Surrender (12 page)

Searching her mind for the last thing she could remember was painful, but Ari tried to summon up her previous night’s memories. Slowly, through a thick veil of fog, memories started trickling back in.

She’d been at the bar with her friends. She knew she was drinking too much, but they were having a great time – laughing, flirting with the waiter, acting like any other twenty-three year old on a Friday night with no worries.

She wasn’t just a normal person, though. She had her mother to take care of, bills to pay, and stress beyond anything a single woman should be enduring. She’d just wanted one single night to not think about any of it. It seemed she wasn’t allowed even that.

No matter how much she searched her memory, she didn’t recall seeing Rafe anywhere at the bar. The very last thing she could remember was her friends encouraging her to dance with the waiter. She couldn’t even think of his name. Everything had started to go fuzzy.

“Come on, Ari. I’m going to sit you up now. I know you hurt at the moment, but if you take these pills you’ll start to feel better. I turned down the lights so you can open your eyes.”

The next minute was filled with excruciating pain as she felt Rafe’s hands beneath her body as he helped her sit up. Nausea rose in her throat as sharp arrows of discomfort tore into her.

She felt the edge of a glass against her bottom lip and she automatically opened her mouth, feeling a small token of relief as the icy cold liquid slid down her throat. She felt Rafe’s callused finger against her bottom lip, and she once again opened as she felt him place a pill on her tongue. She swallowed it down when he pressed the glass against her lip again.

She wasn’t brave enough to open her eyes just yet. She’d wait until the pounding in her head settled down first.

Over the next several minutes, she concentrated on taking deep breaths in and out as she started to feel the effects from the magic pill. Her pounding head and excruciating body aches didn’t cease, but began to ease to a bearable level.

Eventually, Ari braved cracking her eyes open. The room was dim, but it didn’t take her long to spot Rafe sitting next to the bed in one of her rickety kitchen chairs.

She was stunned to find the sophisticated man in her apartment. She never would’ve thought
that
day would come. He was far too polished to hang out in the slums of San Francisco.

She struggled to focus her eyes on his face, becoming more surprised by what she saw. Rafe had at least a full day’s growth of
stubble coating his normally smooth skin, and the circles under his eyes attested to the fact that it didn’t look like he’d been sleeping much. Her curiosity spiked to find out what had happened.

“I’m glad to see you finally awake. You’ve been semi-conscious the last few hours, but only enough to allow me to get some liquids in you and take you to the bathroom. I was beginning to think the doctor was wrong. You slept all night and day, and were going for night number two before you finally woke up.”

“What happened? Doctor? What doctor? Why are you here with me?” Ari was again surprised by the hoarseness to her voice. She sounded like she hadn’t spoken in years.

“You were drugged at the club last night. I happened to be there and stopped the man before he carted you off to do unimaginable things with you.”

Ari waited for him to continue. When he said nothing further, she turned her eyes back on him and looked into his anger filled eyes. Why was he so upset if she was the one who’d almost been raped? It wasn’t like she’d done it on purpose. It wasn’t like she’d asked him to step in and save her and then play doctor.

As the two of them had a stare down, the reality of the situation set in. She’d come close to being raped. It seemed unreal – like it couldn’t be happening to her, as if she was looking through a window and watching the story happen to someone else.

Being sheltered had its positives, and one of those was thinking horrible things could never happen to you. Death, rape, suicide – all happened, but were so distant, the thought never occurred to her that she could ever be a victim. With her head still pounding, she pushed down the panic wanting to surface. The reality of the situation would most likely hit her soon, but for now it was much easier to not think about it.

“Wow. I guess you don’t mince words.”

“I don’t see any point in beating around the bush.”

“How long have I been unconscious?”

“It’s late Saturday night, so it’s been about twenty hours. You’re probably hungry.”

“No. The thought of food is horrible. I’m fine now. I appreciate you looking out for me, but I can take care of myself.”

“You’re far from fine, Ari. You were drugged and nearly raped. I’m not going anywhere right now. I’ll have food brought over.”

Before Ari could say anything else, he stood and pulled out his phone and gracefully left the room as he dialed a phone number. She was still struggling to manage the pain invading her body as well as feeling too weak to argue with him. It wasn’t like he could cram the food down her throat. At least she didn’t think he’d take it that far.

With a groan, she shifted her legs over the side of the bed until she felt her toes touch the floor. Slowly standing on wobbly legs, Ari held on to the side of the bed until she was sure she wasn’t going to fall flat on her face. When the dizziness passed, she took a deep breath and cautiously made her way to the bathroom, firmly shutting the door behind her.

At Ari’s first look in the mirror – even in the crummy bathroom lighting – she nearly groaned again. Her hair looked as if rats had burrowed several nests inside – her face was as pale as a ghost, and she had reddish brown smudges beneath her eyes, really helping to accent her
prominent cheekbones.

If she happened to walk by someone with the same appearance, she’d assume the person was dead. Hollywood couldn’t do a better make-up job. Using the last of her energy, she washed her face, rinsed her mouth out and ran a brush through her tangles. She wasn’t trying to impress
Rafe, she just hoped that taking a bit of time with her appearance would make her feel slightly better.

By the time she opened the door, she was drained of what little energy she’d awoken with, but she did feel slightly more human.

Rafe had a low light burning in the corner where he’d set up his computer on a small desk that wasn’t hers. Then she noticed the new bedding covering her mattress. Come to think of it, her back wasn’t hurting like it should’ve been with her lying in bed for twenty hours.

There’s no way she could’ve slept on the lumpy second hand furniture for so long and not be feeling it in every vertebrae of her back. She slowly moved back to the bed and lifted the sheet, seeing a new mattress.

