SAPPHIRE
Ihad always loved rainy nights and tonight was no different. I had sat by the kitchen counter looking at the streaks of water running down the window pane, until I heard someone knock on the door. Probably a wrong food delivery again. That would be the second time tonight. But when I had looked through the peephole and seen Zade I had almost fainted.
I closed the door and stared at Zade. I blinked a few times. Should I pinch myself? Maybe the random thoughts that had been popping into my head all week about him had crept over into my waking moments. But no. This was no daydream. This was reality.
There he was, soaked from head to toe, and dripping all over my carpet.
“Stay there.” I turned on my heel and went to the bathroom to find the biggest towel I had. I returned to find that he had actually obeyed and not moved. He was staring at me in a strange way. I was surprised to see he wasn’t shivering. What on earth was he thinking to be out in weather like this? I stepped over to him, the towel over my shoulder.
“Strip.”
His eyebrows rose with surprise, then a look of amusement filled his eyes.
My mouth tightened. “Don’t go there,” I warned tightly.
Wordlessly, he pulled off his tie and shirt followed by his shoes and socks and pants. He was about to carry on with his boxers when I lifted a finger to stop him. Though they were soaked and left nothing to the imagination, they had to stay on. I was not going to have him butt naked in my house at this time of the night.
I tossed the towel towards him and he caught it. Then I picked up his wet clothes and went to put them in the dryer. The days of him having clothes at my apartment were long gone. I had donated all his things to Goodwill after he went to prison.
When I returned, he was sitting on the couch using one end of the towel to rub his hair. He looked so alive, so at home, so unconcerned, and so damn delicious, I felt anger stir in my blood. What right did he have to come here and restart my suffering?
“What the hell are you doing here?” I frowned down at him.
He looked up, pinning me with those oh so bright blue eyes of his.
“We need to talk, Sapphire. We need to get some things out in the open and cleared up now.”
I blinked and my mouth dropped open in shock. “Now? It’s almost midnight and raining cats and dogs in case you haven’t noticed. Pneumonia is not something to play with and you of all people should know?” I caught myself just in time before I went on to remind him that he was prone to catching colds. There was no need for him to know I remembered that. It might come across as me actually caring about him and that was a message I had no wish to send.
He grinned ruefully. “I guess there’s no time like the present. If there was a blizzard raging outside, I would probably still be here right now. It’s been gnawing at me all week, Vannah. And now that I have your attention and we don’t seem to be spitting venom at each other, I’m going to make good use of the opportunity.”
My breath caught as he used his special name for me. I sank into an armchair across from him. “What’s there to talk about?”
“For one, I need to get to the bottom of what happened to us four years ago.”
I shuddered at the painful memory of those photos and dropped my head to hide my expression.
“Why did you disappear just like that? Not one visit. Not one court hearing. Not even a phone call. Silence. For four years I’ve been angry with you for abandoning me. Were you with me just because of my financial worth and potential? Was it just my money?”