wished she could tell him the truth. That she couldn’t talk to him face-to-face before she left because if she had, she knew he would have brushed off her fears as prewedding jitters. He would’ve dismissed her concerns, persuaded her they were doing the right thing, and she would have listened. Then she’d have been miserable. And furious with herself for not standing up to him.
“My mom canceled the wedding, called everyone and returned the presents. Christmas was pretty crap that year.” Levi’s words drove the knife in deeper and harder. “But we did make headlines, day after day, week after week. All of us—me, my parents, your brothers and my sisters—lived with the press following us everywhere, shoving cameras into our faces, demanding an explanation, a comment, something. Yeah, best Christmas ever.”
Tanna winced. She’d asked about the press attention but Carrick told her not to worry about it and she hadn’t. Because she’d been trying to find a new life, a new normal, she’d done as he suggested.
“Maybe one day you will let me explain...”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Levi told her, his expression reminding her of the Bering Sea in the dead of winter.
Tanna nodded and rubbed her damp hands on her thighs. “Well, I am sorry. I wish there was something I could do to make it up to you.”
Levi stared at her and she could see his agile mind working, spinning a hundred miles a minute. He was cooking up something and Tanna looked at the media room door, her inner oh-no radar telling her to leave, now. Whatever Levi was going to say next was going to flip her life on its head.
“Carrick said you are in town for six weeks. Is that right?”
She was due to go back to work on March 1. “Give or take,” Tanna replied, wondering where he was going with this.
Levi’s smile was full of sarcasm. “You say you want to make it up to me?”
Yeah, and she’d meant it, kind of. She’d meant it in an it’s-the-right-thing-to-say way, not in an I’ll-do-anything-to-make-it-up-to-you way.
“Uh...what do you have in mind?”
Levi picked up his coffee mug again and looked at her over the rim. “It pains me to admit this but it’s become abundantly clear I need help. I’m mobile but walking hurts like hell—”
“It should if you broke your patella.”
“The cast I can handle. It’s annoying but manageable. But I can’t hobble around because using the crutches hurts like hell. So, it would help to have a runner, a gopher. Someone at my beck and call. Someone I don’t mind ordering around—” Levi bared his teeth “—because she owes me.”
Oh, crap. She’d walked right into that one.
Damn right, she owed him.
Tanna owed him for walking out on their engagement, from running away from their wedding, leaving behind the life they’d planned. He didn’t care about the hours he’d spent by her bedside, holding her while she cried—from pain and from frustration—
Those were his choices and he lived by them.
But it had been her choice to say yes to his proposal, to agree to a Christmas wedding, to say yes when she really meant no.
The weeks and months after their nonwedding had been hell on so many different levels. He’d shrugged off the embarrassment factor and ignored the subtle comments about his young bride’s flight, the fake sympathy in the eyes of people who cared more about gossip than they did about him. He’d hated the media attention for making him, as intensely private as his father was extroverted, a public spectacle.
And he never gave the money he spent on the wedding another thought.
But Tanna damn well owed him for encouraging him to take a chance on her when he knew how risky taking chances could be.
She owed him for the sleepless nights he’d spent questioning his own judgment, for making him think asking her to marry her wasn’t a smart decision. For the months and years he’d spent second-guessing himself. For whipping the entire situation out of his control...
She.
Owed.
Him.
And yeah, he could freely admit he really wanted to sleep with her, still. Maybe more now than he ever had before. A decade had transformed her from an eager-to-please girl into a fully confident woman and he didn’t feel the need to rein in his responses, to choose his words.
Tanna could give as good as she got.
And, hey, she was stunning and he was injured, not dead.
Levi rubbed his hand over his face, conscious of his throbbing shoulder, leg and, yeah, cock. In the past, he’d never allowed their physical interactions to go much beyond a couple of light kisses. It wasn’t that he didn’t desire her; he’d been twenty-four years old and a vibrating hormone, and she’d been a beautiful, striking girl.
But she’d also been broken, and every time he’d wanted to take their physical relationship deeper, he remembered her pinned to that crumpled car seat, her green eyes wide with shock and pain, her thin voice asking him if she was going to die. He clearly recalled telling her not to look at Addy, sitting in the driver’s seat, slumped over the wheel, bloody and unresponsive.
During the weeks and months following that god-awful night, he’d found himself falling deeper and deeper, entranced by Tanna’s fierce courage. He’d loved her, craved her and promised himself he wouldn’t push her for a physical relationship. He was a big guy, he outweighed her by a hundred pounds and a part of him was terrified he’d inadvertently do something to hamper her recovery. So, he’d pushed down his desire and banked his lust. Things would change when she left the hospital...
But they hadn’t. When she was finally discharged, sporting his ring, she asked for more time, to delay intimacy until they were married.
In hindsight, that was a pretty big clue all was not well.
Tanna wasn’t weak now, or fragile. And the lust he’d felt for her back then was a baby version of the hot, needy, roiling emotion coursing through his system today. She was toned, healthy, vibrant and he knew she could handle him...
Physically, emotionally, mentally.
Unlike a decade ago, she was whole. And strong. And challenging. And, God knew, he could never resist a challenge.
Payback wouldn’t be a bitch, it would be a delight. Revenge would be supersweet.
Levi watched as she tried to find a way to say no, to wiggle out of her obligation. She opened her mouth and the lame excuse he expected failed to materialize. Instead, she posed a question. “How long will it take me to work off my debt?”
“Is that a yes?”
“No, it’s a question,” Tanna replied. “How long?”
As