She didn’t know whether to be grateful or feel invaded. Shopping for a bed was a little too intimate for a stranger to do. She really didn’t want to be any more in Rafe’s debt than she already felt after having him rescue her. She couldn’t afford to pay him back for whatever he’d spent, but she’d have to. She refused to have that hanging over her head.

She’d hold off for now because it seemed petty of her to snap at the man for providing her with a comfortable bed when she was ill. Paying him back wouldn’t be easy – he’d take it as a personal hit on his pride. She’d have to slip an anonymous envelope beneath his door or something like that. She didn’t need him to know she’d paid it back, she just needed to know, herself.

As Ari climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over her legs, there was a knock on the apartment door. The sound echoed inside her head, feeling like a set of bass drums playing an upbeat tempo. So much for her headache easing.

Being extremely gentle with movements, she lay back down and covered her head with one of the soft down pillows, hoping to block out the sound of the next attack on her thin wood door. Luckily, there wasn’t any more pounding. Soon though, delicious aromas drifted beneath the pillows,
filling her nostrils.

After she heard muted sounds in her small kitchen, the smell of warm food became stronger as Rafe sat down next to her bed.

“Sit up for me, Ari. It’s time to eat something. I have soup and fresh bread.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said, not wanting to accept anything else from him. It was starting to get a bit ridiculous. She needed him to just go home.

Her stomach took that opportunity to growl loudly as if to make sure Rafe knew she was a liar – that she most certainly
was
hungry. She hadn’t realized how famished she was until the aromas from whatever had been delivered assaulted her.

“Come on, Ari. Sit up and eat your soup and bread,” Rafe said, an obvious smile in his tone.

She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of doing what he wanted, but her stomach decided to growl again, and she was too starved to play further games. With frustration and great effort, she tossed off the pillow and slowly propped herself up to a sitting position.

Rafe placed a tray across her lap and she practically drooled when she looked down at the bowl of soup and warm bread. Without further hesitation, Ari ripped off a piece of the soft bread and dipped it in the soup before lifting it to her lips and taking a bite.

Her taste buds exploded as she carefully swallowed and then dove further into her meal, appeasing her hunger. When she cleared everything from the tray, she realized her head wasn’t pounding at all anymore, though exhaustion was quickly consuming her. She didn’t care. She could sleep a while longer, and when she woke, it would be a new day with hopefully no pain, and definitely no Rafe.

Carefully, she
laid back down and closed her eyes. Just as Ari began drifting to sleep again she heard Rafe on his phone. She barely heard his last words, thinking they weren’t anything other than a dream.

“Ari, we have to move to my place. I have work I have to attend to, and I’m not leaving you by yourself. The pills I gave you take the pain away, but they also make you drowsy, so I don’t want you shocked when you wake up in a new bed… Ari… are you listening?”

Ari mumbled something, though she had no idea what. Thankfully sleep took over and she passed out, not having to feel any further pain.

Ari awoke feeling better, but still not at a hundred percent. Stretching her arms above her head and arching her back, she didn’t realize she wasn’t home until she turned and felt the cool satin beneath her fingertips.

There was no way she was sleeping in her own home. Had she died and was now feeling what heaven was like? The sheets were amazing and she felt like she was sinking into a vat of cotton, the bed was so comfortable.

Opening her eyes, Ari was bombarded with natural light as she looked across the huge room and out the opened curtains of at least eight foot high window panes.

“I was beginning to think you were going to sleep the entire day away.”

Ari jumped at the words and whipped her head around to find a young woman in her mid-twenties, standing next to the bed.

“Um, where am I?”

“You’re at Mr. Palazzo’s residence. He said you may still be a bit unsettled when you woke, that you’d been drugged. I’m so sorry you've had to go through this. The doctor looked at you again this morning and said your fever is down and you’re almost back to full health, but he also said you needed to be looked after for another twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

“Forty-eight hours? What day is it?” Ari asked as panic began to set in.

“It’s Monday, just past ten in the morning. You’ve been here for two full nights, but you spiked a fever yesterday and the doctor gave you a heavy dose of pain relievers and antibiotics. Your coloring looks much better now. ”

“I have to go! My boss is going to fire me,” Ari
exclaimed as she jumped from the bed. The room began to spin slightly with her quick movements and she found herself falling back, thankfully landing on the soft mattress.

“Whoa, slow down. Mr. Palazzo already called into your work and they know you’ll be out for a few days.”

“He doesn’t have the right to do that. He certainly doesn’t have the right to abduct me from my home!”

The woman looked at Ari like she was mentally ill. Maybe she was, but she was angry that he’d swooped in and taken over her life. She
refused to be in debt to the man. Thinking back over the events of the last few days, and the hospital incident, she couldn’t seem to get away from him. She couldn’t afford to owe him anything more.

“
It’s okay, Misty. I’ll take care of Ms. Harlow now.”

Ari’s head turned sharply and her breath caught at the sight of Rafe standing in her doorway. Without
giving her eyes permission, they drank in his massive frame. How she could despise everything the man stood for and still feel attraction for him – she didn’t understand – but every time she was in his presence, she found herself fighting just a little more to keep her hormones at a neutral level, especially after that dream.

With a quick pep-talk, she tore her gaze from his mesmerizing eyes and focused
upon a button on his shirt instead. She had to remain calm, and then get back to her apartment and the real world before she began to think she could accept his indecent proposal.

“I appreciate you taking care of me the last few days but I need to get home. I have a job that I happen to like, and a life waiting for my return,” Ari told him, proud of the false bravado to her tone. Inside, she was shaking like a leaf in
a fall breeze.