The Debt 4 (7 page)

“I’m glad this is entertaining for you,”
she said, the humor draining from the situation as she thought about what he’d
said just a moment prior.
 
He’d told
her—yet again, and in no uncertain terms—that he couldn’t give her
what she needed.
 
And here she was,
like a fool, finding new ways to convince herself that he’d changed, that he
was falling for her.
 
“Why do you
keep coming to my room?” she said.
 
“Why can’t we just keep this professional, and only be romantic when
we’re out in public?”

“I don’t like being interrogated,” he
said.
 
“I’m here, that’s all that
matters.”

“I need to know why,” she said.

“You need me to spell everything out for
you,” he said, his jaw clenching.

“Maybe I do, Jake.”

He shook his head.
 
“You push me to the edge.
 
You really do.”
 
His eyes were completely fixed on her,
and he seemed to be both angry and wanting her at the same time.
 
Strangely, that was how she felt, too.

“Just say it,” she told him.
 
“Tell me the truth and then whatever
happens, happens.”

“Fine.”
 
He took a deep breath and looked down
before finally meeting her gaze again.
 
“I’m here because I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” he said, his
brown eyes as gorgeous and captivating as anything she’d ever seen in her
life.
 

And the way he said he couldn’t stop
thinking about her, the thrill that went through her body was unreal.

She looked away from him, trying not to
be hypnotized by his magnetism.
 
“This
is all just really confusing for me.”

“What’s so confusing?” he said softly.

“Going home is bringing up a lot of bad
memories for me.
 
That’s why I
couldn’t sleep.
 
I’ve got a lot of
baggage in my hometown.
 
I ran away
because it was so bad.”

“What was so bad?” he said, coming close
enough that she could smell his manly scent, and his cologne.
 
He was fresh and masculine and strong
and sexy.
 

Raven wanted to spill her guts, tell him
everything.
 
She wanted to tell him
about the party, about Caleb and Andre and the people who’d turned on
her—her parents, her brother, her friends—people at school.

She wanted to tell him how she’d gotten
so lost in the end—so lost that one dark, horrible night she’d practically
swallowed a pharmacy along with half a bottle of vodka before her mother had
found her and called 911.

But looking into his brown eyes, knowing
that he still didn’t
really
want to
be with her, didn’t want to be committed to her, that he was just using her for
the things that he wanted and needed from her—she couldn’t trust him
enough to tell him everything.

“Sometime maybe I’ll tell you,” she said,
finally.
 
“But not tonight.”

“Okay,” he said, and he didn’t seem angry
about it.

“It’s just been hard.”
 

“You called home,” he said, as if he
already knew.

He knew from just looking at her face,
probably.
 
Jake Novak could read her
like a book with magnified print.

She nodded.
 
And then there was a lump in her throat,
and she was crying, bawling actually.

“Hey,” he said, and then his strong arms
were wrapping around her, enfolding her in his embrace, rocking her gently as
he kissed her forehead.
 
“Hey, it’s
going to be okay,” he said.
 
“You
know that, right?”

She couldn’t reply.
 
She was crying for everything—for
Jake’s pain about his dead fiancé, for the horror of what he’d been through in
the war, for Skylar being scared and maybe sick, and then finally she was
crying for her own pain.
 
All of the
things she’d been through when she was seventeen and none of it had turned out
okay back then.

But now Jake Novak was holding her and
even though he kept telling her he couldn’t give her what she needed, the
strange truth was that he continued to give her exactly what she needed.

***

They slept together that night in her
hotel room.

It was all very dreamlike, the way Jake had
comforted her, then led her slowly into the bedroom and laid her down on the
mattress before taking off his shirt and jeans and climbing in beside her.

His arms wrapped around her once more, he
hadn’t needed to say much of anything.
 

In seconds, she’d fallen
asleep—something that had seemed an impossibility just minutes before
that.

When she awoke again, it was late at
night, more like early morning, although the sun hadn’t yet begun to rise.

Jake was still holding her, his skin hot
against her skin, his muscular frame so smooth and exciting that she turned over
onto her back and ran her fingers along his forearm, trailing up to his bicep
and shoulder.

He stirred a little, but his eyes never
opened, and he instinctively grabbed her and pulled her body in that much
closer.

Raven listened to him breathe in the
quiet peaceful darkness, and felt his body against hers, and she looked at his
face and his beautiful features, trying to make sense of who he was and what
part he was playing in her life.

She allowed herself to feel the absolute
wonder of being so close to a man that millions of women wanted and fantasized
about.
 
Jake Novak was the biggest
thing going (or had been until his recent video leak), and somehow, against all
odds, he’d landed smack dab in the middle of her little life and exploded the
whole thing like a megaton bomb.

Raven studied his face and tried to
understand why he was even with her.
 
What had made him choose her that night at the party?
 
What had made him so attracted to her?

She didn’t understand it at all.
 
There were so many women that would have
dropped to their knees in a heartbeat to let Jake Novak spank them, touch them,
kiss them, do all that and more.

