Page 97 of The Heartbreaker

“How’s the temperature?” I asked Addison, dipping my fingers into the bath I’d drawn for her to ensure the water wasn’t scalding. “Do I need to add in some cold water?”

Even though she’d asked for it to be extra hot, I didn’t want her burning herself.

“It’s perfect.” She spread some of the bubbles up to her neck. “Just what I needed. Thank you.” She reached over the lip of the tub to put her fingers on mine. “Are you sure you don’t want to join me?”

I wanted nothing more.

But she’d had herself a hell of a night, so I wanted to give her some space at the same time.

I grabbed a washcloth from the tray beside the tub and dipped it into the water, getting it wet enough so that while I was massaging it across the top of her shoulders, I was cleaning her at the same time. “This one’s just for you.”

She continued to hold me, locking our stares. “I’m okay, Ridge.”

“I know.”

“You’re worried. I can feel it. You don’t have to be.” She adjusted her position, sending a wave of bubbles to her feet. “Kicking him in the balls was the most liberating feeling in the world. And I got to do it twice because the first kick hadn’t felt like enough.” She went quiet, but I could tell she wasn’t done. “I’m just glad that when the adrenaline took over, it turned me into a badass. If I hadn’t done what I did … I don’t know what would have happened.”

I ran my thumb over her forehead, down her cheek, palming the side of her face. “After you left the room, he fell to the ground.”

Her eyes widened as she silently stared at me. “How do you know?” She sat up a little higher. “Wait, you saw the camera feed?”

During the drive to my house, we hadn’t discussed what had happened when I went back inside the club. She didn’t ask a single question, and I said nothing about it. I asked her if she wanted to go to the police, and when she said that was the last thing she wanted, I had taken her here, the conversation minimal until she got in the bath.

“I saw all of it,” I admitted.

“And my manager did too …”

“He’s no longer your manager, Addison.”

“He fired me?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I just need to understand what I’m facing here. Just because I can’t go back—or I shouldn’t go back—doesn’t mean my bills go away.”

“You’re telling me you’d return?”

She tilted her head, elongating her neck, her eyes then closing. “I don’t want to. I never wanted to even work there in the first place. But I’m so close to paying off my sister. Like, two weeks away. And then I was going to pay down a huge chunk on my student loans.” She looked at me again. “That’s the first time anything like that ever happened to me there. Maybe if the manager promised to beef up security or …” Her voice drifted off. “Why am I even letting myself go there?” She paused again. “I’ve lost it … haven’t I?”

“You haven’t lost it.”

“But I’m focused on the finances when I should be thinking about my safety. And in regard to my safety, why would I even consider putting myself in that situation?”

I dropped the washcloth and held her chin. “Because what happened there could technically happen anywhere. Who’s to say a teacher couldn’t pull you into a closet at school and do the same thing? Or when you’re out and someone yanks you into an alley? I get where your head is at. This isn’t easy—at all.”

She nodded, resting her hand on top of the water. “Except in those situations, I’m not half naked.”

I slid my hand into her hair. “You don’t have to even think about it anymore. You never need to step foot in that hellhole ever again.” I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the folded envelope. “For you.”

“What is it?”

“You can call it a severance. A payoff. Or what’s keeping that motherfucker from getting sued.”

She searched my eyes. “Ridge … what are you saying?”

I set down the envelope and held her face with both hands. The words I was about to say had been in my head since I’d joined her in the car. They had pulsed through me while I carried her from my garage to my en suite. I wanted to wait for the right moment to have this conversation. It seemed like this was it.

“I didn’t want to be that guy, Addison. But, shit, from the moment I first tasted you, I wanted to tell you to quit. I wanted to write you a check and take away every worry you had. But the more I learned about your situation, the more I saw how prideful you were.”

Her light-brown eyes were gazing back at me, the emotion beginning to fill them.

“You wanted to do this on your own, it was important to you. I didn’t want to take that away from you. I thought it would be the last thing you’d want from me.”