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Gretchen: But I needed your help with some marketing tomorrow.
Aston’s temper stirred. That’s all she cared about? Was she not concerned about how Aston was?
Aston: Right. Sorry.
Suddenly, she didn’t feel so bad about lying.
She looked at Maxim’s bruised face. Sometimes, being nice didn’t get you anywhere.
And truth be told, she was kind of sick of people walking all over her. Maxim needed someone strong. Someone tough.
She put her phone down. Now, she just had to convince Maxim that she was tough.
That she could do whatever was necessary to take care of her man.
27
“You’re not eating your breakfast, Rainbow.” It was the following morning and Maxim had slept for most of the night. Regent’s new doctor had already been in to check on him and had also checked his girl’s feet. He’d said that both were healing nicely.
“You never explained why you call me that,” she said, clearly trying to distract him.
He’d let her do that for the moment.
“It’s going to sound cheesy.”
She leaned forward in the chair. She had insisted that he needed room to eat.
He had no idea why. What he really needed was her pressed up against him.
“A rainbow appears after the rain. You have a storm and then out of the gray something beautiful appears. And that was you . . . you were just so beautiful that it was like the clouds opening on a stormy day to let the sunshine pour in.”
Sounded cheesy as hell. But it was the truth.
“Darn it, Maxim Malone. Just when I think I’m out of tears and you can’t get any sweeter, you go and say stuff like that.” She wiped at her eyes.
“I’m not sweet, woman. I’m an alpha male.”
“You’re that too,” she agreed. “But you’re also the best thing to happen to me. I don’t . . . I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Maxim knew this had shaken her. He could see it in the way she constantly watched him. He got the feeling that she hadn’t slept much.
That worried him because she didn’t seem to get enough sleep as it was, which wasn’t healthy.
“Baby girl, when was the last time you had a full night’s sleep?”
She looked at him in surprise, probably wondering at the change in topic.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“How long have you had trouble sleeping?”
“A long time.” She sighed, looking into the distance. “You know that saying ‘sleep with one eye open’?”
“Yeah?” he asked, not sure he was going to like where this was going.
“I feel like I’ve had to do that my whole life. I just . . . my brothers, if they got bored, well, they enjoyed doing things to me when I was asleep.”
“Like what?”
She stared at him in shock, probably because he’d just yelled. “Oh. Oh, nothing like that.”
“Then what was it like?” he asked through gritted teeth. He wanted to demand she tell him everything. But he knew that could make her clam up further. She had trouble opening up. Which was something they’d need to work on. Because he wanted to know everything about her.
“Pranks. One night, they cut my hair. Another night, they drew something on my face. Stupid crap like that.”
“Why didn’t your father stop them?”
“Because he thought it was funny. As soon as I could, I put a lock on my door at night and used it every night. But my sleep never improved much.”
“How much sleep do you usually average a night?” he asked.
“About three or four hours.”
Fuck. Really, really not good.
“Baby, that’s not healthy.”
“I know. Every so often, it will all catch up on me and then I often sleep for at least twenty-four hours.”
“What?” he asked, shocked.
“Yeah, it hasn’t happened in months. Thankfully, last time it happened, it was a Friday evening and I was home. I collapsed on the sofa and woke up Saturday afternoon.”
“What the fuck? You didn’t even have time to get into bed?”
“I suppose I could have forced myself. I’m like a kid that’s gotten overtired and hit the wall. And then I just sleep.”
“So that shit could happen anywhere?” He was not liking this. At. All.
“I guess so. But it’s never happened anywhere other than in my apartment or my bedroom at my father’s house. So . . . that’s something.”
That’s something?
“We are going to need to do something about this. That’s not happening again. You need to sleep. And I do not need to be worrying about you walking along the street or riding the bus and collapsing.”
“I’m sure that wouldn’t happen.”
“Not that you’ll be riding the bus anymore,” he added, ignoring her.
“Uh, we talked about this already. I’m going to be riding the bus during the day.”
“Changed my mind. I’ll get you a car and a driver. That’s better than teaching you to drive anyway. Safer.” Satisfaction filled him. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought of that before.
