A Million Guilty Pleasures (Million Dollar Duet 2)

And I almost did. I was on him, hovering over him just as menacingly as he’d been hovering over my girl, punch after punch connecting with that slimeball’s face. I could hear his bones cracking under my fists, a sound I found quite pleasing to the ear.

It was pure instinct that told me when I’d succeeded. David lay motionless on the floor, barely breathing. I shook out the sharp bolts of pain that shot from my hand and up my arm, not giving two shits about it, because it was worth it. Then, like a gravitational pull, I turned toward Lanie. Every trace of anger suddenly dissipated when I saw her face.

She needed me, and nothing would stop me from going to her.

“Are you okay, kitten?” I knelt beside her and looked her over for further injuries.

Her face had been blank and then suddenly, tears streamed unabated as the gravity of the situation came crashing down on her. She reached out and clutched my shirt in her hands, burying her face in my chest and sobbing uncontrollably.

“Shh, shh, shh.” I did my damnedest to soothe her as I cradled her in my arms. “I know, kitten. It’s okay. I’m here now, and I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

I meant it. With my dying breath, I fucking meant it.

We sat there like that for a little longer, Lanie crying and holding on to me like she was scared I might leave her at any moment, and me doing my best to console her. I had failed her. I’d promised to protect her and I’d failed. I should’ve been there, should’ve somehow sensed David’s intentions. I knew he hated me, and I knew he would try to seduce her, but to try to rape her? It became evident that I’d never really known the man I used to call my best friend, and that made me even more disgusted.

I heard shuffling from behind me just before David made for the door like a bat out of hell. I’d be damned if I was going to let the motherfucker get away with an ounce of life still in him. I pushed Lanie away and tried to get to my feet, but she wouldn’t let me go.

“No, you can’t!” she yelled, desperately holding on to my shirt and preventing me from chasing after him.

“He’s getting away.” I tried to pull her hands loose, but she kept clinging to me.

It was her death grip on my face that forced me to look at her. Black mascara streaked down her cheeks and her eyes were puffy, wide—like she was trying to get me to see something she knew, but I wasn’t quite grasping. “He knows, Noah. He knows everything.”

I froze, stiff as a twelve-point buck that had just heard a twig snap in an otherwise still forest.

“What …” My voice was caught in my throat and I had to clear it before I could go on. “What does he know? What are you saying, Lanie?”

“Everything. He knows about the auction, the contract, how much you paid for me, everything.”

I clenched my teeth together and breathed deeply through my nose. “I don’t care. He’s not getting away with this shit.” I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and started to dial.

“Who are you calling?”

“The police.”

She shook her head back and forth frantically and put her hand over the phone. “No, Noah, please. You’ll lose everything.”

“Nothing is more important than you! Nothing!” I snapped, and she flinched at my words. I hadn’t meant to take it out on her, but I was just so fucking irate.

I gathered her into my arms and held her to my chest, stroking her hair as I kissed her forehead over and over again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said, rocking her back and forth. I pulled back and cupped her face in my hands, trying to get through to her. “Lanie, baby, he put his hands on you …”

Lanie pulled my hands from her face and held them in her lap. “I know what he did, but he didn’t get to really hurt me because you stopped him, Noah. You stopped him.”

Dear God, she was trying to comfort me. “He put his fucking hands on you, and I can’t … I just can’t.” I could feel the vise around my heart squeeze tighter. I dropped my gaze, no longer able to look into the innocent face of the woman I had failed.

Lanie pushed her fingers through the hair at my temples and lifted my chin so that I had to look at her again. “You listen to me, Noah Crawford. This was not your fault. There was no way you could’ve known he would do that, so don’t you dare start blaming yourself.”

I started to protest, but she put her finger over my lips to silence me. “I’m fine. But if we call the police, everyone will know—and my parents can’t deal with something like this, Noah. My mom just had a heart transplant. Do you really think she could handle knowing what almost happened to me? And my father would kill him. You’ll lose your company, my father will be in prison, and that, along with knowing what I did, would probably make the heart transplant my mother received be all for nothing. I can’t do that to them. No, we have to be smart about this.”

Delaine Talbot never ceased to amaze me. In the face of the unspeakable evil that had befallen her, she was still thinking about everyone else. Never had a more selfless person existed in this fucked-up thing we called life. I didn’t deserve her.

And of course, she was right. As much as it pained me to let David go, I knew we had to regroup and figure out what to do.

“Okay,” I relented with a helpless sigh. “We’ll do it your way.”

I took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, content on just having that. But when I tried to pull away, she climbed into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck, her lips melting against mine. It wasn’t a kiss that was meant to go further. It was simply a kiss that conveyed the love that we shared, the love that even that coward David Stone couldn’t tarnish.

Later that evening, we were in the entertainment room, not really watching the outrageously expensive television that was playing Lord of the Rings. I was aware that knowing every line to the movie probably made me a geek, but so the fuck what? It calmed me down, even if it didn’t take my mind off things entirely. That would be an impossible task.

I was wearing a pair of pajama bottoms that I happened to keep around the house in case I had visitors, and Lanie was perched in my lap, freshly showered, wearing nothing but another one of my white button-downs and smelling like the allure of sex. The actual deed itself couldn’t have been further from my mind, though. Okay, to be honest, it was playing at the edge of my thoughts because that was what she did to me, but I would never act on it.