Up All Night-nook (6 page)

She swallowed hard and wanted to press her fist to her lips as her stomach clenched. Instead, she stared down at the end of the bed at her toes sticking out from under the covers. He hadn’t cared enough to stay and talk to her. “I guess I’ll see him at the house when I get back.”

“Well, honey…” Harper hesitated.

Stella looked at each one of them in turn.

“He actually… He’s on his way back to Miami,” said Dayna.

A tear slid down her cheek. Several memories from the night swept down on her like a tidal wave.

It had all been a lie.

She should have known. How could she be so stupid? Listening to her first instinct was always what Stella did when it came to her life and her career, and she ignored all of it when it came to Ian Hollis. She scooted up in the bed and swiped at her face. “Fine. Whatever.”

She attempted to swing her legs to the side of the bed, but Violet stopped her. “Whoa, honey. Not so fast.”

“When can I get out of here?” Her left eye began to twitch, and she crossed her arms.

Dayna took her hands and gently squeezed. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

She made herself take in a slow, steady breath and gave Dayna a brittle smile. “Nothing. I’m just ready to leave.”

Her friend didn’t back down. “What happened between you and Ian?”

“Nothing.” She would give away nothing. Absolutely
nothing
. No one would hear how she humiliated herself this weekend over Ian Hollis by having a one-night stand with him. It turned out she was just like the rest of them. All the women who flung themselves at him. But
she
was dumb enough to fall for his lies. She shook her head. “I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not. And he’s not either. He raged at the paramedics, the emergency room nurses, the doctors, pacing up and down the hall for hours until they told him you were all right. Then, he just up and left. The only person he talked to was Blake,” Dayna said glaring up at Harper. “But he’s not giving up anything.”

Harper held up her hands. “Look, I tried. He wouldn’t tell me a thing.”

Dayna implored her, her gaze zeroed in, not wavering. “Spill,” she insisted.

Stella shook her head. “It was nothing.”

“You’re lying. I watched the two of you on the beach
and
when you came back into the house
and
when you disappeared into your room for a couple of hours.
Plus
he was up in the attic with you all evening. There’s something there. I know it.”

So, she wouldn’t be able to keep her humiliation to herself. The thought of it made bile rise in her throat. She allowed her gaze to scan each one of their faces. They were her friends. Her best friends. If she couldn’t confide in them, who could she confide in?

Ian
.

No! Not true.
Not true
. He’d be here if that were true.

Violet sat beside her on the bed. “Honey, you’ve been fighting your attraction to Ian since the first time you laid eyes on him. And he’s been trying to sway you in his direction from the moment he saw you. What’s up? What happened tonight?”

Stella sank back against the pillows and covered her face. “I had sex with Ian.”

Harper grabbed her hands and pulled them down. “What?” Disbelief clouded her voice. They knew her, everything about her, and doing something this reckless wasn’t something she ever did.

“You had sex with Ian?” Violet asked.

She kept her chin pressed against her chest and squeezed her eyes shut. “Yes.”

“Hold up. You go from stay away from me to jump my bones in one night? You, Stella?”

Sliding her feet to the floor, she crossed the room and stood at the window. Street lights lit up the half-empty parking lot. She saw an ambulance race toward the emergency room entrance. It was hot outside, but the trees planted in pillars at the end of each parking row blew in the breeze. She placed the palm of her hand against the cool glass of the window.

“I just wanted to experience it one time, you know? Be reckless, wild. I told myself I could have a one-night stand with Ian and then it would be over. No hard feelings.” She turned to face her friends. “But he tried to turn it into something else.”

They were all sitting on the edge of the hospital bed now, facing her. The looks of shock and bewilderment on their faces were almost comical.  She loved them so.

“What do you mean? Turn it into what?” Dayna asked.

