Fooling Around (12 page)

Eric smiled at her faintly, wondering where the girl had even come from, how his genes and Trish’s genes had managed to come together in someone as remarkable as Maddy.

“I wanted to have supper with you, but Mom said that we have to leave right away.”

“I know.” Eric managed not to look annoyed by Trish’s insistence on leaving so soon. He wanted to have a little more time with his daughter. He had little enough as it was. “But that’s okay. We’ll have our weekend together soon, remember?”

“I remember.”

The girl kept holding his hand as they left the elevator and made their way through the lobby. Trish was waiting near the door.

“What took so long?” she asked. She looked hassled and impatient, but Eric knew she was as worried about their daughter as he was, so he didn’t take it personally.

“I had to go to the bathroom,” Maddy replied blandly.

“Okay, sweetie. Say goodbye to your daddy. We need to get going right away.”

“Can I walk him out to the car?”

Eric kept his mouth closed and was pleased when Trish agreed. They all walked out to the sidewalk, where his hired car was waiting. The driver got out and, to his surprise, Julie climbed out of the backseat.

She looked pretty and subdued in her plain clothes and ponytail. Her eyes took in Eric, Maddy, and Trish, and Eric knew she would have some questions.

“Who is that?” Maddy asked, staring at Julie.

“That’s Julie.”

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“No. She works for me. She’s helping me out while my leg is broken.”

Maddy’s eyes were wide as they rested on Julie’s still figure. “She looks nice.”

“She is nice.” Eric cleared his throat. “Now you and your mom need to get going, I think.” He pointed at his right cheek, smiling at his daughter. “Right here.”

She giggled and leaned over to kiss him exactly on the spot he’d pointed to. Then, feeling another wave of fear, he wrapped his arms around the girl, hugging her as tightly as he could in the wheelchair.

“I’ll see you soon,” he muttered.

Maddy kissed him again before she finally released him. “I hope your headache goes away.”

“Thanks, Peanut.”

Eric looked over at Trish and nodded. She nodded back. That was as friendly as the two of them ever got, but at least they were always civil.

He watched for a minute as Trish and Maddy walked back into the hospital lobby. Then he wheeled himself over to the car.

The driver and Julie helped him in. He could feel Julie’s eyes on him, but she didn’t say anything. Not until they were both settled in the back and the driver had pulled away from the curb.

He wondered how long it would take her to ask.

It took about forty-five seconds. “Is she a relative?” Julie asked lightly, gesturing with her head back in the direction of the hospital.

He nodded.

“Your…your daughter?”

He nodded again. He didn’t know why he felt so uncomfortable with Julie knowing. No one knew about Maddy. He’d kept her existence as private as he could, since Trish had insisted on it, so the press he got wouldn’t complicate Maddy’s life. But telling Julie made him feel strangely comforted and strangely vulnerable at the same time.

“I didn’t even know you had a daughter.” She was obviously trying to be discreet, to not make a big deal out of this new knowledge. She must have no idea how he would react.

Eric didn’t even know himself. “No one knows.”

“You weren’t…you weren’t married before, were you?”

“No.”

Julie nodded, her eyes focused just over Eric’s shoulder, as if she felt a little uncomfortable herself. “Is she…is she sick?”

Eric felt that wave of fear and despair wash over him, leaving him helpless in a way he couldn’t bear. He pushed it aside. “Yes.”

“Is it serious?”

“Yes.” He paused for a moment before he added, “They have no idea what to do.”

Julie was silent for a long time. He expected her to say the normal shallow, sympathetic clichés—
I’m so sorry, That must be so hard, I’m sure they’ll figure out something
.

She didn’t say any of those things, though. He had no idea what she was thinking until she reached over and placed her hand on his forearm.

She left it there for a minute in a silent gesture of support.

It was better than anything she could have said.

The rest of the day went downhill.

Eric couldn’t pull himself out of anxiety, no matter how hard he tried to focus on other things. While Julie was around, there was some distraction. She got him to do some work and then chatted casually while they ate and watched TV.