Yet he’d chosen Raven.

Watching him sleep, she thought he looked
so peaceful, so beautiful, almost an angel.
 
And the truth was, even though his
presence in her life had pretty much exploded her normal reality, the tradeoff
so far had been well worth it.

Being with Jake was frightening,
challenging, frustrating, intense and exciting like nothing else she’d ever
experienced.
 
And yet, despite all
of his mixed signals, Raven realized that she was beginning to trust him more
and more and more.

When she actually thought about what he’d
done for her—helping Skylar when she was scared and in need, facing down
Club Alpha, bringing Raven in front of the media and treating her as his
girlfriend, holding her close when she was sad and crying…

Looking at it objectively, Jake had
actually risked a lot and done a lot for her in a very short time.
 
They were spending nearly every waking
moment together, and now he had even taken to spending the night with her.

Maybe,
she thought, as she once again ran her
palm across Jake’s arm and shoulder and then down his beautifully smooth, rock
hard chest…
Maybe he really is falling in
love with me.

All
signs point to the fact that he is, whether he wants to admit it or not.

Raven got chills thinking about it.

Perhaps
Jake doesn’t want to admit what’s going on, but all you have to do is look at
the facts and it’s clear that he cares.

Remember
what he said when you pushed him to say why he kept coming to your room?
 

I
couldn’t stop thinking about you, that’s what he said.

Raven smiled to herself, and then
snuggled up even closer to him, drifting off into another peaceful sleep.

When she woke up again, it was much later
and she felt strangely cold and empty.
 
Turning back to see Jake, she realized the emptiness was
literal—he wasn’t in bed with her anymore.

The bathroom door was open and there was
nobody inside.
 
She listened and
heard nobody moving around outside the bedroom.

Jake had left, exactly when, she couldn’t
be sure.

Raven realized that she wanted to wake up
with Jake beside her, that she was already becoming addicted to the feel of him
holding her, of him being next to her, his body was like a drug.

She wanted to see him wake up and smile
and make a joke.

But he had gone, for whatever reason.

Sitting up in bed, she reached for her
cell phone on the nightstand and found there was a text from Jake.

Had
to go to my room 2 grab a shower etc.
 
Check on Skylar see
how she is doing. I will make all arrangements for our trip to Mass.
 
We will there for a day maybe 2 at most.
Meet u in the lobby at noon to head out.

Well that explained where Jake had
gone—back to his own room for a shower and to ready himself for their
upcoming trip.

Raven still couldn’t quite accept that
they were going back to Southbridge together.
 
The whole notion was just surreal,
absurd, and fraught with risk to her emotional wellbeing.

But there was no fighting it any longer,
as she’d already told her mother of the visit and Jake was expecting to go as
well.

Jake seemed pretty convinced that this
would make a good photo op and lead to the kind of press they desperately
needed if he was going to stop being the punch-line on late night television
and cable news shows.

What about Kurt, though? Raven wondered
as she slid off her t-shirt and turned on the shower, waiting for the water to
get sufficiently warm before stepping under the stream from the showerhead.

What was Kurt’s angle?
 
He was the one who’d suggested sending
the two of them to her hometown, and it didn’t really make sense.
 
He wanted Raven out of the picture, but there
he was, arguing for her and Jake to spend even more time together.

Perhaps he really had accepted that Jake
was going through with the plan, and so Kurt was now embracing Raven as a
necessary evil.
 
Maybe he was
actually trying to help the plan succeed.

Somehow she didn’t really think so.
 
Whatever Kurt was up to, she didn’t
trust him any further than she could throw him.

Raven washed up, rinsed off and dried
herself, running the towel through her hair.
 
Looking at herself in the bathroom
mirror, she saw a different person looking back at her.

Something in her expression had changed
these last few days.
 
What was it?

She couldn’t quite put her finger on it
at first, and she even felt that maybe it was just wishful thinking.

You
haven’t
changed,
you’re still the same girl you’ve
always been
.

But then she really looked at herself,
trying not to judge based on old impressions.
 
Imagine
you’re seeing yourself for the first time.

What
do you see?

And that’s when it hit her.
 
Raven had always felt that she wasn’t
good enough, wasn’t worthy, was somehow lacking.

That lack of confidence was gone now, and
in some way it’s disappearance could be seen on her face.
 
Her expression was somehow more
confident and self-assured.

Raven smiled, looking at herself as if
for the first time.

Is
it possible that being Jake Novak’s escort has been good for me?
 
Is it possible this whole ridiculous
situation is the best thing that’s ever happened in my entire life?

And then she realized that, yes, it was
possible, and moreover, that’s exactly what Jake Novak was—the best thing
that ever had happened to her.

***

Skylar and her parents were just
finishing breakfast when Raven called her.

“Come downstairs,” Skylar said.
 
“My parents are going back to their room
but I’ll just hang here for a minute.”

“You sure?” Raven said, as she stepped
into her sandals.
 
She’d dressed in
a light blue summer dress and carried a pink clutch.
 
“I can meet you back at your room if you
want.”