Page 41 of A Reclusive Heart

Then again, she did have liquid courage in her room right now. He was going to kill the bellhop for bringing it to her. It was the last damn thing that she needed on a day like this, and now that she had it, and plenty of it apparently, she was probably going to do something incredibly stupid and make the news that they’d only received hours earlier a hell of a lot worse.

He wasn’t sure who he wanted to kill more right now, the asshole who’d pretended to be sympathetic as he’d captured Jamie’s reaction to the news on camera, or her so-called family who’d just shoved her to the wolves. Actually, right now, he was pretty fucking pissed at the people working below him who should have been on top of this and given him a head’s up.

They never should have walked into that mess. He should have known first thing this morning and been given all the information so that he could have prepared Jamie. Instead, they’d walked right into that mess and by now, the video clip of Jamie finding out that she was the result of an affair between her father and his secretary was all over the internet.

The only good thing that came from this nightmare was that Jamie had somehow managed to keep it together during the rest of the interview. Once it was over, she was polite to the asshole that he wanted to deck and walked out with her head held high. Unfortunately, she took off before he could talk to her and locked herself in her hotel room and wouldn’t let him in.

He wanted to hold her, comfort her, shake her for not letting him do all those things when the interview was over, but most of all, he wanted to know that she was okay. He needed to feel her in his arms and know that she was all right.

“Let me in, Jamie,” Nick said even as he pulled the card he’d managed to talk the front clerk into giving him out of his pocket.

“Go away, Nick,” Jamie said, sounding stressed and there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that she was. He didn’t think of her as his little recluse for nothing. She didn’t have many close friends, and now, it seemed that she didn’t have any family either.

It had taken a few well-placed phone calls, but he’d discovered that they’d sold the story for a hefty sum and were already booked with some of the bigger talk shows to share their story. Of course, most of those talk shows were more interested in getting Jamie to come give them her side of the story and when he made sure that she was ready.

When it became painfully obvious that she wasn’t going to let him in, Nick decided that he was done waiting. He opened the door and stepped inside, making another mental note to throttle the bellhop for this bullshit. He rubbed his hands down his facewearily as he took in the empty candy bar wrappers, snack cake wrappers, and empty cans of Coke scattered around the double bed where his little recluse sat with her legs crossed as she finished off another Coke.

His eyes shot over to the nightstand overflowing with more junk food to the coffee table with four ice buckets filled to the top with ice and fresh Cokes. Realizing that the damage was already done, he grabbed a Coke and paused by the table of junk food and grabbed a packet of Twinkies and toed off his shoes before he sat down on the bed next to Jamie.

“I’m not speaking to you,” Jamie said quietly, not bothering to take her eyes away from the television that was, unfortunately, playing a chick flick. The hell he put up with to do his job, Nick thought as he ripped open the Twinkies. When she reached over and grabbed one of his Twinkies, he simply sighed and started in on the other one.

Normally, he didn’t touch sweets. He’d never been big on them, probably because that’s all he had to eat when he was a kid. His mother and “Aunts” hadn’t exactly been up to date on parenting one-on-one and didn’t think that a growing boy might need more than soda, chips, and microwaved pizza to live on. The only time he got real food was at school or when he stole it.

When he’d been old enough to work, he’d taken jobs bussing tables at restaurants, mostly for the free meals. Once he got out of his mother’s house and into a dump of his own, he’d refused to live off junk food. He put his student meal plan to good use. Since then, he rarely ever indulged in anything sugary or sweet since it usually brought back bad memories, but with his little recluse, he found himself simply enjoying the occasional treat.

“What’s the game plan?” he asked after a few minutes.

Jamie raised her Coke. “I’m going to have another one of these, take a shower, head downstairs and find a guy to help me out with the next item on my list,” she said calmly, and he knewthat she was close to breaking down. Any other woman and this would have been the point where he made his excuses and left the room, but this was his little recluse and he couldn’t leave her.

He just couldn’t.

“So, I take it that you’re ready for sex,” Nick said casually even though he felt like screaming at the stubborn woman for even thinking about letting another man touch her.

She washis.

At least until he got over this weird obsession that he had with her and he would, eventually. For now, he enjoyed being with her, laughing with her and doing absolutely nothing with her. It made the not having actual sex part worth it. He normally didn’t waste his time on a woman if she wasn’t going to sleep with him, Dana excluded, but for Jamie, he’d do anything to be with her.

“You’re not ready for sex yet, Jamie, and if you do this now, you’re going to hate yourself in the morning,” he murmured softly.

For the first time since he’d entered the room, she looked at him. “Oh, and I suppose you’re an expert on when people are ready for sex? How old were you when you lost your virginity?”

“Twelve,” he said flatly.

“Twelve?” she repeated in disbelief.

He nodded as he took another sip of the Coke that now felt like acid in his stomach. “It was a thirteenth birthday gift from my mother. She asked one of her friends to do the honors,” Nick said, not really sure why he was talking about this when he usually made it a point to pretend that his childhood never happened. He sure as hell never shared any of the gory details with anyone and never planned to, but with Jamie, he felt comfortable telling her. Maybe it was because he knew that his little recluse wasn’t into gossip. Whenever people gossiped around her, she seemed really uncomfortable and alwaysexcused herself even if that meant she had to stand in a corner by herself.

“I-I thought you said you were twelve,” she mumbled.

“I was. She had no idea how old I was. The only reason she knew that it was my birthday was because the school sent home a general birthday announcement and she just happened to see it,” Nick said, shrugging it off.

At the time, he’d been excited that his mother wanted to spend time with him. All day, she’d called him her “little man.” They even celebrated his birthday. It wasn’t much, beer, chips, and video games. When eight o’clock rolled around, his mother and her friends were drunk enough that they actually thought popping his cherry that night was a good idea. When his “Aunt” Judy took him by the hand and his mother handed him a condom and smiled at him, he didn’t want to disappoint them. Two minutes after the most humiliating experience of his life, Judy patted his cheek and told him the next time would cost him fifty dollars.

There hadn’t been a next time with Judy or any of his mother’s friends. He’d stayed clear of hookers and strippers. He might use strippers when he needed to convince a vendor to give him what he wanted, but he wouldn’t touch one with a ten-foot pole, never mind with his-

“And you think that experience makes you an expert on when someone is ready?” Jamie demanded, sounding angry and so damn hurt that his heart actually ached for her.

“No,” Nick said, shaking his head as he turned to look at her. “I just know that you’re not ready for this, Jamie, and rushing off to do this because your family hurt you is only going to cause you pain. Don’t let them push you into something that you’ll only regret later.”

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