“I’m just not sure I can trust you,” she said.
“What have you got to lose?” Kane asked.
“A lot,” she said, her eyes locking on his. “Just because I’m not rich like you, doesn’t mean I have nothing to lose.”
“Here’s my cell number,” he said, handing her a business card. “Don’t answer now. Sleep on it tonight.”
Nicole didn’t even look at his card—she just thrust it into her purse.
Kane walked her out of the room and down the hallway, into the stairwell. As they descended, he gently put a hand on the small of her back. Nicole almost told him not to touch her, but decided it wasn’t worth it.
His gesture made her miss Red all the more. If Red were here, he’d be cracking jokes. She’d welcome his strong firm hand on her back or around her waist.
Kane Wright might be conventionally handsome, but he was all wrong for her.
And the worst part was, he didn’t much care. He was one of those men so used to getting what he wanted that it never occurred to him whether or not someone else felt the way he did. It was enough that he was “taken” with her, now he would find a way to force her to feel the same about him.
When they reached the street level, she turned and looked at him. “You know, there’s consequences to how you treat people, Kane. I think you’re going to find that out the hard way.”
Before he could reply, she opened the door and quickly made her way to the limousine waiting curbside.
And then she was taken home.
***
She’d been having a dream about Red—she knew that much. And then she was suddenly awake, heart pounding, feeling he was right next to her. She could remember every single sensation of his body next to hers in bed, how it was to wake up next to him in the mornings. The way he smelled, the way his curly black hair fell onto the pillow, his body sprawling out across the sheets.
Nicole half expected to see him turning over onto his back and grinning at her with sleepy eyes. Pulling her across the gap and into his arms.
She sat up in bed and tried to calm down, as if she were recovering from a nightmare. Only she realized the nightmare was her reality. In the dream, she and Red had been together again, happy again, ready to spend their lives with one another.
It was in her waking life that everything had gone wrong.
Instantly, memories of the previous night and Kane’s threats flooded her mind.
He was such a poor replacement for Red Jameson; everything about Kane was a turn-off for Nicole. At least when Red was being aggressive, you knew it—but with Kane Wright, it was all hidden. He didn’t even have the guts to just command her to fuck him.
Instead, he’d tried to bribe her, extort her—as if he had to fool her into being with him.
But would he hurt Red if she refused to play along? That was the million-dollar question.
Nicole wondered what Red would advise her to do. Probably he wouldn’t advise anything, he’d have been too busy hunting Kane Wright down so that he could turn his face into a bloody mess.
Suddenly, her stomach lurched. Nicole’s mouth flooded with spit and her throat constricted. Stumbling out of bed, she ran to the bathroom and as soon as she got to the toilet, heaved her guts up.
Last night’s mac and cheese (hurriedly eaten before going out with Danielle) was clearly visible now in the toilet water. Just looking at it was enough to cause her to heave again. More came up, and then Nicole was using some toilet paper to wipe her chin and mouth, tossing it in the toilet. A quick flush and down it all went.
She patted her stomach, feeling a little better now.
What was it, she wondered? A slight case of food poisoning? She’d never had food poisoning before, but she’d always assumed it was pretty brutal. She imagined herself clinging to the bowl, sleeping in the bathroom, every twenty minutes being struck by another bout of nausea.
This didn’t feel like that at all.
Maybe a touch of a stomach flu? Nicole certainly hoped not. She didn’t feel like spending the next twenty-four hours in bed.
She went to the sink and quickly washed her face, patted it down with the nearby hand towel, looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy, but other than that she looked fine. Not great, just fine.
How could she ever really be great again? She was lost without him.
Don’t think like that, Nicole told herself. She’d been doing a lot of pep talks lately, telling herself to buck up and stay strong and other clichés that never really helped.
I miss Red. I miss him so bad that it literally hurts. Maybe that’s why I threw up.
She was thinking crazy thoughts. Nicole knew she needed to get it together. But the plain fact was, she was tired of keeping it together, tired of pretending everything was okay. Not only did she miss him terribly, every single moment of the day—but now she also had to deal with Kane Wright completely on her own.