Page 36 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Two

Beth

“Beth!”

It was bright and loud, and I was dizzy.

Hell, I’d been so dizzy all the time lately.

Gentle hands were coasting over my body—up my arms, over my throat, cupping my face and shaking my head lightly.

“Beth, sugarpie,” came Raph’s voice. “Wake up.”

“Honeybunch,” I managed, groaning and reaching a hand up, rubbing my head.

“What?” he asked.

The song was playing through my head, which wasn’t really a surprise.

I heard music in my mind all the time—oldies like the Four Tops ballad that Raph calling me sugarpie had triggered, new pop songs by badass women, 80’s rock by dudes who had better hair than I had.

Pretty much anything with a good beat and lyrics that had me bobbing my head and something that pulled me out of myself and into a life that wasn’t my own.

Another shake. “ Beth . Honey, open your eyes.”

The song faded, taking second fiddle to the musical quality of Raph’s voice. A velvet rasp that should belong to a rock star, vibrating over my skin, making love to my eardrums, sliding up and between my legs?—

I was on the floor of a bar.

My lids flew open, light and noise assailing me, all of it coming at once, making me realize that I was sprawled across Raph’s lap.

In the middle of CeCe’s.

Oh, fuck.

How freaking embarrassing.

Immediately, I tried to push off him, tried to get to my feet. Fresh air. Wait till I was one hundred percent. Drive home.

Good plan.

Only one problem.

Raph’s hands closed on my shoulders, pressed me back down into that big, broad lap, and he ordered, “Don’t move.”

Already, my head was clearing, as seemed to typically happen with these spells, and I wanted to be up on my feet, out of CeCe’s, and, seeing as how the entire staff seemed to be gathered around me and Raph, peeking around his billboard-wide shoulders, I was planning on avoiding it for the next half-century.

“I’m fine,” I said softly, shifting again, wanting off Raph’s lap.

I knew he didn’t like me.

I knew it wasn’t all just me. Being in Hazel and Pru’s circle meant that I’d learned plenty about the guys over the years, not the least of which was the sad story about Raph and his ex, and it was mainly sad because his ex had been a total bitch who’d faked a pregnancy. Who did that?

See? Bitch. Totally, completely so.

Especially, when I, in my limited experience there in Baltimore (it was before I’d moved to town from NYC) could see that Raph had been excited about being a daddy.

Why someone would lie about that I would never understand.

But Raph hadn’t liked me before his relationship went wrong, before I’d become a surrogate and added salt on a painful wound.

Nope.

I’d felt his dislike from our first meeting.

And I’d done my damndest to get him to change his mind.

I’d been on the boards of charities for a long time, my main gig raising money. I knew how to get people to like me, to like me enough to give me money (and that was a feat in and of itself). But I didn’t know how to get Raph to like me.

I also didn’t know why I kept trying.

Justin Bieber’s Love Yourself began playing through my head, something I really didn’t need right then.

Not with Raph staring down at me, face hard, lips pressed flat. “I said, don’t move .”

Love myself.

Sure.

Right.

More like Trouble by Ray LaMontagne.

My lips parted. Yeah, definitely trouble. Definitely a rasping, rough voice skating over my skin, tingling through my nerve endings, making me do stupid shit like repeatedly throwing myself into his path, hoping that he might like me.

Wasn’t going to happen back then.

Wasn’t going to happen now, not with two babies in my belly, stretch marks already erupting on my belly, and the worst gas in the history of gas.

And that didn’t even include the night sweats, the belly button that had turned into one of those button things that popped up when a turkey was done cooking, and a difficulty staying awake past nine at night.

I was a total catch.

Yup. Totally .

“Beth?”

I blinked, focused back on his eyes. There was a note of something there, and it wasn’t his usual annoyance, but before I could really suss out what it meant, it was gone, his gaze going hard again.

“Don’t. Move.”

My breath slid out, disappointment battling with annoyance.

But since it felt nice—just a little bit—to be in his arms, I stayed in place as he shifted to the side, his arm clamping around my middle.

That was nice, so nice that I didn’t immediately process what all that shifting had wrought.

I did, however, hear him say, “Marcel. Raph. I need you to meet me at the hospital. I’m with Beth and she collapsed at CeCe’s and?—”

“What?” I shook my head, trying to sit up, and when his arm just tightened again, keeping me in place, I began waving my arms. “I’m fine. We don’t need to go to the hos?—”

“She’s conscious now. Was maybe out for thirty seconds. No,” he added, seemingly to a question that Marcel had asked. “Didn’t hit her head or stomach. I caught her before she could and—” He paused, listening, and then his eyes sliced to mine.

“Any bleeding or cramping?” he asked.

Fuck. Now that was embarrassing.

“Let me talk to him,” I said, putting my hand out for the cell.

His eyes sliced to mine, the pale blue depths having gone full Ice Man. “Any bleeding or cramping?” he repeated, enunciating each word in a way that had icy fingers sliding down my spine.

“No,” I bit out.

“No.” A pause. “Right. We’ll be there in fifteen.”

He clicked off, shoved his cell in his pocket, but didn’t drop his arm. Nope, he kept that big old tree trunk wrapped around me, right beneath my breasts, reminding me that we were currently—and had been from the moment the babies had implanted themselves into my uterus—needy bitches.

