“Do you remember?” he asked, voice quiet and hesitant. “What happened in the cave, I mean?”
She swallowed the surge of anxiety pushing up her throat. “Yeah. I mean, I think I do.”
“Do you remember…” His eyes flicked to hers, guarded, a little shy. “You said some things… I mean, I know we all say things we shouldn’t or things we don’t mean when we’re angry or stressed. I’ve made a million mistakes since I set eyes on you again…” He dropped the hair coiled around his finger. “Never mind.”
The sliver of intimacy they’d developed in that moment vanished, and Giselle felt it like a cut to her heart. She grabbed his hand back but couldn’t meet his gaze when she said, “I remember. And I meant what I said.” She pulled his hand to her heart, eyes squeezed shut. “Things I should have said a long time ago. I’ve made just as many mistakes as you have.”
He wrapped his other hand around the back of her neck and pulled her into the circle of his arms. He dropped a kiss to her head and buried his face in her hair, holding her tight. “God, I’ve missed you.”
His pained rasp sounded almost violent in the quiet, drawing her gaze to his face. His dark eyes were warm and swimming with tears. All the pain from their breakup, all the loss she’d felt over their years apart flooded back, filling her chest until she ached. “I’m so sor—”
He covered her mouth with a hard shut-up kiss. When he broke away, a tear slipped over his lashes and down his cheek. Giselle wiped it away.
“No more apologies, okay?” He cupped her face, his gaze open and vulnerable. “It’s all in the past. We’re different people now. When I heard you sing today”—he shook his head, his expression filled with awe—“I was blown away by how your voice had matured. How sophisticated and professional you’d become. And I thought, everything happens for a reason, because if we’d stayed together, you wouldn’t be where you are now.”
Pain twisted her heart, and her mind scrambled to make sense of this. “Troy, that’s… Nobody knows what—”
“But now you’re here,” he said, gripping her arms to punctuate his words. “You and me, here, together. That happened for a reason too. This is a gift, Ellie.” His hands lifted to cup her face, thumbs stroking her wet cheeks. “I want to get to know you again.”
“Oh,” she breathed, her heart fluttering with both fear and excitement. “I… I…want that too.”
“Neither of us can work right now,” he said. “Just spend a week with me.”
“I…” She shook her head, the idea impossible at first thought, but she couldn’t come up with one valid excuse to reject it.
“Ryker’s back from Syria. He and Rachel are here.”
“Here?”
He nodded. “They’re probably not in the waiting room anymore, but they’d love to see you. And everyone on my team wants to meet you. We can all stay with my boss, Jax, and his girl, Lexi. They’ve got a house in Hollywood and another on the beach in Malibu, where I live on the bottom floor. We’ll take long walks, sleep late, eat out, talk, laugh, relax. They’re good people, El. They’re my family. They’re Ryker’s family. They should be your family too.”
Family. Her heart floated, and a longing pulled deep inside her. But something else inside, something deeper and smaller, felt suddenly overwhelmed. And scared. She didn’t know how to do family. “I really need to talk it over with Chad…”
But even as the words exited her mouth, she knew he would hate the idea. And the thought of arguing with him over her going away where he couldn’t hover with constant access instantly drained her.
“I’ll talk to him.” Troy pulled her gaze back to his, those dark eyes imploring her. “Just say yes, Ellie. Just say yes to seeing who we are together now, say yes to meeting these great people who treat me and Ryker like brothers, and I’ll take care of everything else. I’ll call Chad, I’ll get you sprung from this place, and we’ll grab a cab to the airport. We’ll be in LA in a couple of hours. Anything you need that’s not in this bag, we’ll get in the city.”
She laughed, trying like hell to force all the irrational unease away. “Troy, look at me.” She held out her arms, marred with bruises and scrapes where they extended beyond the hospital gown. “I can’t go anywhere like this. If
anyone saw me, I’d be headlining the tabloids tomorrow as a battered woman.”
“With a ball cap and sunglasses, you’ll just be any random hot chick returning from a Vegas bender. Believe me, I’ve worked with enough stars to know exactly how to get them from one place to another incognito. You can relax and take all the time you need to recover once you get there.” He gave her a slanted grin, the charming, quirky, secretive, little smile that made her insides jump. “Come on, you know you want to escape as bad as I do.”
A knock on the glass cut in, and as the door opened, a dark-haired man in a white lab coat walked in. The sight swamped Giselle with anxiety.
“Say yes to a week of healing,” Troy said softly, one hand sliding down her back, “and I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Are we talking about a vacation?” The doctor was in his mid-forties with a buoyant, easy manner, and Giselle forced back the irrational unease. “I’m Dr. Davenport.” He shook her hand. “And I would be highly in favor of that idea. I told your manager, Mr. Moore, the same earlier. I strongly suggest two weeks but insist on at least one. After that, I’ll leave it up to your discretion.” He set her chart on the gurney and scanned her face. “You look much better with color in your cheeks.”
Giselle smiled, but Troy wouldn’t be ignored.
“Ellie,” he said, easing toward the door with his phone out. “Should I make that call?”
Half-giddy, half-terrified, Giselle exhaled and nodded. Troy’s mouth kicked up into a lopsided smile.
When he turned for the door, Giselle said, “But, Troy?” He paused and she took a breath, then dove in head first. “Can we spend that week together—just us?” Her belly fluttered with the thrill of having time alone with him. “I’d love to meet everyone eventually. But right now, I really want just you.”
His face split into a brilliant smile, one that lit her heart and almost washed away all her concerns over Chad and her immediate future.