I head toward the back of the room, my skin tingling with the certainty that’s he’s watching me, that he’s pursuing me, and that I’ve invited it. What’s scary is the thrill that shoots through me, the heat burning low in my belly, just knowing that I’m about to be with him again. To talk, I remind myself. This is all about talking.
I cut left, and walk down a hallway, then up a set of stairs that I know from several other events I’ve attended at the venue leads to the upper level and a private balcony. That’s how all in I am on this talk with Savage. I’m leading us to privacy.
Once I’m on the second level, I could cut to the right to overlook the party from the railing, but instead, I turn left again. A quick walk down a winding hallway ends at a set of wood-trimmed double glass doors, which are presently standing open, in evident invitation onto an outdoor terrace. I exit into the night air, a hint of November in the chill of the wind. In front of me and winding left and right is a thick white balcony overlooking the popular River Walk. Clusters of two seated tables with candles on top sit between me and that railing.
Nerves erupt inside me and I step around the open door, head behind it, and lean on the wall where I wait on Rick. I just want to look at him the way he was just looking at me, to assess his motives, to decide what he’s after. I just want the luxury of watching the man I almost called my husband, without questions or demands. I just need a moment or ten to feel like I’m in control.
I squeeze my eyes shut because this very need proves that I’m not in control. I’m not even close to in control. I’m a woman engaged to a man I’d rather stab in the leg with a pencil than kiss, and yet kiss him I must.
The air shifts and goosebumps leap across my skin. I open my eyes to find Rick standing there right in front of me, towering over me. At six foot five inches to my mere five foot four inches, he’s always been overwhelmingly large. And I like it. I liked it, I amend quickly.
And his cologne, it’s still that woodsy wonderful scent that’s as familiar as his intense stare and solid jawline. And Lord help me, this man is a barbarian of brutal perfection in a tuxedo.
“You, Candace,” he says softly, “you are more breathtaking than I remember, and just to be clear, I remembered you as more breathtaking than the only star in a pitch dark warzone-driven night.”
His voice doesn’t lift, but he says those words like they are ripped straight from his soul. They certainly rip right through my heart. I am warm and cold in the same moment, tormented with need for this man, who will just hurt me again. And I won’t survive falling for him and losing him again.
“Stop,” I whisper. “Stop doing what you’re doing.” My voice trembles with emotion I want to call hate, but this isn’t hate. Hate would be easy and nothing with Rick Savage is easy, not any more.
“All I’m doing is speaking from my heart,” he professes.
He’s hit about ten nerves with that statement. “Your heart?” I demand, my reaction fierce and fast. “Your heart?!” I step into him and punch his chest. “Your heart? What about my heart?” I punch him again.
He catches my wrist and I hate the sizzle that shoots through my body. I hate the way his big hands make me feel small and vulnerable and yet so damn perfectly female. “I hope like hell I still have your heart,” he murmurs. “Because you have mine, baby. You have it. You have always had it.”
“Me and how many hundreds of other women?”
“No one but you.”
“And yet you left and stayed away? I don’t need lies. I’m sick of lies. Stop playing me. Just say it. What do you want? Why are you here?”
He pulls me closer and then backs me up again, pressing me against the wall, his powerful thighs caging mine. “I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have stayed away. Things happened and I didn’t want to pull you down with me. I didn’t feel worthy.”
“Then what does that make me? Unworthy right along with you? Right. That’s what it makes me.”
“No. Fuck. No.” He releases my hands and presses his to the wall on either side of me. “You—”
“I wasn’t enough for you and it doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” I shove my ring between us. “I’m engaged to another man.”
He catches my hand. “If you shove that fucking ring at me one more time, I will take it off your finger and shove it up his puckered, lying politician ass.”