“With Beverly Hills,” he said. The way he watched her, like she mattered, was good for her right then.
“Yeah.”
He was right. She didn’t want to deal with Beverly Hills until she knew what to give them.
“This is a new one,” she said. “I’ve never been...” A source of a criminal complaint. Or tragedy. Real news. She’d never been arrested or had more than a speeding ticket. Or had her house burn down, or been in a tragic car accident...
She’d never been married and then cheated on. Or dumped, either, for that matter. Because she’d never before allowed herself to be officially paired with anyone but Lacey.
“I don’t know how to handle the press in an instance like this,” she said. “I’ll need to call my agent.” Before she went home. Just in case. “Hopefully it won’t go public.”
“I made a call while you were getting dressed, back at the hospital,” Michael said. “I do some work for the Santa Raquel police. I’ve asked that the report be sealed.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, I just...with everything going on...”
She shook her head. “Well, are they going to?”
“I don’t know yet,” he said. “That’s part of why I didn’t say anything yet. There are protocols to follow. But I can tell you that it won’t be in the morning papers. Beyond that, they’re going to try...”
She started to cry.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
GOD, HE HATED feeling helpless. Watching the tears sliding softly down Kacey’s face while she sat there calmly holding her water bottle and watching him, Michael had no idea what to do for her. Her light had been dimmed, but she was still Kacey Hamilton, larger-than-life dynamo who blew into his world on occasion and sparked his life with her friendship.
She wanted his friendship in return. He’d give her the moon if he could. But in the end, he was still himself. Mike Valentine. A man who enjoyed peace and quiet. Playing video games at home. He shuddered at the idea of living in Beverly Hills, going to posh places where everyone wanted to know what everyone else was doing, and most definitely recoiled at the idea of being in front of a camera. He hadn’t allowed a photo to be taken of him since the second the gun went off.
X-rays and medical photography had been difficult enough.
She licked a tear off her lip.
“Kace?”
“Yeah?”
“What can I do? How do I help in this moment?” He had Lacey’s number and was just about ready to text her. To let her take over when he had nothing to offer.
“Hold me?” she asked him, hunching her shoulders and shuddering. “Can you just hold me, Michael? Just let me snuggle up? Like me and Lacey? I don’t feel safe,” she said. “I can’t find that... I’m insecure, Michael...”
He moved because her gaze compelled him to do so. There was no thought to right or wrong. This was right. Period.
There was also no thought of intimacy. He was comforting a hurting friend, something he’d done a thousand times. He gently lifted Kacey and settled her in his arms, tucked her head beneath his chin, right across his heartbeat, and pulled her legs to rest across his. He was cradling her like a baby.
He hoped she’d sleep like one. That she’d relax and let sleep take her from the night’s reality. Just for a few minutes, even.
He hoped that he could be enough. That just by holding her he could give her what she needed. Lord knew, he had no words.
He also hoped that he wasn’t doing anything he’d later regret. Her body so close to his...he wanted her there, where he could protect her. He wanted to know she’d always be safe.
He wanted it bad.
“They took pictures of my breasts, Michael.”
He froze, filled with anger. An instant and violent need to find the bastards, rip the digital images away from them and smash all three men into the ground.
And while all of it would be done to help Kacey, it wasn’t what she needed from him in the moment. She needed calm—something he was not coming by easily. “Did you tell the police?”