“You know,” she said, hunching her shoulders. “He has feelings for me? He tried to push me into a relationship, to admit I had feelings for him. He wants today, tomorrow, next month.” She gave an involuntary shudder.  “But this is Ian, right? How can I believe that? The man goes through women like water in a spigot.” She began to pace, traipsing a trail from one side of the room back to other. “I wanted to believe him. I did. But…but…”

“You’re not your mother, Stella,” Harper said.

She winced at the thought. All her life she’d done everything completely opposite from her mother. No kids at a young age, went to college, opened a business, stayed away from men. But what did that leave her? “We kinda had a fight about it. I got so angry I pushed away from him. I just wanted to get away, but when I did, I unintentionally flung myself down the damn steps.”

They were quiet for a few minutes, watching her.

“Stella, what’s wrong with having a relationship with Ian?” Violet asked.

Incredulous, she gaped at her. “What do you mean? Ian doesn’t do relationships. He does women. Lots and lots of freaking women.”

“Maybe because the one woman he wanted to have a relationship with kept pushing him away,” Dayna said quietly.

Stella did not want to hear this. She glared at Dayna. She was supposed to be her friend. Why was she taking Ian’s side? They were supposed to be helping her man bash him.

Dayna continued. “But you finally gave him an opportunity tonight, and he took a chance. He told you how he felt.”

Her legs went weak, and she sat on the edge of the windowsill. “But…but that can’t be true. If he really wanted a relationship with me, wouldn’t he be here now instead of going back home?”

Dayna rose, moved forward, and took her shoulders and shook her. “Because he thought it was his fault, Stella. His fault that you fell. He blamed himself. Over and over again he kept saying it. Now I know why. How do you think he feels? You wanted away from him so bad, you didn’t want a relationship with him so bad, you almost killed yourself trying to get away from him.”

What Dayna said was like a sucker punch to the stomach. Covering her eyes, she knocked her head back against the window. “Shit.”

All that time she spent avoiding relationships with men had warped her. In her mind, something clicked. It wasn’t that her mother
couldn’t
find a good man. Her mother always
chose
to pick the wrong man. She
chose
them, chose her behavior toward them, and allowed those relationships to poison her life.

When she thought about it more clearly, Ian wasn’t like any of those men. Yes, he would never have to work a day in his life, but that didn’t mean he didn’t do anything with it. He helped parents. He helped kids. He taught computer classes, GED classes. And coached football and basketball. He gave his time to help others.

The men her mother dated only took…
took
and never gave back. And when her mother was broke and had nothing else to give, they vanished.

Ian wasn’t like that.

“Oh God, what have I done?” She stood, swaying on her feet a little. “I have to go find him.”

“Okay, slow down. You’re not going anywhere tonight,” Violet admonished.

“But I have to go to him. I have to tell him.”

“Okay, sweetie,” Harper said in her
you just jumped on the crazy bus
tone. “You almost broke your neck falling down a flight of stairs. You’re not driving anywhere tonight. Plus, Ian’s not going anywhere. Believe me, once he gets home, he’s not going to want to go anywhere. Hell, he’ll probably drink himself into a stupor.”

After Harper saw the look on her face, she winced. “Sorry. But true.”

Dayna took her hand. “What Harper means is, you have time. No need to rush and try to see him tonight. But we gotta get you out of here first. And that’s my job. I’m going to go talk to the doctor and see when we can get you back to the beach house.”

* * * * *

The next morning, Stella stood in front of Ian’s home.

God, it was massive. It wasn’t ostentatious by any means, but she wasn’t used to such opulence. Her eight-hundred square foot apartment would probably fit inside the foyer.

Now that she’d driven here to see him, the thought of actually walking up to his door was daunting. What if he didn’t want to see her? What if Dayna had it all wrong and he didn’t care for her at all?

Crap. She might have driven all this way for him not to even be home.

Her finger hovered over the buzzer.

Just get it over with.

Pressing down, she held it for about five seconds then released. She unbuttoned the top button of her shirt but fastened it back. Gazing down at herself, she cursed. Why did she always wear the predictable? It was almost an exact replica of what she’d worn on the steps when he stopped her and convinced her to put off working in the attic to play with him on the beach. The truth? She really didn’t have anything sexier she could have worn.

