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Ryder’s right. Sean has no idea I’m injured. He couldn’t, or he wouldn’t be treating me like this. He’d be more sensitive with me.
Or maybe he really doesn’t give a damn about me?
Darryl said he’d moved on. He’d found someone else.
I pull against him, resist his grip, but he just tightens it and presses on. He keeps up with the insane pace, practically dragging me up the stairs. “Sean, you're hurting me.”
“Don’t be such a drama queen.”
“It’s an occupational hazard.”
I’m not cut out for this. It’s been over a year since I climbed more than two flights of stairs. There are twenty floors between the function room and the floor the wedding party is assigned. It’s forty flights. We’ve done six.
My quads are burning. My back is screaming. My vision keeps coming and going with every new wave of agony. When it does come, it threatens to take me out to the abyss with it.
The rest of me is holding on for dear life, praying to the powers that be that I don’t collapse halfway up a flight of stairs!
A trickle of dampness rolls down my cheek. Tears I don’t realize I’m crying.
Right, that’s it!
I brace hard and yell, “Let me fucking go or I’ll—”
He whips around on the carpeted landing space between floors. “Or you’ll do what?”
Completely free of his grip, I stumble. I didn’t realize how much support he was giving me. My bones are nothing but jelly. Sharpness sears through my consciousness. Everything around me grows smaller… and darker… further away… and then…gone.
“Hey, Sparkle!”
Warmth as wonderful as the early summer breeze surges through me as I fight to keep my eyes closed for just a little bit longer. Sean hasn’t lovingly called me Sparkle in a very long time.
The muscles around my mouth are the first to react, pulling until a small smile forms on my lips. I don’t want to open my eyes. I don’t want to see how much he hates me for something I didn’t do. I don’t want to be part of a love triangle I’m not involved in. I want to go back to a time when his stubborn pigheadedness was part of his charm and not the reason he’d let me down. I want the dream, not the nightmare.
My warm summer mood clouds over. A noise as loud as a construction site fills my head. My stomach churns. I’m precariously balanced between vomiting and crying, and I don’t want to move in fear of upsetting one part of my body or the other. But I’d better get this over with.
I’m lying on a thick-cushioned sofa, in a familiar cream and ivory suite. My suite. It’s exquisite redwood antique furniture contrasting against the pale walls and fabrics. Elegantly dressed with fine art and expensive ceramics.
“Are you all right?” Sean asks. I nod as he brings a glass of water to my lips. “Gently now.” His rich chocolate eyes zero in on mine. “Why do I feel like you’re keeping something from me?”
Wow. I look away, hoping to hide my disappointment. Talk about cutting to the chase.
Never mind upsetting my body, I need to get out of here. I’m not having this conversation with Sean. It’s too late.
I swing my legs over the side of the sofa and begin to sit up. “It’s...” My head spins and threatens to take me back into the darkness. I pause, take a deep breath, and wait for the room to stop spinning. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s no big deal to tell me what’s going on then, is it?” Sean presses.
He really isn’t messing around. If it’s a story he wants, he isn’t getting it from me. I ignore the soft feeling of my legs as I stand, walking through the open plan living area toward the dining table. How am I going to get out of this? What am I going to say? There must be something I can use to throw him off. I don’t want him to know. If he knows, he’ll be devastated. He’ll turn back into the man I thought he was. He isn’t that man. He couldn’t be when he’d failed the test at the most critical time. And I don’t want him to pretend to be that man anymore.
“Sorry Sean, but I have a policy not to mix business with pleasure, and you know that.”
“And exactly which part of the last year has been pleasurable?”
Rage lights my insides on fire. How did I ever end up with such an insufferable jerk? He’s a journalist. My sworn enemy! I march across the room, snatch up my purse, and walk toward the door. “I don’t talk to journalists, so look elsewhere to fill your column inches.”
“Column inches?” Sean repeats. He seems both stunned and offended that I’d even suggested this. “I deserve more than column inches, Ashleigh. You owe me an apology.”
“Is that so?” I pause to look back, doorknob in hand. “Well, you can stick your apology in the same place as your column.”