But she was tired and she went to bed early, leaving Eric alone.

He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t even begin to. He kept flipping between sports channels, trying to find a game that would hold his interest. And eventually he went for the whiskey again, since at least that dulled his mind a little.

At one in the morning, he was still awake, and he’d nearly finished the bottle. He was still in his chair, in the sitting room of the suite, flipping channels like a maniac.

Despite the amount he’d drunk, he was still lucid enough to worry. And now he was on the last glass.

“Eric?” came a voice from behind him. “Are you still up?”

He turned around to see Julie, stepping out from her bedroom. She looked groggy and rumpled. She’d obviously just woken up. She wore a little silky gown of a deep, vivid blue with thin straps and fabric that clung to her body.

He devoured her with his eyes, his body immediately liking the look of her with her hair all tousled and almost nothing on. “That should be self-evident.” He spoke slowly and was pleased by how articulate he’d sounded.

She came closer, looking from him to the empty whiskey bottle. She sighed. “This isn’t helping.”

“It’s helping…a little.”

She shook her head and came over to take the glass out of his hand. “You should go to bed.”

Before he could focus enough to object, she’d moved behind him and pushed the chair over toward his bedroom. He tried to argue and tell her not to push him around, but his mind was too fuzzy to get all the words out. All he managed was “Damn it.”

“I know,” she murmured. “The whole thing sucks.”

When she got him close to the bed, she came around and reached down to help him up. He normally pushed himself up and took most of the weight onto his good leg, but he couldn’t seem to coordinate it tonight, so he ended up slumping against her, causing her to stumble. She managed to hold onto him enough to get him onto the bed, but his leg got turned in the wrong direction.

He gasped at the slice of pain, his vision blurring even more.

“I’m sorry,” she said, a little breathless.

“My fault.”

He sat on the edge of the bed until he’d caught his breath. While he sat, Julie reached over to pull his shirt off over his head.

Her body was very close. Her smooth, fair skin. The graceful curve of her neck and shoulder. The swell of her breasts beneath the fabric. The fall of her soft hair.

He wanted all of it so much he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out for her as she pulled the shirt off his arms. One of his hands reached her cheek. Her skin was warm and soft, and he needed to touch even more of it. He slid his fingers down the delicious line of her neck.

“Okay,” she whispered. She sounded strange but he was too fuzzy to figure out why. “Why don’t you lie down? Can you get your leg up?”

He had no objections to lying down. He had some trouble with his leg, but she helped to lift it onto the bed. He stared up at her, washed with hot desire that was tempered by something much softer. He didn’t understand it. His mind wasn’t equipped at the moment to understand it.

She pulled the covers up over him. As she drew nearer to him, he reached out for her again. This time his hand curved around her ribs, and he moved it farther forward so he could reach the soft flesh of her breast. He could see them clearly, since her neckline was hanging low as she leaned over him. They were full, lush, the nipples tightened and rosy pink.

He slid the heel of his hand over her nipple through the fabric and heard her hiss in response.

She liked it. He might be drunk, but he knew she liked him to touch her like that. He reached out with his other hand, but she pulled out of his reach.

“We’re not going to do that,” she murmured, catching his hand as he reached for her again. “That’s definitely not going to help anything.”

“It would help the condition of my dick.” This seemed like a perfectly reasonable and intelligent thing for him to say, since he was hard, fully aroused at the sight and feel of her so close to him.

She made a choking sound. “I’m afraid your dick is going to have to fend for itself tonight.”

He let out a low groan, but he was suddenly so exhausted he could barely make his mind work. All he knew was that the world was hard, cruel, unjust—to a girl who had never been anything but good—and he had no power to make it any different. All he knew was he was alone in the face of it.

“Don’t leave,” he breathed, closing his eyes and hoping that doing so would shut out the world.

He heard her say, “I won’t,” and he believed her.

