Counting On Cole (Wilde Ways #8) - Cynthia Eden Page 0,24
you, a lawyer?” Now she let go of the comforter. It slid down to pool at her waist, and he saw that she was wearing a thin, white T-shirt. No bra. Her tight nipples pushed against the front of the fabric.
He swallowed. She is probably cold. Not turned on. This is hardly the time for her to be turned on. Stop being an asshole.
“Yes,” she finally told him softly. “I do still have nightmares. Not often, though. Not like right after the abduction when I would—” Evie clamped her lips together.
“Don’t stop now.” He sat on the edge of the bed. Wanted to reach out and touch her. Cole held back that urge, barely.
“I would have them pretty frequently after the abduction, okay? But bad dreams can’t hurt you. I learned that after a while.”
Bad dreams could sure as hell screw with your mind. “The abduction attempt today probably stirred up memories for you.”
Her lashes flickered. “Yes, I’m sure that’s what it was.”
“You screamed for me.”
“Did I?” Her gaze darted away.
He almost smiled. Would have, if his heart hadn’t felt so heavy. “You are a shit liar.”
Her gaze flew to his face. She studied him a moment, then gritted out, “Fine. Yes, I might have called out for you. That’s a habit that I thought I’d broken, too.”
His own eyes narrowed.
“Though I don’t think habit is the right word. I’m sure it should be called something else, but I don’t know what that term is. It’s late. I’m tired and I’m not thinking clearly, and we both should get back to sleep.”
They should. Absolutely. But he wasn’t moving, not yet. “You’ve woken up, screaming for me, before?” His heart seemed to stop beating.
She stared straight into his eyes. “Do you have any idea how humiliating this is for me?”
His breath expelled in a hard rush as his heart seemed to explode in a fast, frantic rhythm. “The last thing I would ever want to do is humiliate you.” God, no. “I’m sorry. I was just—I’m trying to understand.”
Because her brother had told him…
Evie wants nothing to do with you. She’s put the pieces of her life back together, and those pieces don’t include you. You were a mistake. She told me that herself.
Her brother’s response when Cole had confessed how he felt for Evie—a response that had been burned into his brain.
“If you must know, my therapist said that I thought of you as my safe place. That in my mind, I saw you as an anchor in the storm. So, yes, when I had bad dreams for a while, I woke up calling your name.”
An anchor in the storm.
And he hadn’t been there. Fucking hell.
He hadn’t known. “I’m sorry.”
She blinked a few times. “For what?”
“I didn’t know that you needed me.”
Wrong thing to say. Her shoulders immediately stiffened. “I don’t need you. I mean, yes, someone is after me now, so I guess I do need a bodyguard, and I appreciate the Wilde services, but…I don’t need you.”
“I understand.” He did. He should move. Get his ass off the bed. Put some distance between them. “But I’m still sorry.”
“Why?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there when you called for me.” His hand lifted, and he tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I wish I had been there.”
Her hand flew up. Her fingers circled around his wrist. “Don’t say things that you don’t mean.”
“I didn’t know. Your brother told me that you were adjusting just fine and—” Cole shut his mouth.
Too late.
Her lashes fluttered. “When did he tell you that?”
When I came back for you because I realized I’d made a colossal mistake. “I checked in with him.”
A furrow was between her eyebrows. “He never mentioned that to me.”
No, Harrison wouldn’t have. Because he didn’t want me anywhere near you.
“The only thing he ever told me was that you had other cases. That right after you left me, you’d taken another assignment somewhere in Europe, and there was no way to reach you.”
There had been other assignments, but her brother… “I spoke with him.” And it hadn’t been just once. Hell, how did she think that Harrison had known he was now working with Wilde? Because when he’d signed on with Wilde, Cole had told Harrison exactly where he’d be.
The fact that the kidnappers were never caught kept me up at night. I worried about you. Told Harrison I would be there in an instant if you ever had trouble again.