Page 39 of The Healing Touch

He needed his friend to be friends with benefits, and she needed him to be her happily ever after. Neither of those things would happen. That knowledge caused her to toss two of the books. She’d cried all over the pages when she’d opened them to shove swag in them. No point in crying over something that could never be, she berated herself yet again. She knew who he was and what he was and wasn’t capable of.

And he wasn’t capable of a monogamous relationship for more than a few weeks, and even then, it would only be sex, not love.

The door opened, and she swiveled around to see Dimitri walk through it, his face somber. What was he thinking?

When he came farther into the room, he stopped, shocked. “You did all this?”

“Well, yeah. It had to get done, D.”

“You’ve been crying.”

She looked away, embarrassed. She was an ugly crier. Splotches and eyes that looked like she’d had a bad run-in with every allergy known to man. “It’s nothing. We need to leave in a few minutes so we can get set up. All this stuff needs to be loaded into the Jeep, and…”

Dimitri came over and wrapped his arms around her, burying his head in her hair, cutting off her rambling. “I’m sorry, Becca.”

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

“Yes, I do. I left you here to do all this by yourself. I got thrown off balance for a minute, and I didn’t stop to think about all this shit.”

“Yeah, well, I’m your PA. It’s what you pay me for.” She tried to shrug him off, but he only held on tighter.

“No, I don’t pay you nearly enough to deal with all my baggage,” he all but purred into her hair, and she shivered. She definitely needed to put some space between them.

“We need to leave, Dimitri.”

“We need to talk first.”

“We don’t have time.” Panic flared in her stomach, worming its way up her spine.Please, please, please, not now.

“Look at me,Krasivaya.”

She pulled away enough so she could tilt her head up. His eyes were serious but unsure at the same time. It gave her pause. What was he thinking?

“I…” He stopped, and his eyes widened. “Calm down, sweetheart. I can feel your panic starting to flare up.”

“How…how can you tell?”

“Your eyes are so dilated you might as well be in the dark. Your breathing is labored, and you’re sweating. Any other time, I’d say you’d been good and fucked.” He smiled, trying for humor, but it didn’t help. It only made it worse.

She pushed him away and bent over at the waist, trying and failing to get control of her panic. She knew what he was going to say, and hearing it was causing her to stress out more than the thought of the crowd they’d be walking into. Becca couldn’t lose him. She just couldn’t.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay, babe. What do you need? Just tell me what you need.”

“Inhaler,” she gasped. “My purse.”

He brought it to her, and she took two long, deep pulls from it, the medicine helping her brain to understand her lungs needed air. Dimitri stood there, rubbing her back and speaking in Russian. She didn’t understand a word of it, but it helped to calm her.

“Better?” he asked once she could breathe.

She nodded and sat on the overly plushy chair. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for.” He sank down on his knees in front of her. “What happened? You told me only crowds bring that on, but we were talking about…”

“It was the crowds,” she interrupted him. “I’ve been rushing around trying to get all this together without having thought about actually going over there. I guess it hit me all at once when I told you we needed to leave.”

“You never were a good liar, Rebecca Joyce.”

“Let me have my lie right now, okay?” She closed her eyes against the questions in his. “Please, Dimitri?”

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