Bared by Him (The Billionaire's Club 5)

He thought he’d shatter like everything he threw.

He thought he’d die when Laura died.

He’d pulled himself together—and continued on. Out of sheer stubborn will.

Nothing would ever be the same for him. Deep down, Cade had known that life would forever lose its glitz. Until … Ivy.

Sick, beautiful, lying little Ivy.

* * *

Ivy stared at herself in the mirror of the hospital bathroom while the humming sound of the razor moved across her scalp. She’d been diagnosed over a month ago with stage 2A breast cancer, having found in her regular checkup a 2 cm tumor in her breast, which had thankfully not yet spread to the axillary lymph nodes.

Still, because of the placement so close to the nodes, a dose of chemotherapy and radiation were to be done right after the surgery, to ensure no malignant tissue remained. All her friends said how helpless they’d felt when they’d watched themselves shed their hair. Every day finding lumps of it everywhere.

Ivy didn’t want to feel helpless. She’d rather go Sinead O’Connor, who’d looked as beautiful as a princess with her shaven head, and she’d rather take her hair off by herself.

This was better.

She felt air caress her scalp as it all fell down, and she reminded herself that it would grow back. It was just hair. Just hair.

She stared blankly into her own eyes as she mechanically went through all of her head, remembering the way Cade had pulled her to him before she left. Make it a week.

Oh, God. Her eyes burned as she thought of having to tell him.

She’d never thought she would have to. You did not just meet someone and open with the sentence, “I have cancer.” And even when she’d let herself enjoy the pleasure of being with him, she’d never imagined they would get involved beyond a … one-night stand. Or several.

Cade was angry and strong. He didn’t care about anything. She’d thought that she would have a fling, because, why not? She’d felt angry and helpless, totally betrayed by her own body, and when he’d touched her, igniting all those incredible sensations within her … oh, God, how could anyone withstand that without breaking? He’d made her feel alive, and in those bleak hours when she wondered whether this disease was going to be the end of her soon, she’d ached to live whatever she had to the max.

The thought of him made the painful burning in her chest spread up to her throat. She hadn’t cried when she’d found the lump on her right breast. It was hidden and very deep inside, but the mammogram had revealed it was a baddie, and it had to come out as soon as possible.

Ivy had thought of her mother, of all the women who had this, and she had doubled her efforts to help them. She’d quit her job as a graphic designer and lived off both her savings and her mother’s inheritance, which was enough to live comfortably for several years, then she’d plunged wholeheartedly in to helping other women who were in the same position as Ivy, or worse.

It wasn’t fair to feel helpless and alone. It wasn’t fair to be a woman, the nurturing force in the world, and not be supported to go on. If this disease took Ivy as fast as it had taken her mother, then she would now at least look back at herself with pride, thinking that if she didn’t survive this, then there were many other women who would. They would have enough funds and the support to aid them in their fight for years, and their stories would inspire many other women to come. She’d wanted to gather the most money possible before her procedure, in case she had no time to do much more, and she’d had her heart set on Cade West’s help.

Well, she had not erred with him. Not even a little.

Now she swallowed back her tears and set down the razor. It was still her face … with a small, rounded scalp, her lashes were still big, and her eyes were still honey. But, the real, honest to God fear in her eyes was a stranger to her.

Her chin trembled. But she wasn’t going to cry, not when there was still a chance that she could win this.

She may “come back” in several weeks, with a new growth of short hair, and she could tell Cade she’d cut it in solidarity with some of her friends. She could tell him a lot of things … she could tell him everything except that she’d had cancer.

Would it be bad to lie to him, if the cancer went away?

She wanted him too much to risk losing him. And that was exactly what she would not allow this disease to take from her. She would die before she let this disease take it from her.

The only chance of love she’d ever had in her life.

Splashing water onto her face and scalp, she toweled dry, then mentally went through her options as she got prepared for the procedure. In the hospital room, in the bed, she closed her eyes and waited for them to take her to the appointed surgery location.

The nurses came in and out, in and out, but suddenly footsteps came in, and there was such silence when they stopped near the end of the bed that Ivy wondered if she’d suddenly gone deaf. And then she heard him.

“Ivy.”

The word was low, broken. And the impact it had on her was like a cannon blast.

Her eyes opened, and her vision locked in on Cade like a missile target. The expression on his heartbreakingly familiar face was as harsh and gray as the storm outside. His legs were braced apart, his stance powerful, but he still looked like he’d just been told he had three minutes to live.