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"What?"
"Why did you go into modeling?"
"To save lives," he told her promptly, laughing at her expression. He was having fun with this beautiful and enchanting woman and it shocked him.
"You are not a damn doctor."
"I did it to save my life and the old man's," he explained. "If I had taken the path he charted for me, one or both of us would be dead."
She stared at him with a slight frown. "You hate him that much?"
He considered the question as he took a bite out of his pie. "If you had asked me that, a few days ago, I would have said yes." He shrugged. "We have our differences. I blame him for a lot of things. He was never there when I was growing up and he- he was not a good husband."
"He was lousy at the parenting thing. At least he stuck around."
His eyes flew to her face and he realized the mistake he had made. "Anika-"
"I am feeling tired." Pushing away from the table, she picked up her cup and the rest of the pie and took it over to the counter. "I am going up. Goodnight."
He watched in frustration as she swept out of the room. It did not shock him that he wanted to go to her and take her into his arms to comfort her. Pushing away his own cup, he rose and started pacing. He would give her time to pick out her room before going up.
Chapter 7
Her screams shoved into his subconscious and had him jumping up. At first, he was disoriented and had no idea what had awoken him until he heard it again. Swinging his legs out of bed, he rushed to the adjoining door and shoved it open, marching toward the bed where she was twisting and turning.
The sheets were tangled at her feet, and he could see from the light from the moon that her nightgown was almost at her waist. He stood there for a pulsing minute, wondering what to do.
Another scream galvanized him into action, and he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his arms.
"Anika, wake up." He shook her gently. "It's just a dream, wake up."
She finally stopped struggling, her eyes drifting open to stare at him.
"It's Jaylen."
"Jaylen," she whispered hoarsely. "What—"
"You had a nightmare." He was still holding her, his heart racing at the tortured look on her beautiful face.
"Oh." She buried her face in his chest and breathed in his scent to steady herself. She was still trembling, the tremors decreasing as her heart rate evened out. "I am sorry I woke you. I am fine now." Lifting her head, she looked at him. "It's nothing."
"I don't think so." He gave her a steady look. "I am not going to push you for the details, but I am not going anywhere."
"You don't have to—" She sighed softly and shook her head. "I guess you deserve an explanation. I am afraid of the dark."
"What?"
Her eyes shied away from his. "When I was in the group home, we would be locked in a room, a dark room to punish us. It could be anything. We did not clean our plates or a certain chore was not done, anything.
The smallest infraction would get us punished. Combined with my parents abandoning me, it became too much, and I started having these nightmares. There you have it."
His body had gone still, and the anger he felt was so vicious that it frightened the hell out of him. He wanted to find those bastards and rip them apart for hurting her like that.
"Are they still in operation?" he asked carefully.
Unaware of the emotions churning inside her body, she shook her head. He still had his arms around her, and it somehow felt right. "No. The state closed them down right after we left—Corey and I. They had been getting complaints about them for several years, and they finally did their investigations to determine that it was true."
"The people who ran it, do you know where they ended up?" he asked her tightly.
