Right now, I didn’t trust anyone or anything to protect her except myself.
I cleared my throat and nodded at her bathroom. “A hot shower might make you feel better. Wash off the day.”
No response.
The less Stella reacted, the more the pressure in my chest expanded.
I didn’t know where it came from, but I loathed it as much as I loathed polyester, incompetence, and dessert.
Since she didn’t seem interested in moving on her own anytime soon, I opened the bathroom door to start the shower but immediately grimaced.
Christ.
I hadn’t entered this bathroom since I moved in years ago, so I assumed the foul smell had something to do with the long-unused drain.
My housekeeper kept the marble floors and counters squeaky clean, but she hadn’t said a damn thing about the smell.
Could no one do their job right?
My teeth clenched as I worked through my options.
Obviously, Stella couldn’t use this bathroom until I fixed the smell. There were other guest baths available, but they also hadn’t been used in a while.
After a minute of tortured indecision, I walked to my private bathroom and turned on the bathtub faucets. I silently cursed the universe as I opened an unused bottle of bubble bath I didn’t even remember buying and slowly poured it into the water.
You really know how to fuck a guy over.
I didn’t know how the hell I ended up drawing a bath for someone else like a damn nineteenth-century attendant, but at least there were no witnesses to my indignity. If anyone saw me like this, I would never live it down.
Stella didn’t protest when I returned to the guest room and carried her into my bathroom along with her toiletries. I set her down on the cushioned bench near the tub and tilted my chin at the eucalyptus-scented bath.
“All yours until I fix a small issue in your bathroom,” I said. “There’s also a guest bath across the hall and to your left if you need to use the toilet at night.”
I turned and was already halfway out of the room when she stopped me.
“Christian. I don’t…” Her small voice shot an arrow straight through my ribs. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
Goddammit.
My hand curled around the doorknob until the metal seared into my flesh.
“What are you suggesting?” My voice pitched low with a warning she didn’t heed.
Despite my strange desire to shield Stella from danger, I wasn’t a protector by nature. My version of protection always came wrapped in the pieces of a snuffed-out life and tied with a bloody bow.
Unfortunately for her, she was too innocent and trusting to recognize true danger when she saw it.
“Can you stay with me?” Embarrassment colored her request. “Just for tonight.”
My muscles tightened at the suggestion. I turned, taking in her pale face and the wary way she eyed the tub, like she expected a monster to emerge from its depths and swallow her whole.
“The bathroom is clear, and I’ll be right outside the door.”
I wasn’t immune to bad ideas, but staying in the room with her while she bathed might be the worst idea that had ever existed.
“I know. I just…” Stella faltered. “No, you’re right. That was…I don’t know what I was thinking.”
A shiver wracked her body. She didn’t move from the bench.
I closed my eyes for a brief moment while my silent curses aimed at the universe escalated.
I shouldn’t. I really fucking shouldn’t.
I’d already crossed a line by bringing her into my house and into my fucking bathroom, but the look on her face…
I turned my back again, loathing myself more with every second that passed.
“Let me know when you’re ready.”
Despite my curt tone, a breath of relief touched my back and made my jaw clench.
I didn’t shift positions until I heard the splash of her getting into the tub.
Stella was naked in my bathroom.
Under normal circumstances, my brain would’ve latched onto the obvious—the rosy bloom of her cheeks, the way her skin glistened with water, the fantasy of the sweet curves that lay beneath the bubbles.
Instead, a deep ache settled in my chest at how small and vulnerable she looked in that giant tub. No longer the oasis of calm she presented to the world, but a storm on the verge of breaking.
She reached for her shampoo, but I stopped her before she made contact.
“I’ll do it.”
Instead of arguing like I’d expected, Stella remained quiet until I pulled the bench to the edge of the tub and uncapped her shampoo.
“Your suit will get wet,” she murmured.
I didn’t spare my custom Brioni a glance. “I’ll survive.”
I washed her hair, cleaning each strand with painstaking meticulousness and massaging her scalp with firm, deep strokes until she sank against the side of the tub with her eyes closed.
Her lashes swept against her cheeks in a dark fan, and her breaths gradually evened out into a steady rhythm.
Heat steamed up the mirrors and drenched the room in a sultry haze.
Wearing a suit in a hot bathroom was fucking hell, but I didn’t bother removing my jacket.
It was my first time touching Stella for such an extended length of time, and I was going to savor every second.
It wasn’t sexual, but the simple glide of her hair against my palms slowed my pulse to a torturous crawl before kicking it into overdrive.
Touching her killed me, then brought me back to life again.
The quiet roar of my heart thrummed in my ears. I rinsed out the shampoo and worked the conditioner into her strands.