“I’m—”

“Not another fucking word,” he snapped, standing with me in his arms. “Pru and Marcel went through too much to have these babies for you to jeopardize?—”

“I—”

“Not. One. More. Word.”

Temper.

Mine.

It was hitting the red zone, and considering that I’d spent my career in fundraising and had dealt with a lot of fucking annoying people and the shit they could shovel on me, that was saying something.

Considering that I’d been trying to get this man to like me, to pay attention to me, to touch me for the better part of three years, that was saying more than something.

That was saying everything.

I didn’t often hit the red zone or lose my temper.

Everything rolled off my back. I was adaptable as shit. I could take a flurry of hits and keep on smiling and joking.

This interaction had me turning into a cartoon thermometer, the top trembling and expanding as the mercury within heated up and threatened to burst free.

Deep breaths.

“Please put me down,” I said firmly. Quietly, calmly, but firmly.

He’d just reached the hall—turn left and we would hit the bathroom, turn right and we’d walk through another large room filled with high-top tables and another wooden bar that took up one wall of the space, the front door at its opposite end. He stopped. “I said ?—”

“I know what you said,” I interrupted icily, “and I don’t like your tone, nor do I like how you’re acting.”

His expression was a lesson in anger. “Pru and Mar?—”

My eyes suddenly stung, hurt blazing through me.

Because to insinuate—no, to say outright that I’d do something to jeopardize these babies—well, he might as well have taken a two-by-four to my stomach…then wound up and struck again. I was giving up my body, my time, my life, and my job in New York?—

No, the last two I’d given up willingly, ready for an escape.

Hell, all of it I’d given up willingly.

Because Pru was Pru and she’d been handed too much shit in her life and I was happy to do this for my friend. Because I was happy to start my life over somewhere fresh, with a new job and a new house and a place that wasn’t full of memories that sliced and clung deep and?—

I pushed that aside, lifted my chin. “I would never do anything to hurt these babies.”

His brows rose, but he didn’t respond, just kept walking down the hall, not giving a fuck that we were drawing plenty of curious stares and not giving a damn that I was dying a slow embarrassing death.

First, tumbling to the floor.

Second, a fucking princess being carried through the bar.

Cute .

“Wait!”

Raph stopped, turned us back slightly and I saw Julie, our favorite server, rushing toward us. She had a to-go cup in one hand and my purse and jacket in the other.

“I wouldn’t,” I whispered. Begged, really.

If he was insisting on carrying me, at the very least he could keep moving, could end my crippling embarrassment, could put me out of my misery.

But nope.

He stayed still, slanting a glance down at me, his eyes still frosty as Julie caught up to us.

Jules handed me the cup and gently tucked my purse in the valley created from my body touching Raph’s before spreading my coat over the top.

“Water,” Jules murmured. A squeeze of my hand.

“Feel better, okay? I need you here for Cheese Night Extravaganza next week.”

I forced a smile. “I never miss an opportunity for cheese.”

“Thanks, Jules,” Raph said gruffly, abruptly turning for the front door and pushing through it. He glanced down at me. “No fucking lip. You’re going to get checked out.”

I sighed. “I know what I’m doing?—”

“ I know that if a pregnant woman passes out, she should go to a fucking doctor, whether or not the babies are her own!” he yelled into the cool night air.

That thermometer burst and my temper let loose “Fuck, man,” I snapped.

“Fucking listen to me and stop interrupting! I’m not dumb or stupid or some fucking little princess you get to boss around.

” I shoved hard at his chest, managing to loosen his grip enough to wriggle my legs down and get my feet on the ground.

“All I’ve been trying to say—if you’d fucking let me talk, that is—is that my doctors are aware of the dizziness.

I’ve mentioned it, and they’re not overly concerned, but,” I added quickly and loudly when he opened his mouth to no doubt retort back at me, “I’ll phone the on-call doc, see what they want me to do.

If that’s to go into the ER, fine. I’ll go.

But if they advise something else, then I’m going to listen to the fucking doctor and not some bully of a hockey player who thinks he can treat me like shit just because some pathetic bitch of a female fucked him over! ”

I was yelling now.

On a street corner.

Into that cool night air.

Gaining an audience here, too.

Great.

Just pile that right onto my embarrassment, make it even more difficult to carry.

A flash of anger. “I know?—”

“You don’t know shit ,” I hissed, shoving at his chest before stepping back, gathering my purse and jacket from the ground where they’d fallen due to my squirming, trying to hold them and the cup and not douse myself with the cold liquid.

“You don’t know me . You clearly don’t know who I am inside or what I’d do for Pru and Marcel. And you don’t?—”

I’d taken a step, intending to head to my car, to sit in the driver’s seat and make that call.

But then I got dizzy again.

And I wavered.

Turning back, I plowed back into Raph’s hard chest, wrapping my arms around him.

Confusion in his bright blue eyes.

“You don’t get to be a jerk to me,” I whispered, leaning against him.

Silence.

A tense body against mine for just one second. Then his arms wrapped around me.

“You do, however,” I said, still whispering, “get to hold me until my head stops spinning and then I’ll call the doctor.”