“I guess we’ll just have to stay in bed all day then,” Colin uttered, too concerned with kissing her back to care if they got anything done that day.
“I guess that wouldn’t be so bad,” Sabela whispered. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and the two of them lost themselves in one another.
It was an hour before he emerged from his stupor after another glorious encounter, this one focused on giving her as much pleasure as he could. All thoughts of getting out of bed had vanished.
As they lay there sometime later, he pulled Sabela against him, and they watched the scenery outside the windows.
“It’s like a fairytale. It’s so beautiful here,” she said dreamily.
Colin was looking at her, though. “It certainly is,” he said.
She looked over her shoulder up at him, and he knew then that she had realized that he was talking about her. She lifted her torso and offered her lips to him, and he leaned down to gently take them.
Everything felt different now. The emotions and feelings rolling through his mind were totally unexpected. Colin began to think that perhaps he had been too focused on the wrong things.
He had been living in the past for so long that he had forgotten what it was like to be fully present in the here and now.
Sabela opened his eyes to the possibility of a different kind of future. A future that didn’t involve being focused on the past or on revenge.
She was here with him, and she would stay with him. He could try something different. Putting Blanca’s memory to rest was all about moving on, and with Sabela there, Colin might be ready to do just that.
Instead of revenge, he’d move on. Blanca’s death wasn’t in vain if it had brought Sabela to him. The years he’d spent suffering because of what Trevor did wouldn’t heal, but he could move on from them.
He could be happy again.
Colin pulled Sabela closer and snuggled against her shoulder. For now, he didn’t want anything else but to be with her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
IT WAS WELL INTO THE LATE afternoon before Sabela left Colin’s room, intending to clean up and get dressed. One bath wasn’t enough, not after what they’d gotten up to after breakfast.
The man was insatiable, she thought with a grin. Standing, nude, in her bathroom, she looked at herself in the vanity mirror and twisted this way and that to get a good view.
Her body was sore in all the right places, and her lips were swollen from his hard, long kisses. Where she was sore, it was a good kind of sore that she savored. The last twelve hours spent in Colin’s room had been twelve of the most amazing hours of her life.
It was only because business hours back on the east coast of the USA started that Colin admitted he needed to get some work done. He had sent her back to her room with a kiss that took her breath away and the promise to see her in a few hours at dinner.
Sabela was grateful for a brief reprieve and the opportunity to get cleaned up. It gave her some time to really think about what had happened between them and what it might mean.
She hadn’t expected anything like that to happen. First, the mysterious Mr. Morgan had become Colin, and now had become her lover in the span of just a few days.
Sabela flushed as she thought about all of the ways he had taken her body. It was like she was making up for lost time. And she wasn’t guilty.
Not one bit.
Years of working endless double shifts and skimping on dinner so that they could make their grocery budget stretch that much further had taken its toll, but Sabela hadn’t realized how much it had taxed her until she was outside of it.
Being in Switzerland made her realize that she was over stressed and close to breaking down.
Colin was a desperately needed reprieve. A vacation — the sexiest one she’d ever been on.
The idea that she was supposed to play the part of his girlfriend didn’t seem so farfetched now. It would be easy to pretend she cared for him. In fact, caring for Colin was quickly becoming reality. The more time she spent with him, the more she believed there could be something deeper between them.
The way he touched her was electric, and there was no denying his charm and intelligence. She had seen a side of Colin that she believed he revealed to few people. While he acted gruff and aloof, when they were alone she saw there was a passionate, thoughtful man shielded beneath that prickly exterior.
How close was she to finding the thorn in his paw?
Finished with looking herself over in the mirror, Sabela slipped into a bathrobe and wrapped her hair up in a towel. It always took forever to dry.
Upon the counter of the vanity, pushed aside after the aesthetician’s visit, was her purse. With nothing else to do, Sabela found her phone within it and checked her notifications.
There was a missed call from Trevor.
