That sounded perfectly nauseating. “How lovely, thank you.”
As the man strode off for the kitchen wing, she went over to the elevator’s paneled doors. Fortunately, the car was on the first floor and she was able to take it up right away. The last thing she needed was to run into her father or her brother.
Getting out, she took off her shoes and padded down the long hallway, slipping into her bedroom and closing the door behind herself.
Shutting her eyes, she kept hearing Edward’s voice over and over again in her head.
He knows damn well that the last person on earth I would ever want my family to be indebted to is you.
Unbelievable.
And it was funny. Even with all the money she had, all the position and the authority, the respect and the adulation … she was still capable of being reduced to a devastated child.
All it took was being in an enclosed space with Edward Baldwine.
For ten minutes.
No more, she vowed. This unhealthy obsession she had going on with that man needed to stop right now.
In the back of her mind, she had sometimes wondered if he might be fighting an obsession with her of his own, their centuries-old family competition keeping him from making a move. But that had clearly been an unfair projection on her part, some kind of romantic fantasy born out of her own feelings.
The only nice things he’d said to her were when he’d thought she was a prostitute that he had bought and paid for.
Reality had now been clearly established, however: He had just put up a billboard in her proverbial town square. Set her straight with no room for misinterpretation.
She might be pathetic.
But she was not stupid.
THIRTY-NINE
Punched in the head.
As Lizzie slumped to the side in the crushed cabin of her Yaris, she felt like she’d been punched in the head.
By a combination of Wolverine, The Rock, and maybe Ahnold from back in the day.
And as a result, nothing was processing well, not her having run into the back of Lane’s car, not the fact that there was water in her face, not the loud noise— “Lizzie!”
The sound of her name cleared some of the cobwebs away, and she looked around, trying to figure out why God suddenly sounded a lot like Lane.
“Lane?” she said, blinking hard.
Why was he coming through her windshield? Was this a dream?
“—hurt anywhere?” he was saying. “I need to know before I move you.”
“I’m sorry … about your car—”
“Lizzie, y’all gotta tell me if you’re hurt!”
Boy, when he got anxious that Southern accent came back thick, didn’t it. Then she frowned. Hurt? Why would she be— And that was when she saw all the greenery.
In her car.
Okay, this had to be a bad dream—and she might as well go along with it: Testing her arms, her legs, taking a deep breath, moving her head … everything checked out.
“I’m all right,” she mumbled. “What happened?”
“I’m going to pull you forward—help me if you can, ’kay?”
“Sure. I’ll—”
Wow. Ow!
But she was determined to particpate in the effort. Even as things got stretched out of place and threatened to pop from sockets, she shoved her feet against anything she came in contact with, pushing as Lane pulled, twisting to keep going forward.
Rain on her face, in her hair, on her clothes. Scratches. Wind blinding her.
But he got her out.
And then she was in his arms, up against his chest, feeling him tremble.
“Oh, God,” he said hoarsely. “Oh, praise God, you’re alive …”
Lizzie held on to him, still not understanding why they were sitting up in a tree. How had the cars gotten up in her— The lightning bolt streaked out of the sky and landed so close to them, her ears exploded in pain.
“We have to get inside,” Lane barked. “Come on.”
Sometime in the process of tripping and falling to the ground, her brain came back online—and what she saw nearly paralyzed her.
Half of the beautiful tree that grew beside her house had crushed her car.
She hadn’t hit his Porsche, after all.
The crunching had been her tiny sedan taking the brunt of all that tremendous weight.
“Lane … my car—”
That was all she got out before he took her up into his arms and ran for her house. As he jumped onto the porch, she pushed herself from his hold and refused to go any farther. Lifting her hand to her mouth at the sight of her car, she— Blood. There was blood … all over her.
A sudden lightheadedness washed over her, making her sway as she looked down at herself. “Lane … am I hurt?”
“Inside,” he demanded, moving her bodily to the door.
As he shoved her into her house and put his whole strength against the panels to reshut them, her heart began to pound as she got a good look at her savior: He was a bloody, wet mess, too.
But what did it matter?
The two of them embraced in such a rush that their dripping clothes slapped together, their bodies reconnecting, sharing warmth, holding on hard.