She looked up at Edmund with terror in her eyes.
But before he looked at her, Edmund was buried in his own thoughts. Something told him instinctively that she was not going to go for an open relationship with him or any other man. She was not that kind of girl. But he was not the kind of man to have anything but an open relationship. Which put them at odds right away. Was she going to be willing to bend? He knew he wasn’t going to bend. It was all up to her.Or was it?
Because when she looked up at him and he looked deep into her eyes, he saw the terror. And he realize in that instance that what his instincts were screaming at him were dead on. She was not the casual sex kind of person. This was so foreign to her, and seemed so normal to him, that it terrified her. As if she was saying to him with her eyes alone:What have I gotten myself into?
And his heart dropped. He was nuts to think she was going to fall in line alongside Teri and Shannon and anybody else he cared to bring to the fold. What did his selfish lust just do to her?
And for the first time ever, he decided to take responsibility for somebody else’s emotional response. “It’s alright, Maude,” he said to her with all sincerity in his eyes. “It’s going to be alright.” And then he laid her head back on his chest and held her.
Although his words did comfort her in that moment and took the edge of that terror off of her, she still felt uneasy. She still felt as if she was so out of her league with this man that they weren’t even on the same planet. How in the world was this going to work?Whyin the world would it work?
And on top of that, she didn’t even know if he wanted it to work! That was how little she knew about this man that held her in his arms. Because she learned long ago that sleeping with a man did not mean the same to guys as it did to women. Only it meant everything to Maude. What if she ended up with a baby, and had to become a single mother relying on him to take care of both of them? That was something her aunt did with her husband and she ended up trapped in his clutches. That was something she swore she’d never allow to happen to her. Would she have to take that abortion pill in the morning? That was something she swore she’d never do too.
But what if it was even worse than that? What if, instead of a baby, she ended up with a dreaded disease because her stupid ass didn’t think to make him put on a condom like she did with every guy she’d ever been with?
She had let every one of her guardrails down for Edmund Keating. While for him it was probably just another roll in the hay with just another female he could dispose of like he did that older lady that ran from his house the other night, cursing the ground he walked on as she did.
But then there’s Maude! But then there’s the only woman on earth willing to run into the arms of a man that had women fleeing from him in the night!
The terror had eased, but it was still right there.
And when she fell asleep again and woke up later that morning with news that she was being discharged, Edmund was gone. Which concerned her. Where was he? In another long,drawn-out surgery? Or had their coupling freaked him out, too, and he had decided against traveling with her to Dillon?
He was gone. But that terror still lived on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Edmund had the presidential suite’s valet go and buy an outfit for Maude that was not dissimilar from the clothes she wore to the hospital: A pair of jeans, a sleeveless blouse, panties and a bra, and a pair of tennis shoes, all the same size, or close to it, as her original wear. It was as if he was making clear: If he was going to take her all the way back home, her same old clothes that survived an assault would not do.
Although those new jeans were a tad larger than her usual fit, and the blouse was too, they fit good enough. But unlike her clothing, they were from high-end designers all: The blouse was Prada. The jeans were Gucci. The sneakers: Jordans. None of the items were the best fit she’d ever had. Which meant she still didn’t see what all the fuss was about. But they were new. They were comfortable. She had no complaints.
After she was dressed and was given her discharge papers, she was rolled out of the hospital in a wheelchair, although such a chair was wholly unnecessary in her view. But the nurse supervisor, who rolled her out, insisted that it was hospital protocol. Maude had no choice in the matter.
As they waited in the patient pickup zone, she kept looking around for Edmund as if she was still hopeful that he hadn’t changed his mind. But she wasn’t extremely hopeful. The fact that Donnell was still around gave her some comfort, but that could just be a formality. Once she got off of those hospital grounds, he was liable to disappear too.
Which would have been fine by her. She still had her bus fare back to Dillon, and she had enough change to take an Uberto the bus station if she had to. One monkey wasn’t about to stop her show. Although inwardly, she was rooting for that monkey to do just that!
Her hope rose a bit more when a gorgeous, champagne-colored Rolls Royce pulled up to pick her up.
“Wow,” the nurse supervisor said before she realized she had said it. “That’s for you?”
“I’m saying,” Maude tripped up and said even though she had no affinity for that nurse. But it was true. A Rolls Royce pickingherup? Even she thought that was a tad much.
But when Donnell stepped off the curb and opened the back passenger door for her, she knew it was no mistake. She was about to ride in the kind of luxury she never even dreamed was possible for her. She and her shoulder bag got out of that wheelchair and gladly got into what she assumed was Edmund’s mode of transportation. That nurse supervisor, with that now-empty wheelchair, couldn’t wait to go back inside and tell the news.
Since Maude was the news, she didn’t need to hear the gossip. And when Don assisted her onto the backseat, closed the door, and then sat on the front passenger seat, she so wanted to ask him about Edmund that it wasn’t even funny. But she held her tongue.
Don introduced her to the driver instead. “Miss Drayton, this is Wyatt. He’s Dr. Keating’s driver.”
Maude leaned forward. She sat in the middle of the backseat. “Please to meet you, Wyatt.”
“You too, Miss Drayton.”
“Like I told Donnell, please call me Maude.”
Wyatt looked at her through the rearview. She seemed nice. “Will do.”
“Although Don still doesn’t.”
