Page 70 of The VIP Doubles Down
Tamping down her annoyance, she laid her hand on his thigh, feeling the soft wool of his trousers over the hard warmth of his muscle. “Gavin, come home with me.”
“Move your hand a little higher and maybe you can persuade me.”
She lifted it to cup his cheek. “It’s a better idea than giving yourself a whopping hangover.”
Stubble scraped at her palm as he jerked his head back. “I can have you thrown out. That’s one of the perks of being a member.”
Allie knew he was attacking her to stave off his anguish, but her temper was fraying. “Frankie let me in because she thought you needed a friend.”
“You are not my friend. You are my employee and my lover. The latter not nearly often enough.” He toasted her mockingly.
His repudiation sliced through her, so she pulled in a deep breath to counteract the hurt. He was just like Pie, struggling against her rescuer. Except the blood Gavin drew couldn’t be stanched with a Band-Aid.
Folding her arms over her chest, she narrowed her eyes at him. “You want to pick a fight in the super fancy Bellwether Club? It’s no skin off my back, because I don’t know a soul here. But these are your people. You have to face them in the morning.” She leaned in and lowered her voice while she held his gaze. “I get it. You’re trying to make me leave. And you’re just about to succeed.”
He shifted in his chair as something that might be guilt flickered in his eyes.
She leaned farther in and dropped her voice to a whisper. “But I want you to think about whether you really want me to go.”
She was so close to his face that she could see the lines of pain etched around his mouth and the purplish shadows under his eyes. Her anger began to seep away.
He turned his head to stare down into his glass, swirling the amber liquid while a muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m trying to do you a favor.”
She sighed in exasperation. “I sat outside in the sleet until they opened the door, so I’ve already proved that I want to be here. Now it’s your turn. If you say to stay, I will. If you insult me one more time, I will leave faster than a mule running from a swarm of pissed-off bees.” Maybe an appeal to his sense of humor would break down his reluctance to accept her help.
Not even a shadow of laughter lurked in his eyes as he raised them to her. They had darkened to nearly gray, without any light in them. He just looked at her in silence for a long moment, giving nothing away.
She held her breath. Maybe he did want to be alone to lick his wounds in miserable solitude.
“I—” He stopped and took a swallow of his drink. “Stay.” Then he added a plea she never expected to hear from him. “Please.”
Gavin knew he’d revealed too much, but her words had brought light into one small corner of the gaping black hole inside him. He couldn’t tell if she was simply too stubborn to admit defeat or if she really cared, but right now, it didn’t make much of a difference. She’d told him she would stay.
And his Allie always kept her word.
He glanced up to find that she was no longer glaring at him. Instead, her face was gentle with understanding. He didn’t want to contemplate what she thought she had discovered about him.
As he brooded on that, he realized that this was the second time he’d been pitied at the Bellwether Club. Maybe he would have to find a new place to hide. Or new friends to hide from.
Friends. All of a sudden he had more of them than he could handle. That thought brightened another corner of the void.
He started to reach for the bottle before he realized that Allie had moved it across the table again. He should finish it off just to prove he hadn’t totally given in. As he leaned forward to seize it, he realized he had lost interest in getting drunk.
There were other, more interesting paths to forgetfulness.
“Let’s go home,” he said, leaving the bourbon where it sat.
Her face lit up. “Great idea.”
“Don’t humor me. I’m not doing it because you want me to.”
“I didn’t think that for even a split second.” She stood and watched as he lurched to his feet.
Alcohol affected him in an unusual way. A surprisingly small amount knocked his sense of balance askew, so he staggered as though he were falling-down drunk. Yet inside his mind, everything was painfully clear. Which was a damned nuisance when he was trying to drown his troubles in drink.
It worked in his favor this time, because it gave him a reasonable, rational excuse to put his arm around Allie. “Would you mind giving me a hand, sweetheart? Bourbon affects my inner ear.”
“Conveniently,” she said, but she moved to his side and let him drape his arm over her shoulders while she wrapped her arm around his waist. He didn’t even have to pull her close to him, because she got right up against his body, her grip surprisingly powerful. Then he remembered that her job included helping the injured and paralyzed learn to walk again.
