8. Worth

Isure as hell felt like I knew Laurie after what had happened between us. I felt like I'd touched his soul. I'd never felt so connected to anyone, even when I was inside them.

"I know what you've been through. And I think you deserve to be surrounded by luxury. I can easily give you that."

"It's bad enough for me to take money from Beck. I promised him I would pay him back as much as I could. I'm not taking charity from you."

Worth sighed. "I have more money that I can spend, it doesn't matter to me. I can give you whatever you want. At least let me order us some food."

"You can just get me a burger or some chicken tenders or whatever. I don't need anything fancy."

"Do you trust me to choose for us?" He'd trusted me earlier, but there was a difference in trusting me with his body and trusting me to take care of his other needs.

"Yes. Order food. I'll eat whatever. I'm going to find a way to get back on my feet, and I'm going to repay you and Beck."

"There's absolutely no reason to do that. We can take care of you."

"I didn't mind what we did earlier, but?—"

"Didn't mind it? I hope to God it was better than that."

Laurie rolled his eyes. "It was fucking glorious, but I didn't mind that you assumed it was a transaction. Now you're trying to give me things with nothing in return. I'm not okay with that."

I held his gaze, and we stared at each other in silence for what felt like an eternity.

"Are you always this stubborn?" I asked.

"No. But now that I get to make my own choices again, I'm going to be."

"I'm ordering dinner." It was all I could do not to make him a proposition, not to agree to a little game of paying him for everything he let me do. Beck would fucking kill me, and I knew it was wrong, but God it would be so hot.

"Do you have any food allergies or anything you won't try, even if ask you pretty please?"

Laurie shook his head, and I pulled up the room service menu on my phone and placed a call.

"Mr. Chamberlain, how may we help you?" a woman asked when she answered.

"I'm ordering food for myself and my guest, but I'm not sure what he likes so I'd like a sample of all your entrées."

"Of course, sir, that's no problem. What else can we bring you?"

I ordered a few bottles of wine, champagne, and a sampler of desserts.

"I'll make sure your order goes in right away, and as always, you will have priority."

"Thank you." I ended the call.

"Did you literally just order all the entrées and all the desserts?"

I smiled. "I did."

"And they're fine with that?"

"They're fine with anything that gets them my money." Laurie was studying me when I turned his way. He really lived in such a completely different world than me. "I'm happy to share all I have with you."

"That's what Beck always says. His level of wealth is less obvious though. I guess that's because I've only known him as a student. He always wanted to be the one to pay for things, and he had incredible clothes, but this setting makes everything seem a lot different."

"What about when I came to visit?"

"You mean when I looked so different you didn't even recognize me."

"Part of that was because I was doing everything I could not to look at you too closely. Beck had ordered me not to dare flirt with you."

"That's crazy. There's no way you would have been interested in me then."

"Yes, I would have."

He raised his brows, clearly disbelieving.

"You're gorgeous and your smile makes me…Damn, I can't say things like that."

"What? Just say it."

I realized how starved he must be for compliments. He ate up all my praise earlier. "Your smile makes me want to smile back, and lately, I haven't been doing a lot of smiling."

"What's made you sad?"

I shook my head. "You don't want to hear about my problems. It's nothing I couldn't fix if I would just stop worrying about people who are never going to care about me."

"Oh shit! Do you have a boyfriend?"

"No, definitely not. I don't do relationships. It's my mother."

"I'm a good listener."

"You'll think I'm pathetic. How can I be sad that my mother wants me to run the company responsible for making us billions? How can I have the ability to buy anything I want and still feel so…."

He frowned. "So…what?"

"Lonely."

"I thought you had some really close friends. Beck told me about them, and they sound awesome. Except for Beck, all my college friends either ghosted me, or Tommy made sure I was cut off from them."

"Are you sure you don't want me to put a hit out on that son of a bitch?"

He frowned. "I'm still not sure if you're serious about that."

"I'll kill him myself if that would make you happier." It might make me happier.

He gave me a once over. "Your silk pajamas give me the impression you're not really a fighter." He laughed at my scowl. "Beck told me how fastidious you are about your clothing."

"I can throw a punch if I need to. I can defend you. I'm not a former SEAL like Carter, and I don't have the level of weapons expertise that Miles or even Ford has, but I can hold my own."

"I don't want you to have to go near Tommy. I'd rather pretend he didn't exist."

I wanted to protest, but that could wait. I gestured toward the floor where I'd carelessly dropped my clothes earlier. "Apparently, around you I'm not that careful with my clothes after all."

He smiled, then looked away. "Let's return to the subject of you and how you're not happy."

"I do have great friends, but they all have partners now, ones they're truly in love with. I'm happy for them, but I never thought I wanted that for myself."

"And now?"

I made the mistake of letting our eyes meet. "Now I'm not sure about anything except that my friends don't have the time they used to, and everything has changed. It's all great for them, so I should be happy for them."

"But it's not great for you."

Laurie laid a hand on my arm. Heat raced through my body at his touch, but I felt comfort along with desire. I could see the concern in his eyes. How could anyone want to hurt this beautiful man?

When I met his gaze, he jerked his hand away as if he hadn't realized he was touching me.

"Thank you. For understanding. I'll be fine though. I'm sure Beck has told you I can find my share of companionship when I want it."

"Is it companionship, though, really? If it was, would you be lonely?"

That was the last thing I needed to think about standing here with Laurie. I might not have had many men tempt me to more than an extended night that spilled over into the next day, but Laurie did. And he was off-limits. "I'll figure it out."

"If you want to talk more about it, I'm here. Apparently, we're kind of stuck here together. Not that you need to be my babysitter or anything. I was fine on my own before you got here."

"And you'll be even more fine with me." I didn't want to let him out of my sight. The thought of what other men and women would want to do with him made anger rush through my body, hot and vicious. I felt that way about protecting my friends, but never about someone I'd slept with.

"Worth—"

I held up a hand. "Don't argue with me. You just said this isn't a familiar environment. It is for me, and I'm going to show you all the ways you can enjoy yourself here." A knock on the door interrupted our conversation. "First, I'm going to show you how wonderful the food is."

I answered the door and several room service attendants wheeled in carts covered with domed platters. I showed them into our dining area, and they laid out a white linen tablecloth on the round dining table, then filled it with all the dishes I'd ordered.

Laurie watched wide-eyed, and he audibly gasped when a young woman set a bottle of champagne and several bottles of white wine in a bucket of ice on a stand by the table, then added a few reds next to our entrées.

"Would you like me to open one of these?" she asked, indicating the bottles of wine.

"No, I'll take care of it."

She set a wine opener next to the bottles then retreated. "Is there anything else you need?"

"No, thank you." I handed the attendants their tips, and they left. Laurie stayed right where he was, still in awe of the situation.

"Come sit down."

He frowned. "This is too much."

"Hardly. I could have ordered more."

"You could have ordered me one dinner."

"What's the fun in that?" I opened one of the bottles of white wine and poured some into each of our glasses.

"I don't usually drink wine," Laurie said.

"We have other options here." I indicated the fridge. "But I'd like you to try it. It's going to go so well with the first dishes we're going to sample."