She didn’t say anything else, but he was aware of her presence until he finally went to sleep—or maybe passed out.

The next morning, Julie overslept by an hour. She was startled and worried when she woke up and saw it was after seven thirty, but when she ran to get a cup of coffee, she realized that Eric wasn’t up yet either.

It was another hour before he was awake.

She was flustered and anxious about the events of the night before and was vaguely praying that he wouldn’t even remember them when she helped him into his chair.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered, scraping his fingertips over his scalp through his messy hair. He looked and smelled awful, but Julie wasn’t surprised after the amount he’d drunk.

“I’ll get you some water.”

“Coffee.”

“Water first.”

He didn’t argue, but he was scowling when she returned with a bottle. He chugged almost half of it in one go, and he was staring at her as he lowered the bottle. “Sorry about last night.”

“It’s fine,” she murmured, making sure to meet his eyes, no matter how self-conscious she felt.

“No, it’s not.”

“You’d had too much to drink. You stopped when I told you to. It’s not a problem for me. We can just forget it ever happened.”

His brown eyes were conflicted as he looked at her. “You sure?”

“Of course.” She smiled at him. “Now, if you don’t mind my saying so, you stink. You should probably get in the bathroom and wash up.”

He nodded, his face relaxing, and returned her smile with a dry one of his own.

She liked that smile. It felt real—and less entitled and strategic than his smugger expressions. But she couldn’t help but remember how he’d been looking at her last night. His expression then had been strangely soulful, hungry, like she was what he wanted more than anything in the world. She also remembered the state of his body. His erection had been more than obvious beneath the thin fabric of his pants.

For her. He’d gotten that way for her. He’d looked that way at
her
.

It could easily go to a girl’s head.

She wasn’t going to let it go to hers, of course. He’d been drunk and hadn’t known what he was doing. She’d been in her nightgown, and he would have leered at almost any woman in his condition. She wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking it had anything to do with her.

She was going to forget about it, exactly as she’d told Eric.

“Okay,” he said. “But maybe we should move the liquor out of my reach for a while.”

She laughed at his self-deprecating tone, and everything returned to normal between them as she helped him onto his crutches so he could go to the bathroom.

She wasn’t going to keep thinking about that look in his eyes as he gazed at her from the bed last night. It wasn’t real.

It didn’t mean anything.

After Eric had gotten dressed and as they were eating a quick breakfast in the sitting room, he got a text on his phone that changed his expression abruptly.

“Everything okay?” Julie asked softly, hoping it wasn’t bad news.

He tapped out a reply before he answered her. “Yeah,” he said, releasing an audible sigh. “Just my daughter saying hi.”

She still couldn’t believe he had a daughter. He just didn’t seem like the father type, at least on the surface.

There was more to him than the surface, though. She knew that now.

“She’s doing okay?”

“Yeah. She’s a tough little soldier.”

“Who is her mother?” Julie was pretty sure she shouldn’t ask—since it wasn’t her business at all—but she desperately wanted to know. She’d checked online last night, but there was nothing anywhere on the Internet about Eric Vincent’s daughter, or even about his ever having had a serious relationship.

She wondered if he’d been in love with the girl’s mother, sometime in the past.

Eric gave a dismissive shrug. “You wouldn’t know her.”

Julie had never assumed she did. “I’m surprised you’ve been able to keep it a secret so long.”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Okay,” Julie said quickly, a little upset by his abrupt tone but telling herself she should have expected it.

“I keep her secret on purpose. Some things are off-limits.”

“Okay,” she murmured, keeping her eyes on the fresh peach slices she was eating. “Understood.”

She felt like an idiot, though.

It might have seemed like they were getting a little closer here—talking to each other for real—but they weren’t. Not really.

Eric was her boss for less than two more months. They weren’t ever going to be close. And she would only end up hurting herself if she let herself believe that would change.