It was time for a wardrobe adjustment.

She nibbled at the corner of one nail until she jerked the digit away looking at her fingers. And she needed a freaking manicure too. Shaking out her hands, she walked to the other side of the drive to admire the begonia bushes but sprinted back when she heard his voice over the intercom.

“Yes?”

One syllable. That’s all it was. But the deep timber of his voice washed over her in waves.

“Um…Hi, Ian. It’s Stella,” she answered, rubbing her hands down the seams of her navy blue shorts.

A beat passed before she heard the soft buzz of the gate as it swung inward.

Fifty feet.

Fifty feet of paved, light-brown cobblestone stood between her and Ian’s front door. She could run back to her car, jump in and pretend it never happened, that this weekend didn’t happen. But the days of Stella Lewis being a coward were over. She would get this over with no matter what it cost her.

She glanced up at the house again as she walked. The light brown texture of the brick and sparkling white trim and French windows were spectacular. An even row of hedges were on each side of the light, double oak doors and two steps led up to the porch. It didn’t look like a playboy lived her. In fact, if she drove by this house and didn’t know who lived behind this massive and beautiful structure, she’d think it was a family.

The right door swished open and there he was.

Ian
.

Even in basketball shorts and a plain white tank, he was simply
gorgeous
. Was it only yesterday she’d felt his body against hers, the slide of his arms, the rock of his hips? Ian Hollis was a package that oozed sex appeal. Her belly squeezed tight with lust.

“What are you doing here, Stella?”

From the first moment she met Ian, she could always look at his face, into his eyes and know what he was thinking. It had disturbed her on so many levels that she’d ignored it. But now, he was completely unreadable, closed off to her in such a way it caused an empty feeling to form in the pit of her stomach.

No turning back now.

“May I come in?” she asked.

The slow perusal he gave her body from head to toe made her fingers and toes tingle.  He stepped back.

Stella lightly grazed his stomach with her arm when she stepped past him, and she heard him grunt. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said, his face still a mask.

For a moment she stood stunned into silence. Intricate black ironwork and cherry wood banisters welcomed you up two staircases, one on each side, curving upward to the second floor. Marble, light gold floors led all the way to the back of the house to a dining room that was only broken by a circular and triangular inlay in the middle of the room. Recessed lighting and a huge chandelier lit the space in warm peach hues.

“It’s beautiful,” she said and turned to smile at him. But the grin froze on her face. He said nothing. Gave away nothing and only stood there watching her.

“You left last night before I—”

“I didn’t think I was needed after I found out you were going to be all right.”

“But you didn’t go back to the beach house.” She stepped closer to him, trying to erase the distance between them. The man standing in front of her wasn’t her Ian. He wasn’t the fun loving, flirting guy everyone wanted to be around.

“I had some things to take care of, so I came home.”

Stella took another step and saw, briefly, when his eyes flared. He wasn’t completely immune to her.

“I’m sorry, Ian.”

“For what?” he asked, the lines around his mouth tight.

“I shouldn’t have run away from you like that.”

“You almost killed yourself trying to get away from me. I should have let it go when you asked. I should have walked away and left you alone.”

They were so final, his words. But she shook her head. “No. You were right to challenge me, challenge my fears and insecurities. You were right, and it freaked me out.”

“I pushed you where you didn’t want to go. You wanted a one-night stand. I wanted…
shit
.” Ian sighed. He blew out a shaky breath and gazed at the ceiling then back down again. “Look, it’s over and done with. You don’t look like you have any lasting injuries. I won’t bother you again.”

When he reached for the door handle to open it, she touched his arm, and this time he froze, staring at her fingers. Making her touch light, she grazed a trail down his arm until she had his hand in hers, their fingers interlocking. 

He still didn’t look up.

“What if… What if I want the same things you want?”

He closed his eyes tight and opened them again before releasing her hand and stepping away, his back almost against the closed door. “What do you think I want?”