"Ifucking hate the media circus. How do you do it?" Hunter asks a few hours later as I am trying to hide the dark circles under my eyes with my concealer. He has been my rock since the first call from my Mother, and hasn't left my side since. It is only now, hours after we exploded and descended upon each other that I am wondering what the actual fuck had happened between us. I need time to sort out everything that is going on. My rationale is shot to pieces, I am stressed to the hilt.
He wraps Mum, Grandma, and Aunt Addy into a large hug as soon as we walk into the private waiting room and has been our go between with the constant presentation of doctors each coming to brief us on Grandpa. The way he seems to fit straight into our family is freaky. Scary. And I am doubting if it is real or if I had willed it to be real. My mind playing tricks on me constantly, taunting me with horrible memories of my father's death and Hunter’s disappearance, reminding me of my abandonment issues.
Dr. Morris had left a little while ago, briefing us on what to expect in Grandpa’s recovery. He spent a long time with us and the surgeon and I are just getting ready to face the growing contingent of reporters all after an exclusive. I would have much preferred to tell them to shove their microphones and tape recorders up their asses but this isn't about me, this is about Bellafonte and Grandpa.
“Grandpa has always loved sharing the success of his people. And Bellafonte is full of his people. He rides the media train like it should be ridden and loves the attention. Me, I would much prefer to stand behind him and applaud at all the right times. I stumble over my words, the camera doesn’t like me, but I know how to do this,” I take a deep breath before I turn to him. I feel more nervous with what I need to say to Hunter than the interview I have to give in ten minutes.
“Hunter,” I say softly as I grab a hold of his hand. “Hunter, somehow it is like my world has collided with yours. It feels so damn right, but…”
Hunter pulls his hand out of mine as if I had slapped him. His eyes darken in response to his anger in seconds, “But?” he hisses at me. Hunter’s body is poised, ready to strike. And strike he does. Without using his hands my body moves in response to his. He stalks forward and I find myself pushed up against the wall in the bathroom in the hospital, the large bar on the wall pushing into my back uncomfortably.
"What are you trying to say Gigi?" he growls low and loud, edging closer to me as I stop and flatten myself against the tiled walls. And quick as a flash we explode again. Hunter is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness, in one glorious package. I just need him to have a bit more faith in us and I usually have patience, but instead today his anger spurs me into a simmering fury and I react without thought. Both my hands flash up and push into his chest and I hold him out at arms distance. His body seems to swallow up my arms though and he leans in, pushing his face in close.
"Tell me what you are trying to say," he continues anxiously.
"Stop it! Give me some fucking space Hunter. Jesus, my heart is about to leap out of my fucking chest, stop it." I lash out in my anger. He cages me in closer, taking away all my options of running. My eyes drop and I let my arms fall away from him as I let my shaky legs give out and crumple down. My butt drops to the ground with a slap as it hits, but my body isn’t finished protecting itself and I pull myself into a little ball with my face hidden behind my hands. It does all sorts of things to me when Hunter doesn’t listen to what I am saying, I have no control over my frustration at our inability to communicate properly.
I keep my face hidden from him but I feel him move away, he takes his anger along with my rationale and he too slides down to sit on the tiled floor of the hospital bathroom with me. The silence extends between us, allowing us both to think and the air clears slightly, although we don’t speak.
A quiet knock on the toilet door sounds a few minutes later. "Ginny," Caleb questions. "Ginny, we have to get going," he rattles the door handle before he manages to open it. And before a moment has passed he is squatting down with his arms around me asking what happened. He must not have realised that Hunter was splayed on the wall opposite me, the door obviously hiding him.
"What happened?" Caleb asks again, pulling my face up out of my little hidey-hole.
I ignore his question and instead push myself up off of the wall. This shit with Hunter is the final straw in a very stressful couple of weeks. First their engagement party, then Grandpa leaving Bellafonte, John's double crossing, Dom in the restaurant, Grandpa laying in ICU. Hunter kissing me, Hunter being in here with me, Hunter changing everything.
My world is spinning and it is turning quickly out of control as Hunter steals my everything.
I am angrier at myself than anything, my inability to think for just a moment or two, sends me back to feeling like I did after the Saints First Party. It leaves me doubting myself, unsure who to trust despite how perfect Hunter feels. And that is the crux of the matter. Hunter is perfection, he is everything to me and always has been. He makes me feel things I have given up on.
But before Hunter, there was Dad. And when he left me everything changed, everything. After Dad died Hunter left, I was young and broken, maybe I never healed properly. Add the madness of Dominic Watson and he has spoiled all my happy times ahead. Dom had promised me all the special things that a girl could want. Dom had been sweet, he had been attentive and loving. And then Dom pretty much fucked me over.
A heart is a fragile thing and he did break my already fractured one. Along with my trust and self belief. He is the very reason that I figure I will never get a chance at my happy-ever-after. It infuriates me that he is still taking from me on such a personal level.
How do you explain something like that to someone like Hunter? Hunter who is so much more than Dom could ever be. Hunter has walked away from me before and I am sure I will not survive him doing so again. Maybe I am just protecting myself, I have no idea, but as of right now, even though I desperately want everything we offered each other in the throws of passion in my office, right now I can't figure out what is up and down and that sent me reeling, spiraling into my anxiety. So even if Hunter feels so damn right in my heart, my head is stuck on Hunter leaving the first time, telling me to slow down. But there is no slow button with Hunter and I. Except now my doubts joined the party. My thoughts loop on the poor Ginny story.
I shake myself back to the present, stopping all the colliding thoughts in my brain. Maybe they both know I need a moment to pull myself together. This is not me. I am not an emotional wreck, I can deal and I will cope.
"I can’t think. I upset Hunter. Sorry," I offer both of them before running my hands through my hair, wiping the tears from my face and straightening myself out. I turn to the mirror to make sure I didn't have anything from the floor stuck to me then I turn and look at them both in the eye.
Caleb realises then that Hunter is with me.
“What happened?” I hear Caleb offer quietly as I walk out of the bathroom and over to Matthew who is waiting to escort me to the media who are holed up down the hallway.
I don’t really try to listen but I hear the pleas in both their voices and the rising anger when the discussion invariably turns to Dom.
"Stop Gigi, please...." Hunter grabs for my arm, the desperation evident in the tone of his voice.
I turn and watch him approach me warily, but he stops after one step.
“I freaked. I was being selfish and I am sorry. You send me spinning in a thousand directions with one of your glances. When you speak to me you distract me. I lose myself in you. I think maybe all this shit with Dom, the worry about you, had me reacting before I even listened to what you were trying to say,” Hunter speaks honestly from his position in the door of the bathroom. I can see his body twitching to come closer. His face open. See this is what I admire about Hunter. He is never afraid to lay it all on the table.
“It’s funny that is what I was trying to say to you too Hunter. Nothing more, nothing less,”
Caleb walks to Matthew then and stops in front of him. “We will wait here and you go cancel the media. They can wait, this is much more important for the Bellafonte Corporation than a pack of hungry dogs looking for the best drama. Hunter, take Ginny into Maneseto’s rooms and we will be there in a minute.”
“No. I do the media and then I need some time alone. I am not pushing anyone away, I am not running away, but I have had a hell of a week. Let me catch myself!” I growl in my frustration.
Hunter looked somewhat abashed but he must have felt the same way.