For the next week, Julie managed to hold to her resolution of keeping Eric at an emotional arm’s length. She treated him in a purely professional manner and kept at bay the majority of her dangerous thoughts about him.

Maybe, when she was lying in bed in the dark, she thought about that longing look in his eyes, the outline of his erection beneath his pants, the thought of how it would feel if she could touch him, if he could touch her—but she succeeded in keeping those thoughts to a minimum.

She’d made it one month. She could make it two more. And it didn’t matter how attracted she was to him. Things like that happened. They were only really a problem if you indulged them despite your better judgment.

He’d gone back to his normal behavior—partly grumpy, partly obnoxious, and partly distracted with work. He didn’t spend another evening drinking, and she managed to avoid any conversation that got too personal.

She might want to know more about him, but that would just make it harder for her to stay objective and professional.

On the following Friday morning, Eric had a follow-up appointment with his surgeon. Kristin had wanted to take him—and Julie wasn’t going to argue, even though she preferred to accompany him to places herself so she could be sure he was taken care of properly. But Eric had insisted that Julie go with him, telling Kristin to stay and make some phone calls he needed made.

So Julie was sitting beside him in the doctor’s office at ten o’clock in the morning, waiting for the surgeon to make an appearance with his X-rays and test results.

She hoped everything was healing smoothly. Eric would be very upset if he wasn’t getting better on schedule. He had to be the best at everything, and that included recovering.

She sneaked a look over at him and saw that his forehead was creased. He had that brooding look she saw on his face occasionally. She wondered if it meant he was thinking about his daughter.

Julie hoped the girl was all right. She hoped they’d found a treatment for whatever it was she had. Every day Julie wondered how his daughter was doing, but she didn’t dare to ask—since he’d told her quite clearly it was off-limits.

She was suddenly struck by how strange it was to be sitting in this little room with Eric Vincent. What was she even doing here? This wasn’t who she was at all.

She missed her mom. She wanted someone to talk to for real.

Feeling an unexpected wave of grief at the thought of her mother, Julie swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

“You okay?” Eric asked.

She straightened up and saw he was studying her closely. “Yes. Of course.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing is the matter.” Her tone was just slightly sharp, since his sensitivity was upsetting her, compounding the flash of grief she’d just experienced.

“Well, something’s the matter. You look like you’re about to cry.”

Damn the man. He could stomp around like a clueless bull most of the time and then he’d suddenly be super observant, right when she didn’t want him to be.

“I’m not,” she gritted out. “And, for the third time, nothing is—”

Eric had on his stubborn face, so he almost certainly would have kept arguing if the surgeon hadn’t come in just then and interrupted their conversation midsentence.

Julie let out a relieved breath at being saved from a discussion she didn’t want to have.

After some preliminaries, the surgeon studied Eric’s information on his computer and gave the X-rays another look. “Well, the bone is healing fine. No problem there. You still have a lot of swelling, though. You’re keeping the leg elevated?”

“Yes. Nearly all the time.” Eric frowned, as if displeased by any sign that he wasn’t healing in every way, more quickly than regular mortal men.

“Maybe try to use more ice on the foot and ankle, and make sure you wear those compression stockings.”

Eric’s frown deepened but he didn’t object.

“And I’m a little concerned about some of your blood test results.” The surgeon turned to his screen again. “Some of your levels are off. Are you eating okay? Getting enough rest?”

“Yes.”

The surgeon shifted his eyes to Julie, who understood the look. “He hasn’t taken any time off of work. He’s busy most of the day, and he mostly eats on the go. He sometimes works out until he’s exhausted.”

Eric turned his head to glare at her, but Julie just ignored it.

Shaking his head, the surgeon said, “You had some significant surgery, and a lot of your body’s energy is going to healing the bone. You need to rest a lot.” Peering at his computer screen again, he added, “In fact, you should take at least a week off to give your health a boost in the right direction.”

“A week off? I’m not going to—”

“Your leg will heal faster if you’re in better health overall,” the doctor interrupted. “That’s what you want, right?”

