Page 30 of Nathan

I graze my knuckles down the side of her cheek. Her red locks are an unholy mess of knots, her face flushed, her eyes heavy with sated desire. She’s never looked more beautiful. I’d noticed her from afar, but not like this. Never like this. She’s the perfect siren, the perfect partner. I must have had blinders on not to see what was right in front of me.

“You can have anything you want,” I say gently.

“A glass of water would be good.”

“You got it.”

I slip off the bed and pad into the kitchen, naked. After grabbing a bottle of cold water from the fridge, I snag a glass off the drain board.

By the time I return to the bedroom, she’s smoothed her fiery auburn hair into some semblance of order, and her knees are tucked into her chest with her arms hugging them. Damn, she’s so young, so innocent, and I’ve corrupted her.

I plan to corrupt her some more, too.

Her teeth graze her bottom lip over and over, her anxiety obvious. Maybe I am a bastard for pushing her. After all, the money thing could be something and nothing. For all I know, she could have run up a bill on Rodeo Drive on clothes and jewelry she can’t afford, and now the bank is pressing her for the money. But something in her eyes tells me it isn’t anything like that. She isn’t like that.

Keeping secrets has shredded me. I don’t want the same for her.

“Here you go, Titch.” I pour half the water into the glass for her, then swig straight from the bottle myself before I set the remains on the nightstand. I sit right in front of her, cross-legged, my forearms resting over my knees.

She eyes me over the rim of the glass as she greedily drinks the entire contents, then wipes the corners of her mouth with her thumb and forefinger as she sets the glass on the nightstand.

“My mom is sick.” As she says the words, her eyes cut away from mine, and her chin drops to her chest.

“How sick?” I coax.

She blinks slowly, then lifts her head, her eyes luminous and so very scared. “She’ll die long before her time.”

“What’s wrong with her?”

“Alzheimer’s.”

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Dex is only twenty-two, so even if her mom had her later in life, that would only put her in her early to mid-sixties, surely? Incredibly young for such a disease.

As if guessing my thoughts, she adds, “She’s only forty-seven.”

Tears well up, but Dex being the stubborn, tough little fireball she is refuses to let a single one fall.

“And the money thing. It’s for her care?”

She nods, her chin trembling as she stares over my shoulder. “I’m behind on the payments. With the pay rise you got me, I could have just about managed, but they’re raising the fees.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “I can’t afford that, so I’m going to have to try and get a job back home in Wisconsin and move her. I won’t get paid as much there, but I’ve found a home that’s much cheaper. It’s not as good. Still…” A shrug. “It’ll devastate my sister. I don’t know how I’m going to tell her.”

“Can’t she help?”

Dex shakes her head. “She helps as much as she can, but she’s got two kids. She can’t work because the childcare is too expensive, so they’ve only got her husband’s income to rely on.”

For the first time, she releases the death grip on her knees as her hands come to her face. She rubs hard, then offers me a wry grin. “So, now you know why I was so mad outside that club…and why the price of a bottle of wine at that restaurant offended me.”

I tuck a stray curl behind her ear, an idea slowly forming in my mind. A way for me to get what I need and help her out without it looking like I’m giving her charity. Dex is a proud girl: determined, hardworking, tenacious, independent. Yep, extremely independent. If I don’t handle this the right way, the mouthful she gave me at the club will pale into insignificance to the tongue lashing she’ll unleash on me now.

“I have a proposition for you.”

She leans forward, her eyebrows scooting up her forehead. “Oh, yeah?”

“Don’t look so worried, Titch. It’s a quid pro quo kind of arrangement. I have a problem you can help me with, and in return, I might be able to help you.”

She narrows her gaze. “What kind of a problem?”

“Suspicious little thing, aren’t you?” I clear my throat, buying time while I think of the best way to phrase it. “My brother is getting married. Three weeks on Saturday, in New York. I want you to come with me.”

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