Chapter 26

"Hey beautiful, you"re looking lonely over here." Slicked back blonde hair, brown eyes and a T-shirt that proudly proclaimed him as a fan of some football team, he slid into the stool beside me. "I thought I"d keep you company."

"I"m fine, thanks," I said dismissively. I gave him no more than a glance before looking away.

"Don"t be like that," he said. "We both know how this is going to go down. I buy you a couple of drinks, you and I go back to my hotel room and you use that pretty little mouth on my cock. Everyone has a good time. If you have a husband at home, don"t worry, I won"t tell him." He lifted his beer glass to his mouth and grinned.

I saw the wedding ring around his finger and felt sorry for his wife.

"Like I said, I"m fine, thanks," I said.

I looked toward the toilets, but saw no sign of Eden returning. Usually, we"d go together, but I was holding our seats and watching over our drinks. A girl could never be too careful, no matter where she went.

"Yes, you are." He looked me up and down. "I"m Jarrod, and you are…" He raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Not interested," I said. "Go and find someone else to cheat on your wife with. Or better yet, don"t cheat at all. I mean, you wouldn"t want to take home some kind of nasty disease." I hoped that would deter him, but he just grinned.

"Don"t be like that. You know you want it. Girls like you always do."

"Girls like me?" I turned around slightly to face him. "You don"t look like you have a lot of experience with girls like me."

"Maybe I don"t," he shrugged. "This could be the perfect opportunity to change that. Wouldn"t you say?" He actually winked at me. Winked.

I couldn"t tell if the turning in my stomach was morning sickness or this dickhead. Maybe both.

"No, I wouldn"t say that," I said. "Like I said, I"m not interested. If you don"t want to leave, I"ll call security."

He sneered at me and slipped down off the stool. He stalked away muttering something like, "Would have been a bad fuck anyway."

He was barely gone when Eden finally returned.

"Don"t leave me alone again," I said, eyes wide. I told her about Jarrod and we both had a good laugh.

"I don"t dare leave you alone again," she said, still giggling. "Although, he sounds like an absolute catch."

"I"m sure he"s an absolute something," I said. "I don"t know about a catch. I"d be more likely to catch something if I went with him."

Eden burst out laughing again. "At least you know you've still got it."

"If it attracts guys like that, I"m not sure if I want it," I said.

I drank what was left of my juice and tried to stifle a yawn. "I don"t know about you, but I"m about ready to wrap this up for the night." It wasn"t much before midnight anyway.

"Me too," Eden nodded. She downed the last of her beer and set the glass on the bar. "Let"s go."

It wasn"t until we stepped back out onto the street that I realised we were being followed. By more than one person, and neither of them was Cole.

"We figured we"d give you the chance to change your mind," Jarrod said. "Nice of you to bring a friend." He was with a man who looked enough like him to have been his brother. If you turned the sleaze-o-metre up to double.

Eden snorted. "In your dreams."

"See," Jarrod said slowly. "I"m pretty easy-going, but Zaden here doesn"t like to take no for an answer." He gestured towards his brother.

Zaden grunted. "You were right, they"d both look good on their knees."

There were people around, even at this time of night, but no one seemed to be paying any attention. No one but us saw Zaden pull out a small blade.

He fixed a stone cold look on Eden. "Get on your knees, bitch."

For the first time, I was actually scared. He looked as though he wouldn't hesitate to use the knife on one of us if we didn't do exactly what they said.

Zaden growled. "I said, get on your knees."

Apparently he didn"t count on a tall, muscular professional hockey player coming barrelling out of the bar behind him and throwing himself on Zaden.

They both fell heavily to the ground. The blade slipped out of Zaden"s fingers and skittered across the concrete.

Jarrod made a lunge for it, but Eden was quicker. She grabbed it up, closed the blade and curled her fingers around it.

Jarrod sneered, but instead of going after her, he gripped the back of Cole"s shirt and tried to pull him off his brother.

At the same time, Zaden tried to shove the weight off his back.

"Get the fuck of me," he snarled. "I"ll call the fucking cops."

Cole shook off Jarrod and rolled off Zaden, but he didn"t let him go. Instead, he dragged him to his knees and planted his fist in the other man"s face.

Both Jarrod and Zaden swore. Blood poured down Zaden"s face.

Jarrod tried again to grab Cole and punch him in the face, but Cole was too fast for him. He got to his feet, knocked Jarrod"s legs out from under him and dropped him to the ground.

"You"re fucking nuts," Zaden growled. His hand was pressed to his nose. "Jarrod, let"s get the fuck out of here."

Groaning, Jarrod rolled over and pushed himself to his feet. He looked at Cole like he might try again to take a swing, but in the end he shook his head and staggered away after his brother.

Cole watched them go, shaking out the pain in his already red hand.

