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Why she kept them, she had no idea. It wasn’t like she needed more reminders of the gaping void that was her sex life.Priorities,she reminded herself as she sifted through more random crap living in her purse. Pens, a cosmetic mirror, enough Kleenex to fill an empty box, and the wrapped candies she collected every time she left an eating establishment. All there, strewn on the floor in front of her apartment door, but no sign of her keys.
Slumping against the wall beside her door, she closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she’d seen them. She drew a blank. That morning, she’d left with Ivy, so she hadn’t been the one to lock up. Her keys could be anywhere.
She thunked her head against the wall a couple of times before she dropped her forehead to her knees in sodden defeat. Hot tears pricked her eyes, and she didn’t try to fight them this time. It was all too much, and there was no one around to see her display of weakness, so she let loose. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.
From under the cocoon of her huddle, she blindly reached for one of her purse tissues and wiped her nose. At the exact moment she let out a pathetic sounding whimper, she heard heavy footsteps striding toward her. Two very large, very male, Blundstone-clad feet appeared in her peripheral vision.
Scratch that. Her day could definitely get worse.
* * *
Gabe stared at the woman curled in a ball at his feet. She looked like a wounded puppy. A sniffling one.
Shit, was she crying?Shit.He could handle bar fights, drunk-assed adults acting like children, and worse. He could patiently wade through complicated liquor licensing red-tape hell. He would even handle the things that went bump in the night. But one thing he wasn’t equipped to handle, and never had been, was a woman’s tears.
Women were a complex equation he was always struggling to solve but never quite could. He barely managed the ones in his own family, let alone a stranger. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
He hadn’t officially met her since she moved into the apartment across from his, but he’d known who Hope Morgan was the instant he saw her. Not only because she didn’t look like your average Portlander with her chic clothes and perfectly manicured appearance, but also because Ivy had given him a pretty good rundown on her friend when she’d asked if it would be okay if she took on a roommate.
Not to mention, Hope came from a rich California family. So rich that even Gabe had heard about the property and construction legend that was her father. Walter Morgan was a self-made zillionaire who started doing odd jobs in construction as a teen and built his own construction empire. Morgan Construction had developed half of the most notable high-end buildings in Northwest California. He didn’t know much about Walter Morgan himself, but he admired the man’s ferocious work ethic, and respected anyone who could build something successful from little more than nothing. Gabe had been trying to do the same for himself, and he knew the grit it took.
When it came to the man’s daughter, however, Gabe was happy to keep his distance. He could imagine the type of woman Hope was, and he always gave women like her a wide berth. Rich daddy’s girls whose biggest concerns were their social calendars and matching wardrobes. Superficial women who didn’t think twice about tapping into daddy’s bank account. Over the years, he’d seen plenty of them go through his bar and had never been drawn to them. The opposite, really.
Women like this hadn’t had to deal with realities like putting food on the table or scraping together enough cash to make rent a single day in their lives. He couldn’t say he blamed Hope’s father for protecting his daughter from the harsher realities of the world. Lord knows, he tried to do the same for his daughter, Ruby. But it was hard not to harbor an underlying resentment knowing that while he worked his ass off for every last thing he owned, this woman—who was likely in her mid-twenties—probably still had her daddy taking care of her every need. It was one thing to make sure your kids had a good life and another to spoil them.
And it wasn’t like his presumptions were totally unfounded. The other day he heard her in the hall between their apartments talking in hushed tones on the phone about “dad’s money.” He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. The doors were flimsy. He’d have to fix that. Anyway, he heard enough to know his assumptions weren’t totally baseless. Not to mention the fancy shopping bag that was currently propped beside her bearing the name of an expensive shoe store in town.
Simply put, he hadn’t had much doubt that Hope Morgan was just another society princess who existed on her father’s money.
Except, apart from the fancy shopping bag, the woman curled up at his feet didn’t exactly fit the picture he’d painted. In fact, she looked wrecked, messy, and totally vulnerable.
When he’d come up the back staircase and spotted her, something about seeing her like that had drawn him. Instead of walking past her to his own apartment, which he might have done to give her privacy, his legs took him right to her.
He was a master at avoiding difficult situations. Truthfully, he’d been a master at it for going on seven years. He’d had enough difficulties to last him a lifetime, and he wasn’t looking for trouble for the hell of it. But seeing Hope huddled on the floor—soaking wet with her hair falling out of her fancy hairdo from all sides and the entire contents of her purse spread around her like shrapnel—had him going against his usual survival instinct.
“You okay?” he asked as he crouched down so he was level with her.
Her sniffling stopped. She seemed to freeze in place at the sound of his voice. She didn’t so much as stir. Didn’t appear to be breathing, either. Like maybe if she played dead, he’d go away.
Another time, he might have. But this time, he couldn’t—and hell if he knew why.
Slowly he lifted the wet hair that curtained her body. The long golden strands peeled off of the cream-colored blouse that clung to her arm like a second skin. A translucent second-skin. He tried very hard not to notice that the rain had made the material see-through against her flesh, and he definitely tried not to notice the outline of her soft curves through the wet fabric.
When she shuddered, he realized she must be freezing. He might have avoided women like this—hell, most women, if he was being honest—but he hadn’t forgotten his manners. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over her shoulders.
Finally, she lifted her head from her knees and looked up at him. Her deep-brown eyes were a direct contrast to her sunny-blonde hair. Her clothes and the subtle scent of expensive perfume co-mingling with the smell of fresh rain coming off her skin, told him she was normally every inch the stylish aristocrat he imagined her to be, even though, in that moment, she looked anything but.
Mascara ran down her cheeks. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Her forehead held a red mark from the pressure of her knees as she’d curled into a ball. And despite all this, he couldn’t stop the sudden, unbidden thought that she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
A hundred emotions shone brightly in eyes so pure and honest, he felt he could read each one. Sadness, worry, anxiety, and—the one that shot him right in the heart—vulnerability. Without warning, something uncomfortable and unanticipated bloomed in his chest.
Frowning, he steeled himself against it. Against her. Pulling his internal armor around him, he leaned back, putting distance between himself and her watery gaze.
“Rough day?” he guessed, and couldn’t help but crack a smile when he got a very un-aristocratic snort in response.
She wiped a tissue across her nose but said nothing. He waited her out. He wasn’t her damn counselor; he wasn’t going to probe.
“I got caught in the rain, and I can’t find my keys,” she said eventually, gesturing to the regurgitated contents of her purse.
