Her Unexpected Affair (The Robinsons) (27 page)

The opening of the elevator door along with a little ding announcing its arrival had her turning in anticipation. At the sight of a tall man with blond hair, her heart skipped a beat, then jumped into double time.

Drew.

He was here.

One footstep led to another and soon she was close enough to run the last few steps and launch herself into his arms. His very strong arms that caught and held her.

He held her close as she clung to his neck, her face buried there, absorbing his comfort, his scent, the warmth of his body, the way his big hands cupped her bottom as she tightened her legs around his waist.

“I’m here, I’m here,” he repeated over and over again.

“I’m so glad,” she whispered on the edge of breaking down. “I’m so, so glad.” Until this moment, she hadn’t truly realized how tightly wound she was from the stress of the day. She wasn’t one to freak out, but today had pushed so many unknown buttons. If the very strength of her reaction right now surprised Drew, she could only say she was more surprised. Didn’t mean she’d let him go before she had to. He felt so good holding her.

From behind, a throat cleared. “Excuse me? Miss Wu?”

Meilin recognized the night nurse who’d taken the brunt of Shan’s most recent verbal abuse. She unwrapped herself from Drew, and with his hands on her shoulders, turned to face the truly kind older woman. “Yes?”

“Mr. Lin is waking up and asking for you.” Her curious gaze passed over Drew, silently questioning, but saying nothing more.

“Of course. We’ll be there in a minute.”

“Very well.” Professional in the face of her curiosity, the woman held a blank face, although a hint of a twinkle had sparked in her eyes. Most impressive.

The nurse turned on her heel, and Meilin grabbed Drew’s hand like a lifeline.

“I have to tell you,” she whispered, “I can’t marry him. But I can’t tell him right now.” A shudder shimmied down her spine from shoulders to hips. “Please, I may need your support on this. I’m not really sure how he’s going to react to anything. He hasn’t followed my predictions so far.”

Drew squeezed her hand gently. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me you want me to leave.”

“He’s already bitching about me driving his car home.” She scoffed. “Like I’d ever wreck his precious Aston Martin.”

Drew choked back a laugh, she was sure of it, but his expression was neutral and mild when she glanced at him. “Don’t worry about the car. We’ll figure it all out.”

Meilin paused at the door to Shan’s room, sucked in a deep breath, then marched across the threshold. Shan’s eyes cracked open enough to see Drew beside her.

“Excuse me?” he said in a tone so frosty ice chased down her spine.

Opening her hand, she dropped Drew’s and moved to the side of the bed, leaving Drew at the foot.

“I called Drew. He’s here as a temporary legal counsel until we can find your lawyer. Apparently he’s off climbing a mountain in the Sierras. I couldn’t reach Jack, either.” So she lied a little. “He’s in Tahoe or Vegas, but that’s neither here nor there. His phone is off or out of power. You said you wanted a lawyer, and I didn’t know who else to call.” She took Shan’s hand, as much as she hated doing so, especially in front of Drew. But it seemed to calm Shan, and she sensed he’d been building up to another outburst, something not good for his head, blood pressure, or her peace of mind. “Please, accept Drew’s advice for now. You’re seriously injured and on some strong pain medicine. You shouldn’t be upsetting yourself over liability issues as of yet.” Or at all. He should be worried about his own close call with the law.

Shan’s half-lidded gaze settled on hers. “Why him? Are you sleeping with him?” He ignored her gasp of outrage and focused his glare on Drew. “I told you to stay away from her.”

“You’re not in control of everything, Lin. Circumstances have thrown us into contact. And since you’re drugged, I’ll ignore the insult to her, for now. Make no mistake, the lady is not sleeping with me, or anyone else.”

Meilin looked from one man to the other. Is that what had set both their backs up a few weeks ago?

“Right now, old man,” Drew continued, “you’ll have to make do with me. Meilin and I will get you home tomorrow, and then you can harangue your lawyer to your heart’s content. But for now, this is the way things are.”

Meilin held her breath until Shan blew out his pent up breath. “Fine. For tonight. Tomorrow, when I’m more awake, I’ll better be able to locate the necessary people or their backups. I suppose there’s really nothing to be done tonight.”

