Rush of Redemption (Rush Series #2) (28 page)

After she’d rushed Alex
off, she dressed as quick as she could in a white cotton skirt and a sleeveless
multi-colored top made of silk. She thought the colors would make her feel
better, but all it did was 
bring
 out how
pale she was. She found Anna feeding Blake. She sat on the couch and waited
until she was finished before having her bring him to her. She was still
so 
weak,
 she didn’t think she could carry
him.

She held her precious baby
boy close to her and spoke to him in soft tones. He lifted his amazing blue
eyes up to hers and seemed to smile at her, although she knew he was probably
too young to really smile. But he watched her intently and waved his arms and
kicked his feet. She touched his dark hair and breathed in his sweet, sweet
smell. She kissed his beautiful little face and swallowed hard. She prayed Rush
wouldn’t take him from her. She loved him so much. When he began to get fussy,
she rocked him gently until he went to sleep. Anna carried him back to his
crib.

As he slept, Trinity moved
to her room and began packing up what meager belongings she had at Rush’s
house. She went through to Rush’s room and gathered any belongings she’d had
there. When she was done, she stacked everything next to the door of the spare
room and went to the nursery. She sat down in the rocking chair and slowly
rocked the chair back and forth as she watched Blake sleep. She slipped her
cellphone from her pocket and checked the messages she hadn’t checked in days.
She saw many calls from her father and a couple from 
Sundra
.
There was even one from Hunter 
Amhearst
. She
deleted all the messages without listening to them. She just couldn’t deal with
anything else at the moment.

She tried to tell herself
that she’d been through this before and would be able to get over it. But no
matter what pep-talk she gave herself, her insides felt like they were being turned
inside out. She wondered why he felt the need to come rushing back. He probably
was worried Blake wasn’t being cared for properly. Tears filled her eyes; it
didn’t matter what she told herself… even though she knew he’d already moved
on; it hurt so damned bad! Exhausted by all her activity, and the gently
swaying of the rocker, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

A kink in her neck brought
her out of her restless slumber in the chair. Rolling her head and shoulders,
she opened her eyes to find Rush standing in the doorway of the nursery, a
drink in his hand. His gorgeous face was an impassive mask. He contemplated her
as he lifted his drink to his lips. Her chest tightened and burned, but with
emotion this time.

“So… you’re leaving?” he
asked quietly.

She blinked back the tears
which threatened. “I think you did that,” she responded just as quietly.

“What do you mean?”

She gave him an incredulous
look, 
then
 merely shook her head. “It
doesn’t matter. I don’t blame you, Rush. This time it was my fault. I accept
that. It’s… just time.” Her heart felt crushed in her chest.

 “How are you
feeling?” he asked.

“I’m okay. Just overdid it.
But I’m better now. You won’t have to worry. I’ll take really good care of
Blake.”

He bunched his eyebrows
together. “I wasn’t worried. I just thought maybe it’d make more sense for you
both to stay here until you were feeling better.”

She clamped her lips
together firmly when they began to tremble again. “I can’t,” she whispered.

“What about Blake?” he
asked sadly.

She swallowed hard and her
chest heaved, rising and falling rapidly, making her almost lightheaded. Her
lips trembled. “Please don’t take him from me. I’ll do whatever you want, but
please don’t take him.”

Once again he eyed her
speculatively over the rim of his glass. “Anything I want, huh?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

He studied her for a long
moment. “Stay with me tonight.”

Her head spun at his words.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“It’s simple. Stay with me
tonight, then tomorrow if you still want to go… I won’t stop you.”

The trembling in her lips
seemed to invade her body. “I… can’t. Please don’t ask me that.”

Rush moved towards her and
crouched down in front of her. Setting his now-empty glass down, he captured
her left hand within his and brought it up to his lips. “I know this isn’t the
life you wanted, and I promised myself when 
Tiko
 took
you that I would let you go, but I’m finding it hard. I want you so damned
much. Stay with me,” he whispered huskily.

She sucked in a breath and
tried to pull her hand away, but he just tugged it until she was face-to-face
with him.

“Stay with me,” he
whispered against her lips.

Gently, he pressed his lips
against hers. Letting her hand go, he reached up and captured her face within
the palms of his hands. He licked his way into her mouth and stroked her tongue
with his. “I have missed you so much,” he whispered.

Keeping the memory of the
photographs of Rush and Olivia firmly in her mind, but ashamed at the extreme
effort it still took, she pulled away. “I can’t do this. I can’t… stay. I need
to go.”

“I don’t want you to,” he
replied, confused, as he leaned in and traced the curve of her ear with his
lips and his tongue. “I want you… I need you,” he murmured.

“What about Olivia Terry?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t
want her, I only want you,” he replied, as he ran his lips down her neck to the
pulse which beat frantically at the base of her throat. The fluttering of his
tongue against her skin caused her nipples to harden into stiff points. She
moaned when his fingers slid up underneath her top and ran his thumbs over her
sensitive lace-covered breasts.

It took everything she
possessed to pull away. Rush Drayton had always been able to make her lose her
head. But she’d never endure it this time. “Rush, please don’t… please stop,”
she begged as he continued to stroke her nipples and sought to return his lips
to her skin. Eventually, her words broke through. 

With his eyes over-bright,
he stared at her uncomprehendingly. “I don’t understand,” he said.

This time she couldn’t stop
her chin from wobbling or her lips from trembling. “I know I was wrong in what
I did. I shouldn’t have taken Blake and gone to El Paso. I know I should have
trusted you more. But I don’t understand how you could leave and take her to
the same place we were to be married. Do you know how much that hurt? Do you
care?” she asked as tears slid down her cheeks.