Sabela frowned at the screen. She knew that she hadn’t exactly left Trevor with any information about where she was going or when she would return, but on the other hand, she didn’t figure he cared enough about her whereabouts so long as he was being looked after.
And if something had gone wrong with his health, she was certain a nurse would have called the chalet directly to let Colin know. He was their employer, after all.
With plenty of money in his bank account to support his shopping addiction, she figured he would be fine while she was gone. She’d left him several messages, and he hadn’t called to check on her even once. It hurt, but that just how he was. She’d learn to deal with it.
Sabela considered her options. There was a part of her that wanted to ignore his call, but that was the hurt part of her talking. It wouldn’t be right to do to him what he did to her. Trevor was her brother, and the fact that he was reaching out to her at all meant that something must have happened.
She had to call him back.
Reluctantly, she called him. It barely rang once before he picked up. There was no hello.
“Sabela, where are you?” Trevor barked.
“Hello to you too, Trevor,” she said. “I’m in Switzerland indefinitely, but as soon as I know more about my plans to come home, I’ll let you know.”
“Switzerland? What the hell are you talking about?” He didn’t sound shocked. Upset, maybe, but not shocked.
“I’m in Switzerland. I hope the nurses are taking good care of you. Is everything okay?”
“You can’t pawn me off on a couple of nurses forever,” he said. “They’re paid to be here, Sabela. They don’t care. You’re the one who takes care of me.”
It was an attempt to make her feel guilty, and it worked. Sabela’s stomach tightened, and she braced one hand against the vanity to lend herself strength. She was well aware of who took care of Trevor.
“I had some things I had to take care of. This is for you, too, by the way.”
“What do you mean it’s for me, too?” He spoke in staccato, brusque and snippy.
The hairs raised on the back of Sabela’s neck, and her voice hardened. “How do you think all your medical bills were paid off, Trevor? Do you think $250,000 just magically appeared in my account? Did you think I conjured it out of thin air?”
“You told me you applied for medical assistance to pay off those bills,” he said.
“I did, but it was through a foundation, and now I’ve been called in to repay the
debt. I’m working on the repayment terms now,” she replied.
Sabela was deliberately being vague, but the way it came out made the whole thing with Colin sound so wrong. Now that she had gotten to know him, the situation was entirely different for her. She didn’t like having to describe her time with him at the chalet in business terms.
“What’s the name of this foundation? I want to look it up. Did you even make sure it was legit before you took the money?”
“The money in our bank account is legitimate enough,” she said. “The fact that the collection agencies have stopped calling and breathing down our necks is a miracle, right? I’m taking care of it, Trevor, like I always have.”
“Taking care of it how? Are you screwing some rich prick to make it happen?”
Sabela winced at his tone and the implication of his words. Why would he think such a thing? And they were hitting far too close to home for her comfort.
“I don’t have to do anything. Colin is being kind and fair, especially given the size of the debt.”
“Colin who?” The irritation disappeared from Trevor’s voice, and the chill that replaced it reverberated through the phone from a continent away.
“Colin Morgan,” she said carefully.
Trevor hissed like he’d scalded himself, and she winced, pulling the phone away from her ear. What was his problem?
“Sister, I need you to listen to me. Pack your bags, call a cab, and come home now. Don’t talk to anybody, don’t explain yourself, just get the hell out of there.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
TREVOR HADN’T CALLED HER SISTER since they were kids. It was his term of endearment she once loved, but that made her blood run cold today.
“What are you talking about? Do you know Colin?”
“Damned straight I do. It doesn’t surprise me that you don’t remember him. He moved away from Brent Grove when you were still in junior high.”
Colin lived in Brent Grove? Sabela slouched, the arm braced against the vanity bearing more of her weight.
“Whatever he told you, don’t believe a word of it,” Trevor said. “He’s a manipulator, and he’s not a good person. Trust me on this one. I don’t know why he’s got you there, but I guarantee it has something to do with me. It’s not out of the kindness of his heart.”