“No,” Drew said. “There isn’t. You’re injured and medicated and in no condition to make legally binding decisions. Let Meilin take care of you for now. There’ll be time enough to threaten people with malpractice and safety issues later. Let the hangover wear off first.”

Although Drew kept his tone light, Shan’s face flushed red and his breath sounded as harsh as an angry bull. Something in what Drew said pissed Shan off more, if that were even possible. Not for the first time in the last three hours, she wondered if Shan’s cracked veneer was showing his true character. Something he kept carefully hidden? How deep did this unreasonable anger go? Deep enough that one day he might crack completely, enough to physically beat her? The thought that chilled her was a reminder of his black belt.

“For tonight,” Drew continued, “you’re under excellent care. Meilin is exhausted and needs a good night’s rest as much as you do. Possibly even more so, since she doesn’t have the benefit of sedatives to help her sleep. We can do this two ways. I can make sure she gets settled in a hotel, or I can stay here and make sure you don’t say something you’ll regret later. Which would you prefer?”

“Either way she leaves, is that it?”

“Yes. If she has to get you back to the city and set up at home tomorrow, she must get some sleep.”

“I’ve already canceled the hotel in Calistoga you booked,” Meilin added. “I’ll find a motel much closer.”

Shan opened his mouth, she wasn’t sure what he’d say, but then he closed it again and glared at Drew before drawing in a breath. “Take her to a hotel, then come back here. I want to talk to you.”

Meilin glanced over her shoulder to see Drew nod. “Sure thing. Might take about an hour because I’m not sure she got dinner.”

Shan heaved an impatient sigh. “Fine. Get her dinner, settle her in a hotel, then come back here.”

The subtext was he didn’t trust her with Drew. Or Drew with her. Whatever. Them together had Shan getting crankier.

“Come here,” Shan ordered her. Although his hand was bandaged from being scraped, it was strong enough to pull her down. “Kiss me good night, baby.”

The diminutive annoyed her, but she pressed her closed lips against his in a show of affection she should be feeling without reservation. He noticed the lack of passion because his hand tightened around her nape, holding her beyond her comfort zone. She squeaked a protest as simply uncomfortable began to hurt. She’d probably have bruises on the back of her neck in the morning.

Finally, he let her go. “See you in the morning. Be here by eight. And if you get one scratch on my car…”

Of course she wouldn’t, but she hurried to reassure him she wouldn’t leave so much as a fingerprint behind.

“In fact, leave my car here and let him drive you over. He’ll get you in the morning, or I’ll have a limo driver pick you up.”

“Whatever you say, Shan.”

The nurse quietly closed the computer she used for making notes on his file and turned to leave, but not without a wink in Meilin’s direction. It was the best behaved he’d been yet.

At dinner, Drew savored the sight, sound, and touch of Meilin. They’d found a small diner, far from the elegance of the more famous restaurants around. But it was between the hospital and the motel they’d located not far away.

Meilin played with her salad and nibbled on garlic bread. Drew did justice to a French dip sandwich and coffee.

“Didn’t you say you’d already had dinner?” she asked.

“This is just a snack.” He winked at her. “Mum says I’m still a growing boy.”

“I can’t imagine your food bill.” Meilin smiled at him, teasing.

“I like to keep active and sitting all the time in class is killing me. I’ll have to start getting up earlier and run a few miles in the morning or find a pickup rugby game on Sundays. Have to keep those muscles stretched and flexible.” Drew winked. “Especially if you’re going to start leaping into my arms.” There, he’d made her blush.

“I… I don’t know why I did that,” she whispered and reached for her water glass, eyes lowered modestly.

“I’m glad you did. You can do that every day for the rest of our lives.”

The blush deepened. “I don’t know if that’s possible. Even dumping Shan won’t solve all the issues between us.” She peeked up at him. It was one of the cutest things he’d ever seen her do.

“Dumping Shan is the first step, the biggest step, to us being together. After that we need to evaluate the future of our careers. Either I convince my father to open a satellite office here, or you come to China with me. I’m sure we can find a way to keep you busy. I’ll need to travel so I’ll need an interpreter I can trust, and someone with an educated eye for quality. You could fill both positions without blinking an eye. It would also mean you could send items back for your business. You’d just need to hire another designer or two to implement your visions, which can be worked out by e-mail. Or put your customers on hold pending the results of an extended buying trip.”

