Chapter 47

Forty-Seven

SARA

My stomach crampedand felt acidic. “I’m gonna throw up.” I ran toward the bathroom.

“Sara, what’s the matter?” he asked, following after me.

I dry heaved several times over the toilet before pushing the lid down and plastering my naked ass on it. Tom stood at the entry, leaning a shoulder on the doorframe.

I looked at him, my face contorted from the sick feeling still clinging to my stomach. “And I guess you didn’t realize she was sleeping next to you naked?”

“I was asleep. I had no idea she was even in my room.”

“Right.”

“Are you insinuating that I’m not telling you the truth?”

“I don’t know, Tom. I mean, how the hell does a naked woman just walk into your room? Wasn’t the door locked?”

“I never lock my doors. I hardly ever close them. It’s not like I thought she’d pull that crap.”

I scoffed. “You have to be fucking kidding me, right? I met her for two seconds and even I know she’d be the kind of woman who would pull that kind of stunt.”

“Believe whatever it is you want to believe. You’re going to anyway.” He stormed away and disappeared into his bedroom.

I followed after him and found him lying on his bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He remained silent.

“I jumped to conclusions before I let you finish.”

Still, more silence.

“I over reacted. Tiffany just—”

“Baby, I was sleeping,” he uttered. “I had no idea what was going on. The next thing I knew, I had her by the neck, choking her. I almost killed her.”

My heart stopped. “What?”

“She thought she could seduce me while I slept, perhaps that I’d wake up mid-something and then we’d conclude what she started. The only thing I remember is jolting awake from one of my nightmares, still in a fog. I’d been in close combat in the middle of gun fire and men yelling. When I finally came to, I was squeezing her neck so tight she nearly lost consciousness. A few more seconds and I would have crushed her wind pipe. She would have died in minutes.”

I could have been pissed at Tiffany’s sneaky tactics or angry she tried to take advantage of him. The probability something could have happened was all too palpable. But what I saw in Tom’s eyes quickly took my anger and fears and reduced them to ashes. Tom was utterly horrified, and it was more concerning than anything else I could be feeling about that woman.

I laid next to him, offering him my warmth as I placed my head on his chest.

“The first thing that went through my mind,” he said, “when the nightmare began to dissolve and I realized what’d happened was, what if she had been you?” He turned to face me. “Sara, her neck was black and blue, I was squeezing so tight. She would have died. She could have easily been you. I just… I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I ever hurt you. If I ever…”

I reached over and cupped his cheek. “You wouldn’t.”

He turned his face away from me. “You don’t know that.”

“You can take the pills. Maybe see a doctor.”

“It takes a while for any treatment to work. It’s a risk I don’t want to take with you until I’m certain I won’t have an episode.”

“So, what’s going to happen? You can’t live like this, not sleeping in your bed while I’m around.”

“I’m okay with sleeping on the couch or in the other room.”

I blinked. “You are being ridiculous. I’m not keeping you from your own bed.”

“I’ll do whatever I have to until I can figure out how to control this.” He spoke calmly, but his soft words were not able to hide the dread seeping into his eyes, saturating the ambivalence holding him captive. I’d never seen him so worried.

I placed my head on his chest again. “We’ll get through it. We’ll figure this out. Together.”

He squeezed me tight and placed a kiss on my head. “I reassigned her, you know. She’s no longer working as my assistant,” he added out of nowhere.

I jolted up. “Say what, again?”

He sat up next to me. “She betrayed years of friendship. I can’t work with someone I don’t trust.”

My spine tightened. “Yeah, but what do you mean you reassigned her? Why didn’t you just fire her?”

He shook his head, a twitching smirk pulling at the corners of his lips. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“Clearly. So, why didn’t you fire her ass?”

“Look, aside from what she did that night, Tiffany has been a good friend and a good employee. I didn’t want her to lose her job for something so stupid. She did what she thought she needed to do to get what she wanted. It backfired. What matters is that I reassigned her to our L.A. branch as the office manager. My new assistant is some geeky dude. Nothing for you to worry about, okay?” he said as he tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “Tiffany is out of the picture.”

I shimmied away from his touch. “Until you visit the L.A. office. She is never going to be out of the picture until she is no longer working for you—in any capacity. She’s shown she is willing to do anything to get you back.”

“She never had me, Sara. I’m serious. There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“I don’t like it.”

Tom looked at the clock. “It’s late. You should be getting some sleep.”

I hated it when he did that, dismissing what I was saying because he was done talking about it. I didn’t have the energy for another argument, so I let it slide. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me, all right? I’ll stay up and watch TV.”

“Don’t leave me in this bed alone.”

“Baby, please try to understand, it’s not that I want to leave you here. God, it’s the last thing I want.”

“Watch TV here instead.” With puppy-dog eyes and a playful pout, I pleaded with him to stay.

He looked at me and cocked an eyebrow. “Who taught you to do that?”

“Do what?” I said, rolling my eyes and pretending I had no idea what he was referring to.

“Get whatever it is you want just by looking so adorable?”

I smiled coyly. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He smirked. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.”

“Deal.” I giggled as I slipped under the comforter with him. Like the gravitational pull of a planet, his body snatched me into its atmosphere and slowly dropped me into his world. The safest and only place I ever wanted to be in.

A couple of hours later, I awoke to a heavy and sloppy tongue licking my face. I opened one eye and saw a pair of anxious amber eyes staring right at me. I was lying flat on my stomach with my arm dangling off the bed.

“Bax, what gives? Shouldn’t you be bothering your daddy for this?”

Bax sat down on his hind legs with his tongue sticking out. He whined, putting his paws back up on the bed, licking me and nudging my arm.

“Okay, okay. I get it. I’ll get up. Where’s your dad? Did he forget to take you for a walk?” As I turned around to rise, my hand hit a bulk.

I smiled. Tom was still lying next to me. Passed out.

And for the first time since I’d met him, I’d finally not woken up alone in his bed.