One Night to Risk It All(9)

                Alex laughed and pressed his forehead against hers. “I know exactly where the hell I am.”

                “And where is that?”

                “With you. I don’t need to know anything more.”

                She exhaled sharply, tried to ignore the stab of emotion in her chest. This wasn’t supposed to make her feel. “Wow. You do say the best things. You really do.”

                He took her hand. “Lead the way.”

                She did. And somehow, right then, she felt more like herself than she ever had. Like the two halves of her life, the woman she was in public and the woman she was in private had merged together for the first time.

                She felt brave. She felt certain.

                She felt happy.

                A whisper of who she’d been before she’d learned to shut herself down. Before the Colin debacle. And blackmail. Before she’d had to face her father and tell him what she’d done. And what the fallout from it might be.

                I can’t protect you anymore, Rachel. These choices you’re making are dangerous. People, men, will always try to take advantage of you because of your connections, the press will always hunt you because of who you are, and you’re courting it. No more. If you keep on like this, I will not cover for you again. I love you too much to enable you this way.

                And less kind words from her mother. A woman in your position can’t afford these mistakes. It’s not only immoral, it’s dangerous. Think of what the press will say. About you. Us. I haven’t spent all these years helping propel us to this position in society to watch you tear it down with stupid behavior!

                Angry words spoken in private. A side of her mother only Rachel ever saw.

                But she’d taken those words, balled them up and stored them in her chest, kept them close, ever since.

                Except...except this moment.

                But it was different. It was out of time, out of the real world entirely. And Alex didn’t even know who she was. He didn’t want to use her. Didn’t want to get her into a compromising position so he could sell photographs, or a dirty video.

                Even Ajax, one of the kindest people she knew, wanted her for her name more than anything else.

                But that wasn’t Alex. Alex just wanted her.

                That simple thought pushed everything dark away from her mind. Everything in the past, everything in the future. There was just now. And now was perfect.

                They started walking down the sidewalk, then they were running, laughing. She bent and kicked her shoes off, carrying them in her free hand as she ran barefoot down the stone walk.

                They stopped in front of the hotel, the lights from the lobby casting a glow on Alex, on the fountains in front of the building. “Oh, yes,” she said, breathing heavily. “I’m in a nice hotel.”

                “So you are.” He laughed, the sound reverberating through her body.

                “Don’t feel awkward or anything.”

                “I don’t,” he said.

                Of course he wouldn’t. It was hard to imagine him feeling awkward anywhere. “Good. I need to know at least three more things about you before we go in, okay?”