Chapter Ten
Stacy closed her eyes as she pulled the flat-iron down her hair. Last night had been amazing. Hell, the entire day had been amazing. Now she was straightening her hair to go sightseeing with Ryan, and couldn’t imagine being any happier than she was at that moment. If someone had told her just a few days ago she’d be having mind-blowing sex with Ryan Sanders the following week, she’d have told them they were crazy.
She was trying not to think too much about their future—she was happy just living in the moment—but she really needed to figure out what she was going to do in the near future as it pertained to her new job. It would be naïve to drop everything, believing that that forty-eight hours of amazing sex suddenly meant that she and Ryan were destined to be together. But she didn’t want to waste a minute without him if they were. She was also struggling with whether it would better to bow out of her position at the Collins House with Lucas Whiting now, or stay and end up leaving shortly after she started if she and Ryan worked out.
Stacy’s phone began to ring, and she glanced at the screen. It was Jess. Damn it. She was going to have to talk to her. She hadn’t answered her call yesterday, and considering they checked in with each other pretty much every day, ignoring her call two days in a row would make her worry. She was just really hard on Ryan when it came to Stacy.
It wasn’t that she disliked him. Jess and Ashley had pretty much grown up at the Sanders house once their parents had divorced. They were more like siblings than anything. Stacy had grown up in the same town, but she hadn’t been in the same circle as the Sanders and the Hayes twins, simply due to their ages. Ryan been a year ahead of her in school, and they’d never had any classes together, though she’d always been aware of the Sanders men, mainly because they had been the hottest boys in school. Abby, Ashley, and Jess had been three years behind her in school. She’d actually only become friends with Jess because of Ryan. He’d introduced them when she started working for him, and they’d hit it off right from the start. So when Jess fussed about Ryan, it was more like fussing about a brother not being nice to her friend. She’d be mad at him, but there was still a loyalty there.
“Morning,” Stacy said after swiping across the screen on her phone.
“Is he still there?” Jess asked.
“Yes. We were just getting ready to head out and do some sightseeing,” Stacy said, in hopes this was going to be a quick call without a lot of questions.
“Derek said he thought Ryan would come home Tuesday night or Wednesday morning,” Jess said.
“Well, I guess that was the plan. We ended up going out to dinner Tuesday, and Ryan had a little too much to drink, so he stayed the night.” Stacy started working on her makeup with one hand while they talked.
There was a pause. “Ryan told Derek about the kiss when he talked to him Tuesday afternoon. Why didn’t you tell me?” Jess asked.
“Well, it was pretty humiliating at the time.” Stacy closed an eye to put on mascara.
“That’s why Ryan went there. He thought you were mad at him, and he went there to try to talk you into coming back,” Jess said.
“Yeah, I pretty much figured that.” Stacy grinned and applied mascara to her other eye.
“When Ryan told him about the kiss, Derek told him that you had a crush on him and that you’d had that crush for over a year. Derek told him if his only goal was to get you back to Hamilton to be his secretary, he needed to check out of the hotel and come home,” Jess said.
Stacy paused in putting her lipstick on. “When did you say Derek talked to him?” she whispered.
“Tuesday afternoon. Why?”
“I have to go,” Stacy said in a monotone.
“Wait, there’s more,” Stacy heard Jess say as she hit end on her phone.
* * * * *
Ryan sat on the couch and ran a hand through his damp hair. He and Stacy had jumped in the shower that morning after planning a day at Fells Point. All Ryan knew was that it was a historical district here in Baltimore, and it involved them taking a water taxi. That sounded pretty cool, plus while planning there had been the promise of some fun in the shower before they left. So, hell yeah, Fells Point sounded amazing.
He couldn’t get enough of her. When they’d come home last night, they’d just made it through the door before he’d lifted her against said door and fucked her. The sex had been fast and hot, and neither of them had come. But they’d made it to the bed so he could make love to the most perfect woman he’d ever met or hoped to meet. And she had indeed found out how amazing a delayed orgasm could be. This morning’s shower, with her sucking him off, had just been a promise of another hot night, and he couldn’t fucking wait.
He was checking out all the shops and points of interest on his phone while she got dressed and dried her hair. He couldn’t wait to see what she came out dressed in today. It didn’t matter—she could wear a sack and he’d still think she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
He wasn’t sure when she planned to tell Lucas Whiting that she wasn’t staying, but figured it would probably be sometime today or early tomorrow. And he really hoped like hell that it didn’t cause any hurt feelings with the Collins family. But based on their discussion at dinner last night, they’d pretty much agreed they belonged together. He couldn’t wait to get her home. Figuratively and literally. He really wanted to bring up her moving in with him, but it was quick. Probably too quick. Damn, falling in love was weird.
Ryan looked up from the article about self-guided walking tours at Fells Point when Stacy dropped his duffle bag at his feet. Big tears threatened to escape as she stood rigid in front of him. Ryan stood and reached for her. He wasn’t sure why she was so upset, but the need to comfort her overwhelmed him.
“No!” She stuck her hand in the center of his chest.
Ryan stepped back. “What’s wrong?” he asked in confusion.
“You knew,” she spat.
“Knew what? What are you talking about?”
“You knew how I felt about you, and you used it against me.”
“Stacy, I have no idea what you mean. Come over here and sit so we can talk.”
Stacy just stared at him for a few seconds. She threw up her hands and turned away from him. “I knew you were a player, a playboy,” she spun back to face him, “and I fell for it anyway. Damn, you must need me to run that office pretty bad to put on an act this good. But of course fucking me was a bonus, huh?”
Ryan didn’t know what the fuck was going on. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, but everything I said last night was the truth.”
“Oh, sure. No doubt,” she said with thick sarcasm in her voice. “I have watched you charm the panties off a shit-load of women, Ryan. I just never thought I’d be one of them. And the way you played the wild card as an excuse—wow, that was a good one. You knew I’d buy it.”
“Damn it. That’s not what happened and you know it.”
“I do?” she asked with wide eyes. “Derek told you to come home and not to try to convince me to come back to Hamilton. When I came to the hotel, you’d checked out. You were going home. But suddenly, less than twelve hours later, you have feelings for me? I call bullshit.”
“Yes, Derek told me to come home if all I wanted was for you to come back to Hamilton to work at the office. But everything I said last night was true. Do you honestly think I’m going to fuck you just to get you to come home? And then what? Go back to the way it was before?” Ryan asked, folding his arms over his chest.
“Oh, please. Don’t act like you haven’t used sex to get your way with a woman before,” Stacy shot back.
Ryan stood there with his mouth hanging open. Did she really believe he was a man who would manipulate women with sex?
“If you honestly believed that about me, then you should never have had anything to do with me,” Ryan said in a deadly calm voice.
A tear broke free and quickly ran down her cheek. Ryan wanted to pull her into his arms and make everything better. But fuck, she’d just cut him deep. And she knew it.
“It doesn’t matter what I believed. It’s what you did to me.”
“Bullshit.”
“Just go, Ryan. Go home.”
Ryan stood there and stared as another tear broke free. He reached down and picked up his bag. He draped the strap across his chest. He was torn between trying to explain that he’d fallen in love with her and the fact that she thought so little of his character. He turned and headed for the door.