Nothing ever went wrong. She never got sick or hurt. She never had conflicts with friends. She didn’t have family or lovers to cause stress. Her work life was basically autonomous. A job she would have to call in to soon with an excuse for her absence. An absence she didn’t know whether to qualify as temporary or permanent.
And after only hours with Mitch, she was falling apart.
She’d forgotten birth control, for God’s sake! Okay, so it had been a really long time since she’d had sex. And okay, she’d really, really wanted . . . needed . . . Mitch. And, wow, okay, they’d gotten amazingly, beautifully, wildly out of hand. But . . . still.
Pushing him to keep the encounter physical had been . . . heart wrenching. She’d never expected him to slap his heart on his forehead. Couldn’t fathom how he could have held on to those damn romantic notions after what she’d done. But the emotion she’d seen flash in his eyes had frightened her—on several levels. The final straw had been witnessing the wheels of his brain turning in that bright gold-green gaze as if he’d been trying to fit her into a mold he could understand.
She didn’t want him to understand. The risk was too high. If she had to sacrifice his opinion of her to keep them both safe, so be it. She only had to get through the next few days without compromising the safety net she’d spent the last seven years protecting. Then he’d leave and life would go on—for both of them. End of story.
Unless . . . she got pregnant.
Halina blew out a breath and pressed her face further into the pillow. The irony of this situation ate at her. She just didn’t have the capacity to appreciate the threat of unplanned pregnancy with the man she’d once hoped would father her children.
But this was not that man. And while Mitch’s 100 percent responsibility offer was a sweet gesture—probably meant to keep her from going off the deep end—it was hardly realistic. As soon as he saw the crimp a child would put in his love life, his leisure time, his travel plans, that offer would be whittled way down.
And that assumed Halina could come out of hiding. Which she couldn’t fathom.
She cracked her lids and watched him. He hadn’t put his shirt back on and sat there with his jeans undone and all that smooth skin pulled tight over a trim, fit torso and muscular chest. Her gut expanded with renewed desire just thinking about how all that muscle and skin had felt against her. Hot and hard and . . . perfect. She couldn’t hold back a moan at the memory and covered by shifting on the bed.
Mitch’s bright eyes lifted from where they’d gone distant on some spot near the floor and watched her. His feet were propped up on another chair and crossed at the ankles. He held the end of a pencil between his lips with a pensive expression.
Just looking at him made her want to sigh. Made her want to crawl down to the end of the bed and right into his lap. She clenched the pillow in both fists and squeezed her eyes closed.
There, in the darkness, the sensations of her body took over. Her sex throbbed from the violent friction after so many years of disuse. Halina’s gut burned with passion as she relived their frantic hunger for each other. And since that one time was the only time she’d have with him again—especially given the scare that had resulted—she let her mind drift back over every detail and smiled into the pillow.
That happiness or contentment or whatever it was seemed to allow her to relax into other memories. Memories from years ago she kept buried. The two of them cuddling on the couch beneath a blanket. Mitch playing keep-away with the remote. A popcorn fight in the kitchen. A weekend with his family getting teased by his brothers. So many smiles. So much happiness. Such deep love. A sense of completion. Of finally belonging.
As Halina relaxed into the delicious buzz of sexual satisfaction and her heart swelled with the love she’d never lost for the man across the room, images drifted through her languid mind.
By the time she recognized the color-washed tones over the scenes, or the scenes splitting into two distinct mini-movies playing side by side, she was already immersed in the visions.
She fought to escape. Her limbs struggled against unbreakable bonds and her muscles screamed with tension, burned with exertion, yet she didn’t move. There was no escape. She knew this. She’d tried so many times before.
On the left side of her mind, the images shimmered in a red hue and played out a dark, tense scene. Mitch and several shadowy figures were present, the others there to capture Halina and kill Mitch. She couldn’t detect any sign of herself in the vision, but knew for a fact she was there, somewhere. Outside the field of view or hidden among the shadows?
On the right side, the images took on a blue hue. Mitch was there again. He would be, of course—these were his futures. But Halina was absent—not just from the scene, but from Mitch’s mind. From his heart. As if she’d never existed.
He was over her. Finally, truly, completely over her.
Mitch mingled at some type of high-end party where all the men were dressed in tuxedos and the women in gowns. A young woman hung on his arm. A woman of such beauty, she drew every gaze in the room, men and women alike. Her deep honey-colored hair flowed over her shoulders in soft waves, and her burgundy gown reached the floor in a clinging, translucent slip of sparkles.
Mitch wound his arm around her petite shoulders, whispered in her ear, and kissed her neck, making her eyes close in pleasure and her hand fist in his jacket.
No!
Fear, frustration and pain mounted until she was boiling inside her skin.
Her gaze pulled toward the red scene where two, maybe three men surrounded Mitch. Halina’s heart hammered against her breastbone and thudded in her ears. She couldn’t hear Mitch speaking, but his mouth moved and he gestured wildly as if he were trying to make a desperate deal. The others continued to close in.
Impending doom crept through her body. Run, run, run!
One of the men raised his weapon and fear swamped Halina in one scalding wave. No! No, no, no!
She couldn’t stand to watch. Couldn’t bear to see him killed again. Couldn’t live through the sight of his life draining from his body while he lay there helpless on the ground bleeding out.
Halina’s attention shifted to the blue scene, where Mitch and his . . . woman . . . had drifted into a secluded hallway. Where they talked and laughed and kissed. The two were young and happy and carefree, both with so much life ahead of them.
The woman pulled him into a bedroom at the end of the hall with seductive, heavy-lidded eyes and a smile that promised ecstasy.
Hell, Halina could not go into that room. She simply could not watch him . . .
She tried to avert her gaze, but it stopped in the only other location available—the red scene. There, Mitch held up both hands, fear replacing grim hope. His mouth moved and Halina read the offers, bargains, deals, spilling off Mitch’s lips in an effort to save her life.
Behind him, a battered and bloody version of herself crawled from one of the shadows, her hand pressed to her side, face tight in pain. The replica’s mouth moved with pleas for Mitch’s safety, for a trade—spare his life, take hers. In the vision, Mitch pivoted toward the battered version of herself . . . and Halina knew what was coming.
She glanced at the blue zone and found Mitch in the bedroom with the beauty who’d already stripped down to a bra and thong and was now dragging Mitch’s shirt off while they kissed.
With agony ripping her apart, Halina returned her attention to the red zone just as a bullet exited a gun. It exploded in slow motion—the muzzle flash, the gunpowder cloud, the launching bullet. Halina’s damaged clone, still crawling as if in too much pain to stand, screamed at Mitch. Too late. The bullet pounded Mitch in the back. He arched, head thrown back, mouth open in a scream.