I draw away from him for the second time tonight.
“I can’t,” I whisper.
“Addi—”
“I can’t.” I can’t hear that name. I can’t kiss him. I can’t just close my eyes and wish away all the emotions I’ve kept bottled up this past year.
I start to back away from him, and it’s only by some miracle that I remember the wine bottles. I grab the one with the gold label from the ground before taking the other from Ward. He doesn’t put up a fight.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him as I back away again. He has no idea how much.
This time I don’t run from him. But I feel his gaze boring into my back as I walk away, and for the first time since I can remember, I have to fight the urge to run back to someone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Surprise, surprise—I don’t get much sleep that night. It doesn’t seem to matter how exhausted my body is. The minute I lie down, my mind starts to race, and on the occasions I do manage to drift off, strange dreams keep waking me up again.
I use the time to my advantage, getting to work on the wine bottles. A quick Internet search brings up several ways to remove a wine label without damaging it, and a short time later, I have the labels from both bottles in my hand. I consider keeping the one for the Miel Doré, but it’s not worth the risk. Tomorrow, I’ll sneak back into the cellar and glue these labels on other bottles—ones that haven’t made it into the database yet—and if I pull this off, no one will notice that either wine was gone in the first place.
The project keeps me busy, but it doesn’t keep my mind from drifting back to Ward. To the way he looked at me. I already know what it feels like to kiss him, how fully my body responds to his. If I’d wanted, I could have abandoned myself to that feeling. Seen how far he’d let me go this time.
But I’m horrible for even considering it. For wanting it at all after falling into Ian’s arms earlier this evening.
I don’t care what Ward says. It’s not simple. I’m supposed to be enjoying some self-imposed celibacy here. Why am I throwing myself at every man who crosses my path?
There’s something different with him, I tell myself. Different than anything I’ve felt for a guy before. It’s brighter, somehow. More vibrant. Something deep inside me comes alive when I’m near him, which is silly because I hardly know the guy.
It’s just an excuse. I’m just trying to convince myself that this is okay. The sad truth is that at the end of the day, he’s just another man, and I’m just looking for another crutch. I need to stop pretending otherwise.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about it as I head down to my office in the morning. For those first few hours, I try to lose myself in my work. Mr. Haymore’s in rare form today. The press members arrive in a handful of days, and there are approximately a thousand things left to do. I’ve got a full day ahead of me, and that means downing two cups of coffee right away. Several days without a good night’s sleep is starting to wear on me. My head is throbbing, and all my thoughts are running together. I’m sure I look like a wreck. More than once I catch Mr. Haymore glaring at me, but fortunately he’s too busy with his own things to give me any lectures.
And then, at about half past ten, my boss comes racing into my office, his eyes wide with panic.
“Call security. Tell them to get to the spa immediately.”
“What’s going on?” I reach for my phone. “What—”
But Haymore’s already running from my office again.
What the heck is happening this time? I quickly phone the security office, and as soon as I hang up, I’m heading out the door in the direction of the spa. Whatever is happening, I have a feeling that I’m going to have to clean up after it.
When I hear the angry shouts, my stomach clenches. It sounds like another fight, and I have a feeling I know who’s involved. Someone curses loudly, and then there’s a huge splash just as I enter the spa lobby. When I hurry into the facilities, sure enough I find that the fight has spilled into one of the soaking pools.
But maybe fight isn’t a strong enough word. Brawl is much more accurate. There are at least five guys in the pool, and there are so many flailing limbs and punches flying through the air that it takes me a moment to spot that head of red-brown hair. Just as I suspected, Ward is at the center of it all. Even as I watch, he gets a fist right to the face.
Mr. Haymore’s on the edge of the pool, shouting. But we’re not the only onlookers. A couple of the construction workers still stand by the scaffolding on the far side of the room (from the looks of it, they were finishing up a large section of tilework today) and a handful of employees from nearby sections of the house have come to gawk at the commotion. Looks like no one wants to miss a good brouhaha around here.
Even, it seems, the owner himself.
I jerk back a step when Carolson enters beside me. He doesn’t give me a second glance, but his eyes dart around the rest of the room—from the men in the pool to the unfinished tiles to the crazed Mr. Haymore—and his mouth curls down into a sharp frown.
“Charles,” he says. It’s not very loud, but Mr. Haymore’s back stiffens instantly. He stops shouting and turns toward us at the door.
“Security’s on its way, sir,” he says. His gaze shifts back to the men in the pool—who’ve still shown no signs of breaking it up—then back to Carolson. “Please, sir, stand back. They’ll get this under control.”
I risk a glance up at Carolson, but the frown has disappeared, replaced by his normal emotionless mask.
A crack resounds through the room, and I swing back towards the fight, fearing the worst. My mind floods with images of Ward’s head bashed against the side of the pool, of the water running red with his blood.
It’s clear, the longer I look, that this is a four-against-one battle. Ward is swinging at everyone, and everyone else is swinging at him. How he’s managed to hold his ground for this long, I have no idea.
My throat is completely dry by the time security arrives. They’ve sent five guards, but even then I’m not sure that’s enough to subdue the men in the pool. The brawlers haven’t even noticed these latest arrivals.
“Break it up!” one of the guards shouts. He’s a large, stocky man with a clipped gray mustache. “Break it up!”
Two of the security officers jump right into the pool. The other three fan out along the nearest edge.