Eric’s annoyed look shifted between Julie and the surgeon, but he just muttered, “Yes. Fine.”

“You should go somewhere. Get away from your normal life. Focus on resting and eating well. Don’t overdo the physical therapy yet, but you might start moving around with crutches more, so the rest of your body will be ready for when your leg is healed.”

Eric didn’t answer, except with another scowl.

“I want you back in two weeks so I can recheck your levels. Take care of yourself in the meantime.”

Julie didn’t dare say anything as they left the hospital and drove back to his building. She knew Eric wasn’t pleased by the appointment or the instructions he’d gotten.

He was a man who was always doing something, and he didn’t like to feel less than physically powerful.

They were almost home when she asked, very carefully, “Do you have any ideas about somewhere you can go to get away?” He had enough money he could go anywhere he wanted, but she didn’t say that, since it would have just annoyed him more.

“I’ve got a beach house on the Outer Banks.”

“Oh, that would be good,” she said. “Maybe you could head there for a week or two and get some rest.”

“I don’t need extra rest.”

“The doctor obviously disagrees.”

“I’ve got a lot of stuff going on with my work.”

“I guess that’s fine,” she said, “if you don’t mind being in the cast longer than you have to be, because you’re not letting your body recover the way it needs to.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re infuriating?”

“No,” she replied honestly, hiding a smile at his aggrieved expression. “Everyone always thinks I’m sweet and mild and easy to get along with.”

He gave a huff. “Boy, are they all wrong.”

Eric used to go on vacation to the Outer Banks every spring with his family. When he’d gotten his first commercial endorsement deal after graduating from college seventeen years ago, he’d bought a house there on the beach, where his mother had lived until she’d died several years back.

He’d kept the house, always planning to use it a few weeks a year to get away, but he hadn’t been for over five years. There was just always so much to do, it was hard to find the time.

Fortunately, it had an elevator, or he never would have been able to make it three floors up to the main rooms of the house.

“This is really nice,” Julie said, looking around at the great room with its huge windows, high ceilings, and beachy decor. “Look at that view.”

They were high enough on this floor to see over the sand dunes that separated the house from the ocean, and the sea view was unobstructed. Eric felt the most ridiculous swell of pride at her awed expression—that it was his house that had impressed her so much.

She’d been distant and cool with him for the last week, and he didn’t like it at all. It had felt like they were getting close, but now that was gone. He wanted to get things back to where they had been before, but he wasn’t sure exactly how.

“Is the master over here?” she asked, gesturing to a closed door to their right.

“Yeah. There’s another decent bedroom on this floor over there that you can use.”

“Okay. Great. I’ll start to get you unpacked. Do you need anything?”

“I’m fine.” He hated feeling so helpless, having to be waited on for the simplest things. He was hating it more and more, particularly where Julie was concerned.

She might be impressed by his beach house, but she wasn’t going to be too impressed by him, when he couldn’t even get out of his chair.

The elevator opened up again and Tim appeared with more of their luggage. Between Tim and Julie, they unpacked and organized everything in the bedrooms, kitchen, and bathrooms, while Eric just sat uselessly and watched.

To make himself feel like he was doing something, he called Kristin and checked in about work. He’d left her in Charlotte to keep up with the bare minimum that needed to be done with business for the next week.

“Do you need to go the bathroom?” Julie asked once he’d ended the call and was just staring out at the ocean waves breaking in the distance.

He did, but that annoyed him too, since it was one more thing he couldn’t do without help.

Julie checked out the half bath in the main room. “This one is kind of cramped. You should probably use the one in the master bedroom.”

With a sigh, he wheeled himself into the bedroom and toward the bathroom, which was very large, with marble surfaces and a huge tiled shower.

When Julie brought the crutches over and tried to position them for him the way she usually did, he yanked one from her hand. “I can do it.” He could at least manage to stand up for himself and not lean on her as much as he’d been doing for the last few weeks.