"That"s going to need some ice," I said.

He glanced down at it vaguely and nodded. "Yeah, I guess. Are you two okay?"

"Thanks to you we are," Eden said. "That was…" Her eyes were wide, staring.

I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed my hand up and down her back. I whispered reassuring words in her ear until she stopped shaking. She clung to me for a few minutes before regaining her composure.

"Thank you," I said to Cole. "If you weren"t here…"

"You would have figured out something," he said. "I just saw them follow you and when I saw that knife, I lost my mind. If anything happened to you…" He shook his head.

"Nothing did, because of my benevolent stalker." Apparently I dealt with situations like this with dark humour. I reached out my hand and pulled him to me, in an awkward, three-way hug. Somehow my lips found my way to his.

He might have faith that we would have found a way out of the situation, but I didn"t. If it wasn"t for him, those assholes could have forced themselves on both of us. Or worse.

Zaden might have killed Eden or me, or my baby. For the first time since I found that I was pregnant, I was truly protective of this life growing inside me. Right now, I couldn"t bring myself to care how their existence came about. I was just grateful to be alive.

Cole kissed me gently, but mostly he held me while I held Eden.

"We should get out of here," I said after I didn"t know how long. Maybe a few minutes, maybe half an hour. Fear and fatigue muddled my brain.

"Here, outside this bar, or here, the Gold Coast?" Eden asked.

"The first, and then the second. I"m ready to go home," I said.

I looked up at Cole and managed a smile. My anger towards him seemed to have cooled slightly. I hadn"t forgiven him, but maybe in time, I could.

Whether I could forgive Toby or Oliver was another story.

Cole must have noticed, because he whispered, "I know it won"t be easy. I wish it took something other than this for you to see how much I care about you."

I leaned back and looked around both ways. When he gave me a funny look I said, "I was checking to see if Oliver was around. Just in case he set that up."

"If he did, I"m going to break his face too," Cole said. "I didn"t tell either of them you were here tonight. For what it"s worth though, they"re both worried about you."

"Are you going to tell them what happened?" I asked.

"I think they should know," Cole said. "What we did led to this moment. This was our fault as much as it was those asshole's."

"You didn"t ask them to pull a knife on us," I said. I rested the side of my head against his chest. He felt warm and solid. I didn"t realise how much I needed this until right now. I"d missed him more than I'd expected to. Touching him now felt real and right. I never thought I"d feel this way again, but it felt good. Letting go of some of my anger was a relief.

"We might as well have," he said. "If it wasn"t for us, you wouldn"t be anywhere near here right now."

"If it wasn"t us, they might have tried to attack some other women who didn"t have a big, bad ass hockey player to defend them," I said.

Eden and I might have been able to fend off the potential attackers, but not without getting hurt in the process. I"d always be grateful to Cole for stepping in when he did.

"That"s right," Eden said. "Another woman might not have been so lucky. Hopefully they think again before they try anything like that." She shuddered.

Tonight would likely haunt her nightmares for a while. Mine too. Even now, the stone cold expression in Zaden"s eyes made my stomach twist. He would have done what he tried to do without a second thought. I hoped his nose was very, very broken. And extremely painful.

"I have some friends in the police," Cole said. "I"ll let them know what happened. There"s probably cameras around here somewhere. They"ll deal with those assholes." He slipped the knife out of Eden"s hand and tucked it into his pocket. "Let"s get you back to your hotel room. I"ll book us on the first flight out in the morning."

"Thank you," I said again, before lightly kissing his mouth. "I"m glad you were stalking me."

He snorted softly. "I"m glad I was too. I think I"ll keep doing it."

"I think you should stick to playing hockey," I told him.

"You"re going to need it when your credit card bill comes in," Eden said. She gave him her best innocent-but-not-really-innocent smile. We hadn"t taken advantage as much as we could have, but he wouldn"t know that until he checked his account. Why not let him sweat for a while? Not too long, just enough to make up for the past. He"d be the first to suggest it was deserved.

That drew a smile from him. "I don"t doubt it. I also have no regrets about that. I know how much fun both of you had up until tonight. I"ve enjoyed watching it. Any time you want to do it again, let me know."

"You might not regret it now, but you might come to regret saying that eventually," I said with a grin. "When we take you up on it."

He raised his hands, his fingers outstretched. "Bring it on. It"ll mean you"re still talking to me."

"I guess it might," I said. Talking was a start. Anything else—we'd see.

"I"ll take it," he said. "Come on, let"s go. Before those two come back with a bunch of friends. Punching them all out would hurt." He opened and closed his hand a few times. It clearly hurt, but he wasn"t going to complain. Hopefully it wouldn"t affect his playing too much when we got home. The team deserved better.

The three of us intertwined, we headed back to the hotel.