Meilin’s mouth dropped open. “Excuse me?”

Drew pushed his plate aside and leaned forward on his elbows. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. You mentioned the obstacle of your already built career versus mine just starting. It doesn’t need to be an obstacle. One slight change in direction for either of us, or both of us, and we can have the opportunity to understand what this is between us. Explore our impressions, define our feelings. See if there really is a relationship that can grow. I’m short on time here. I don’t normally push so hard, but I need to know if there’s hope.” He’d never pushed so fast, ever. Nor had there ever been a hint of forever with the girls he’d dated. All his relationships had been casual. With him leaving in two weeks, he wanted a hint of possible commitment this time.

Meilin set down her water and leaned back in her seat, a small frown on her face. “You’ve been thinking about this. I need to think it over more.”

“Of course you will, and now is not the time to make decisions of that scale.” He picked up one of the few remaining fries on his plate and dipped it in the small puddle of remaining au jus. “The bigger issue right now is getting you some sleep, then tackling the issue of getting Lin home and set up with nursing care.” He shoved the fry into his mouth.

Meilin dropped her head back with a sigh. “Yes. His assistant is looking into care professionals covered by their insurance. Not that he can’t afford it,” she muttered the last.

“So he’ll have someone at his place by the time we get him home tomorrow. That means you’ll be home tomorrow night.”

“If they can’t find someone on such short notice I might be forced to stay with him until Monday. The good news is he won’t be pushing for sex.”

Drew frowned and stopped in the act of lifting his coffee cup. “Did he force you…?”

“No!” Relief filled her face and his blood pressure dropped back into the normal range. “But he made it clear we’d share a bed tonight.” A delicate shudder shook her shoulders. “If I’d thought of it myself, I would have pushed him over a rock much earlier.”

Tortured green eyes gazed directly into his. “I wasn’t looking forward to it. I never wanted to sleep with him, and I was nearly frantic trying to figure out how to put it off again. I think someone was on my side when he went over the rock the way he did.” A tiny smile lifted one corner of her mouth.

He didn’t even try to hold back the wide grin stretching his face as he lifted the coffee cup for a sip. Once he swallowed, he set the cup down. “I’ll take credit for putting some voodoo down on him to cause his accident if you like.”

Meilin laughed as he hoped she would. “I like to think one of my ancestors interceded on my behalf. Good timing either way.”

Drew set down his coffee cup and reached across the table. “Yes. Perfect timing. So, what are we going to do about it?”

Meilin put her small hand in his much bigger one. “First I need to extract myself from the contract. That will be tricky. Until that’s taken care of, I don’t feel right about exploring whatever it is we have here.” With her free hand she waved at the space between them. “I won’t be the one to break the contract by infidelity.”

Although they’d already come damn close. But, he reminded himself, the choice to take the next step had to be hers. Didn’t mean he couldn’t nudge her a little toward his way of thinking. “You’re not married yet. In your mind the relationship is over but for returning the ring.” All’s fair in love and war, so the sages said.

Intently, she stared back at him. “There’s more to it than simply returning the ring, and until the families are clear that the engagement is broken, I can’t move forward with anything else. I must make the break clean.”

Frustration built inside Drew. Of course she had to be honorable. Didn’t mean he didn’t want her. Fiercely. But at least she was willing to talk about a potential future with him. It was something.

“Okay. I can deal with that.” He lifted her hand and kissed the fingertips. The jolt of sizzling energy that burst through him was visible in her reaction. She sucked in a breath, her eyes dilating, a flush washing her skin. Her hand trembled a little, and it thrilled him right down his soul, and the part of him hardening to the point of pain. God, he wanted her with every atom in his body. So much his own hand shook. “You have to know how much I want you. I can be patient. You need that from me, but it isn’t easy keeping my hands off you. I might slip up a little. Just remind me I’m a patient man. Deal?”

Her eyes closed, then opened only a little, as if her lids were heavy with overwhelming passion. “Yes. Deal. And thank you. I won’t take advantage of your patience. Not if I can help it at all.”