“I can’t. I think I’ll get dressed and go downstairs, maybe find a café that’s open.”
“Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“I need to get out of here for a while.”
“Fine, I’ll go with you.”
Ellie shook her head. “I’ve been too much trouble already. I won’t go far.”
“I’ve got a better idea.” Clay helped her sit up. His blanket fell away, and she noticed his shirt was open. There was a spatter of blood on the shirt that belonged to the man who’d attacked her, but she was more interested in the vee of dark hair curling over bands of muscle on his chest.
“I’m not sleepy either,” he said. “I’ve got a rental car in the hotel garage. I know a place you might find interesting.”
Clay stood up, flexing the ridges across his flat stomach. How many times had she said no to him when she’d wanted to say yes?
“A drive sounds good.” Padding barefoot toward the bathroom, she realized was wearing her pink nightgown instead of her shredded clothes.
A flush rose in her cheeks. “Did you…?”
“Don’t worry. Flex kept me honest.”
Ellie glanced to where her friend snored softly on the floor. “You mean you both…? Oh, God.” Hurriedly, she pulled the bathroom door closed behind her.
Hearing Clay’s deep chuckle, it dawned on her that he thought she and Flex knew each otherintimately. Good grief, how had things gotten so out of control?
It would all work out somehow, she told herself. She was going to spend some time with Clayton Whitfield. She shouldn’t go, but she was.
And she didn’t give a damn what anyone else had to say.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Clay showered and dressed in clean clothes and returned to the room next door for Ellie. Flex still softly snored on the floor.
“Maybe we should wake him up,” Ellie said. “Surely he’d sleep better in his own bed.”
“I’m not sure youcouldwake him up. Besides, Flex can sleep anywhere.”
Clay led her out of the hotel to his rented Mercedes and settled Ellie inside, trying to ignore the bruise on her cheek. Every time he saw it, he got mad all over again.
The events of last night still unsettled him. When he’d seen that bastard on top of Ellie, he’d gone half crazy. His anger had given him an advantage, though he didn’t like being so out of control. He probably would have killed the sonofabitch if the bastard hadn’t gotten away.
And Ellie. Seeing her hurt and scared, he’d felt a surge of protectiveness like nothing he’d known. What in God’s name was it about her? She was only a woman, just like the rest, not even as pretty as some.
Only a woman,he scoffed. A woman who’d beaten him at Madison Square Garden. A woman who liked poetry and art and beauty. A woman who loved life and everything in it.
He thought about Flex and Gerry, men she slept with as easily as he did Linda Gibbons or any other woman he wanted. It seemed completely out of character. Or maybe he just wished it weren’t so. Why shouldn’t Ellie take lovers as easily as he did? Why was it all right for him and not her?
Because deep down he was old fashioned. He wanted a woman whose body she saved for someone special, someone she cared about. A woman whose relationships meant something to her. Someone with a bit of old-fashioned morality.
With a flash of something close to an epiphany, Clay paused. In all his thirty-one years, he had never felt that way. Or if he had, he’d never admitted it to himself. What was happening to him? All he’d ever wanted out of life was to win, have a good time, and get laid.
His father had lived his whole life that way. Avery Whitfield believed pleasure and indulgence were everything. As long as Clay agreed with him, partied with him, and looked up to him, Avery gave Clay his approval. It meant a lot to Clay.
Everything.
After his mother died, Clay had been desperate for his father’s love and approval. For years he’d been ignored, shifted from estate to estate, left alone and lonely.
“Will Papa be home this weekend?” he would ask his current nanny. But the visits were rare. Usually, he was bundled up, packed into the limo, and shipped off to Monte Carlo or Martinique or wherever his father was likely to turn up next.
