eyes rounded and her body seemed to go on full alert, as if anticipating a physical attack. The Styrofoam coffee cup in her hand shook visibly.

A few months ago, she might’ve had cause to worry. For the first time since finding the other woman in bed with her husband, Kelsey offered her a big smile. She swept her arm in the direction of Todd’s hospital room.

“He’s all yours.”

Chapter Eleven

Evan burst through his office door like a whirlwind, tossing down his briefcase and shedding the jacket that was stifling him. It took every ounce of self-control he could muster not to slam the door behind him, but that might incite a parade of staff members asking if everything was all right. They were a close-knit bunch, sometimes too much so. He’d already been an ass to his assistant this morning, prompting her to ask him if he needed another week off. He only wanted to start the previous one over…the good parts, at least.

Finally in the silence and solitude of his office, he took a breath and stared at the bleak scene beyond his tall, narrow second-floor windows. Rain drooled down the glass, and the sky was leaden and dismally gray. Matched his thoughts perfectly. It was one of those days he’d told Kelsey about, when it had taken everything he had to walk into that courtroom.

Today was shaping up to be a nightmare, and he didn’t know if the judge was really riding his ass that hard or if it was just that he was ready to snap. Or if it was that Kelsey had been sitting across the room, the weight of her gaze following his every move.

Normally her court attire was conservative and demure and, while nothing she was wearing today was revealing at all, something about the way her black skirt clung to her ass had his blood boiling. Whenever she walked up to the court clerk, he wanted to jump up and thrash every bastard in the room for daring to watch her.

But how could he blame them? Her skirt, her pumps accentuating every muscle in her calves, her hair cascading in gorgeous spirals down her back… A man would’ve been out of his mind not to look. And he could swear the bewitching glow of a woman well fucked still lingered in her face. She looked amazing while he had hardly slept for two days and it showed. The judge had probably taken one look at the dark smudges under his eyes and concluded he’d been on a bender all weekend. This wasn’t how his fantasy was supposed to play out, not at all.

He’d wanted to call her. The thought of her at the hospital, sitting at Todd’s bedside holding his hand had stopped him dead. That man had already made a fool of him once, he’d be damned before he’d willingly go and let him do it again.

His desk phone gave a shrill chirp, slicing through the tumult of his thoughts. He should’ve told Delilah to hold his calls. Court didn’t resume for another two hours and he needed them to recuperate.  He was off his game. Dammit, he was
never
off his game.

Dropping heavily into his chair, he stabbed the intercom button. “Yeah.”

“Kelsey’s here to see you.”

Fuck
. The last thing he needed was her in here spewing apologies or excuses or whatever she had in mind. He crammed the heels of his hands into his eyes, fighting the urge to growl out loud.

“Evan?”

“Send her in.”

He sounds horrible
.

Kelsey watched as Delilah frowned down at the phone on her desk. “I really don’t know what’s gotten into him today. After a week in Hawaii, you’d think he’d have mellowed out.”

“Withdrawals, maybe,” Kelsey said, striving for cheerfulness. “I mean, you get a week on the beach and then you have to come back to this place on a rainy Monday? That would give anyone the
blah
s.”

Delilah nodded and laughed, then leaned forward conspiratorially, speaking in hushed tones. “Hey,
you
would know. Who did he go with? We’ve decided it was a woman because he never would say.”

God, she should have suspected the tongues were wagging. Delilah’s, especially. She was the gossip of the courthouse, on top of all the scandals. Kelsey feigned innocence, cocking her head to one side as if contemplating the matter. Hopefully none of the DA’s staff knew Kelsey had been off last week, too, or they might put two and two together. But did she really care anymore? “Hmm, must be really top secret.”

“Must be, if he didn’t tell you. Anyway, you can go on back. You know where his office is, right?”

“Yeah.”

Left on her own again, her courage nearly failed her. If he still maintained that
distance
, she didn’t know what she would do. Oh, God. What if she could never bridge it? What if that terrible politeness—or if this morning was any indication, outright hostility—would be the extent of their relationship from now on? She clutched the file she was carrying to her chest like a shield as she navigated the hallways.

His office was down the first hall to the right, second door on the left, and it was closed. Holding her breath, she tapped on it, bracing herself for a brusque reply. But Evan only sounded defeated when he mumbled for her to come in.

It crushed her. Her easy-going, roll-with-it Evan had been replaced with a man who looked tense and unhappy, and it was her fault. She slipped inside the door to find him at his desk, every iota of his attention focused on the laptop in front of him. The glare of it caught in his reading glasses, and for all his brooding, he was sexy as hell. She doubted there was anything on that screen that had him looking so intense. He was just avoiding meeting her eyes. She closed the door behind her.

“Hi,” she said. Finally he raised his head, and she would have been relieved when he smiled, but it looked forced. Like everything else about him.

“Hey, there. Did Jack send you over to gloat about his petty victories?” He winked as he said it, but it was true that he’d had a hard morning. The judge had shot down almost every objection he’d thrown out there, and as time pressed on Evan’s frustration had been evident. But she’d seem him handle far, far worse than that, had seen him shake it off like it was nothing and laugh about it later.

Standing here now, she couldn’t quite get rid of the ridiculous feeling that he was the authority figure behind his massive, imposing desk, and she the shamed underling pleading her case.
No begging
, she ordered herself.
Have some damn dignity
. “No, of course not,” she said. “I wanted to see you.”

She stepped farther inside the room, feeling self-conscious despite herself as his gaze swept her up and down. Of all times, she thought about the naughty things he’d said about having sex in here, and her cheeks began to heat up. “I’m sorry for what I said at the hospital. I just…wasn’t prepared to answer questions about us yet. It’s all so new. And we haven’t exactly discussed where this is going.”

He pulled off his glasses and tossed them on the desk. “I thought it was pretty damn apparent where it was going.”

“
It
went to the bedroom. I didn’t know if
it
was coming home with us, or if it was a ‘what happens in Waikiki…’ thing.” His office was spacious, and neat as always. His law degree was elaborately matted and framed on the wall behind him. Pictures of his family adorned the shelves. It struck her then, perhaps more than ever before, just how much she wanted to be a fixture in his world. The wound in her heart yawned wide at the thought that she’d utterly mucked up her chance. “After what happened to me, I need something concrete. I need it laid out in black and white what’s going on, because I’m not going to take the risk of sparking off yet another scandal in my life by speculating in front of a roomful of people. Can you understand that?”