He stared at her
uncomprehendingly. “The Caymans?” he asked, unsure.

Falling back heavily in the
rocker, she stared at him in disbelief. “You can cut the act, Rush. I
know… 
I know
!”

Falling back on his heels,
he looked at her, irritated at her tone, “What do you know?”

“Did you think the papers
wouldn’t be all too happy to announce your happy reunion with Olivia Terry?”

“Olivia Terry? Yes, she was
in the Caymans, but she wasn’t with me,” he said.

“How can you say that?” she
asked.

He shook his head sadly.
“Why can’t you trust me just a little?”

“But there were pictures of
you together,” she said, a little less sure.

Standing to his feet, he
moved to the door and stopped and without turning around he said, “The
newspapers want to sell papers, Trinity. At some point, you need to quit
believing everything you see and start believing in what you know.” Without
another word, he walked out.

She laid her head back and
allowed the tears to fall. She’d made the right decision. She couldn’t live a
life where she would have to be constantly on guard against Rush and his
libido.

Scrubbing her hands over
her face, she brushed her tears away. She’d cried all she was going to over
Rush Drayton. As she stepped into the hall, she heard the murmur of voices in
Rush’s office. She gathered her courage and walked to Rush’s office. He was
sitting behind his desk and Alex was seated across from him.

Both men turned to her when
she entered. “Rush, can I talk to you privately?”

“I’ll go make those calls,”
Alex said to Rush as he walked out and quietly shut the door behind him.

“What do you need?” he
asked somberly.

“I think it’s best if I go
back to my condo. I want to take Blake with me.”

He arched an eyebrow at
her. “Do you now?”

“Please, Rush. Don’t make
this any harder. I’ll agree to any joint custody agreement you want, but please
don’t take him away from me.”

Slowly, with his lips in a
grim line, he nodded. “With one condition,” he said.

“Anything,” she said
quickly.

“You take one of Alex’s men
with you. You’ll need protection for a while until things die down with your
father and with… us,” he finished softly.

She jerked her head in a
nod. 
“Of course.
 I’ll just get my things…”
She started to turn away, but stopped and stepped closer to his desk. A little
unsteadily, she twisted his grandmother’s engagement ring from her finger and
stared at it for a long moment before handing it to Rush. He hesitated before
reaching out a hand to accept it from her. “I wish things had been different…
not so complicated… so hard. This really is for the best,” she murmured.

“Okay,” he said softly as
he stared down at the ring.

“Okay,” she repeated.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to go.

The raspy tones of his
voice stopped her. 
“Trinity?”

She turned her head. “Yes?”

“If you need anything, call
me.”

With a quick nod, she
continued on her way.

Trinity waited in the spare
room until Jorge loaded her few belongings in the car. Finally, she went to get
Blake. Rush was in the nursery holding him when she entered. She watched as he
held him close and spoke softly to him. Tears sprang into her eyes. Being
without Blake was going to be hard on Rush… just as hard as it would have been
on her.

“…Daddy is going to miss
you so much. You be a good boy for mommy. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

Rush turned and saw her
standing in the doorway. With one last kiss to his son’s head, and with grim
determination, he handed Blake to her and walked away without looking back.

~*~

Rush stood at the window with his balled fists pressed against the
sides of the sill. He watched as Trinity fastened Blake into his car seat. He
watched as she turned around for one last look at the house before climbing
into the 
towncar
, and then just like that, she
was gone. The knot in his stomach grew until he could hardly breathe. He’d
thought if he gave her enough space when they returned from El Paso, she would
find her way back to him, but it appears he’d gone about things the wrong way.

He’d not been aware of the
photographs in the newspaper. He rarely looked at papers anymore. He’d grown up
ignoring the headlines. He’d found the newspaper Trinity had left on the dining
room table. He’d cringed when he’d seen the photographs. The only one which had
actually been recent was the one in the airport. The other photographs had been
taken long before he and Trinity had gotten together, when he actually had been
seeing Olivia Terry.

He’d needed Oliver Terry,
Olivia’s father, to assist with a part of his project in the Cayman’s, and of
course, Olivia had accompanied her father. She’d tried to finagle him into
spending time with her, but Rush had just wanted to finish what he had to do
and then go back home to his hurting family. He’d not wanted to return to the
Caymans in the first place, but the project was going awry. It hadn’t been
until Hunter 
Amhearst
 had shown up with his
father – who was also part of the project – that Olivia had given it a rest
with him. As far as Rush knew, Hunter and Olivia were still on the island.

He saw how damning the
photos were, but damn it, why couldn’t she have trusted him enough to ask? But
he knew the answer to that particular question – because she never would trust
him enough… or at all. He couldn’t hold off the inevitable any longer. This was
where they had been headed ever since they’d begun… over. Rush heaved a sigh as
he leaned his head against one balled fist.

Chapter Nineteen

The hollow feeling inside Trinity’s chest lingered, even though
it’d been a month since she’d driven away from Rush and her life with him. In
that month, she’d not seen him one single time. He’d had his attorney draw up a
joint custody agreement. The arrangement set was he got Blake on Tuesdays and
Thursday evenings and then all day on Sunday. The attorney had brought the
paperwork to her and she’d signed it only after a quick perusal. She wanted
Rush to be a part of Blake’s life. Also, she’d promised him she’d agree to
anything if he wouldn’t take him from her. So every Tuesday and Thursday
evenings and Sunday mornings, Anna arrived to collect Blake to take him to
Rush’s. When Blake was with her, one of Alex’s men was also with them. She no
longer thought of it as an intrusion, but a necessity.