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“Mr. Williams,” I gasped, “I need to get to the bathroom.”
He glanced down at me just as the champagne made its way back up my throat.
I gasped in horror as vomit coated his shirtfront. It was only seconds before the next wave hit me. In a flash, Mr. Williams carried me to the small bathroom that Amanda had thankfully vacated. There I proceeded to throw up every ounce of liquid that I had drunk.
He gently washed my face and soothed my tears. I didn’t care for vomiting. It had too many bad memories attached to it.
He removed his white button-down and t-shirt, exposing his drool-worthy chest. But I felt so horrible I could hardly enjoy it. Amanda retrieved his clothes from his emergency carry-on and helped me change into one of his t-shirts and boxers while he cleaned himself up.
Then she gave me two little white pills that she said would help with nausea.
I must have thanked her a hundred times. The pills had an immediate effect, and I wanted to lie down. Mr. Williams scooped me into his arms and opened the door to a small bedroom. Placing me down against the pillows, he brushed a finger across my lashes.
“Why the tears, little one?” he asked gently—too gently to be the Mark Williams I knew.
I must have been dreaming, because there was no other way I would have been so honest with him in my response. I always told the truth about Mama, but I was never one for details. And yet I found myself saying to Mark, “Sometimes Mama would be too sick from the drugs. When she started puking, the bad men came looking for me. It only took once to learn that being dead was better than being found.”
I thought I might have heard his sharply inhaled breath before everything went dark.
Dreamsabout my mother and the earlier years plagued my sleep until finally I jerked myself awake. At first, I didn’t recognize the space I was sleeping in. But as my vision began to clear, I saw that Mark was sitting on the bed of the private plane next to me.
“How are you feeling?” he asked gruffly.
My mouth tasted like the inside of a dumpster and my head felt like it was filled with cotton.
“Fine,” I replied.
His lips twitched a little as he turned around to grab a bottled water. Carefully unscrewing the cap, he handed it to me. “Don’t drink it too fast,” he warned.
“Yes, Daddy,” I quipped.
Mark wasn’t amused.
Like an obedient child, I took the drink and pressed it to my lips. The cool liquid felt great, and I drank a good amount before handing it back to him.
Mark replaced the cap and set it behind him. Then he turned to look at me.
I felt uncomfortable with him staring. “What?”
He pushed himself back onto the bed so that we were both sitting against the top with our legs outstretched. My legs were bare whereas his were encased in his perfectly cut trousers. We were are different as tea and tomatoes.
Chapter Ten
Mark
Horror gripped my stomach as I thought about what Sutton had said:‘They came after me.’ The phrase rolled around in my mind over and over again as Sutton slept. The woman slept much like she lived, with reckless abandon. Even sprawled out with her mouth open, Sutton was beautiful.
A part of me wanted to wake her and asked what had happened.
Did she know any of their names?
I wanted to kill the bastards with my bare hands. It sickens me to think that they would even think of touching her. I looked over to where she lay sleeping. Her dark hair was spread across the white sheets. Her face was softer, and she appeared much younger lying there in one of my button-down business shirts.
A part of me liked seeing her in my clothes.
And that alone scared the fucking shit out of me. The last thing I needed to do was become attached to her. I wasn’t there to play house with the girl. In truth, she legally now owned fifty percent of the stocks and I was at a disadvantage at forty-nine. Technically I could saw the board’s vote of one percent, but I didn’t want to have to get into it. Shit, I didn’t want to get into the legalities with her.
I don’t trust her. Fuck, I don’t trust anyone.