Heat Vol. 5 (Heat: Master Chefs #5) Read online

  “Glad to help.”

  “You okay, Lilly?” Rial said as he rushed to me.

  “Yes, now that you guys are here. How in the world did you find me?”

  “Your phone,” Errol said.

  “I hadn’t even thought of the possibility of locating me though my phone, but I’m glad you did.” I rushed into Errol’s arms for a hug, then gave Rial a quick kiss before turning to Leo.

  “As you can see,” Errol said, “I brought reinforcements. Leo is always a sucker for a good fight.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said as I shook his hand.

  Noting that Bobby stayed in the background, I waved him over. “Don’t be shy, Bobby. I want to thank you, too.”

  His face was strangely white and his jaw seized with tension. His eyes drowning in anguish, he held his hands to a wound that gushed an astonishing amount of blood.

  “Oh, my God,” I cried out as I rushed to him. “Oh, my God. Errol! Bobby’s hurt.”

  “Damn it,” Errol said. “Rial. Leopold. Make sure these guys don’t move. Lilly, come. We’ll take Bobby straight to the hospital.”

  Chapter 4

  Though Errol drove through the streets at a speed that bordered on reckless, I wanted to urge him to drive even faster. Bobby was pale and I feared for his life, despite his constant protest that he was okay. When he leaned back and held in a long painful breath, I knew he was not okay.

  “Hang on, Bobby,” I said. “We’re almost there.” Though, in all honesty, I had no idea how far away the hospital was.

  But my words proved prophetic. As we turned the next corner, the hospital came into view and I let out a long and relieved breath all while mumbling a quiet prayer.

  Errol helped Bobby out of the car, and once inside, the triage nurse was quick to bring him into her cubicle. “Que s’est-il passé? What happened?”

  “I was stabbed,” Bobby admitted. He sounded surprisingly calm and I wondered if he hadn’t lost too much blood.

  The nurse looked up at me as she pressed a bandage to his wound. “I’m going to have to notify the police.”

  I nodded and looked down at the wound as she pulled the bandage away. The bleeding had nearly stopped. What had initially seemed like a frightening gush of blood was now a slow oozing.

  “Wait here a second,” the nurse said as she pressed the bandage back to the wound and set Bobby’s hand over it. She walked out the back of the cubicle and returned seconds later. “Go to examination room three.”

  The doctor seemed thoroughly unconcerned when he entered.

  “Knife wound, huh?” he said.

  “Yeah,” Bobby replied.

  The doctor swabbed the wound. “When was the last time you had a tetanus shot?”

  “Four years ago.” He looked up at me. “I tried to open a window, but it busted in my hand and I cut my arm on the glass.”

  “Don’t worry,” the doctor said as he looked more closely at the wound. “It looks worse than it actually is. You're lucky. Whoever got you didn’t get the knife in very deep. No vital organs were affected.”

  “Good to know,” Bobby said with a grimace.

  “You're still going to need a few stitches though.” He set a clean bandage back on the wound. “A nurse will be in to see you in a minute and she’ll patch you up.”

  Barely an hour later, Errol and I walked Bobby back to the car.

  “I told you it wasn’t all that bad,” he said.

  “Where are you staying, Bobby?” Errol said. “At our place?”

  “I’ll bring him to my place,” I offered. “I know the doctor said the wound was superficial, but I want to keep an eye on him all the same… at least for the next few hours. He got injured because of me. I have to at least take care of him.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Bobby said.

  We got in the car and Errol drove us to my apartment. During the brief ride Bobby seemed to have already regained some of his strength.

  “You need a hand getting him up to your place?” Errol offered.

  “No,” Bobby was quick to say. “I’m good.”

  I smiled and nodded at Errol. “Thanks for everything>”

  His phone beeped and he checked it. “I’m heading down to the police station. The guys just arrived with your…

  “Kidnappers. It’s okay. You don’t have to use euphemisms and bright and colorful words to gloss over what happened. I was kidnapped… by those men, and I hope they pay for it, but I’m not traumatized by it. I refuse to be.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He looked at me and while he seemed confident that I was okay, he still hesitated before stepping back to his car. “The police is probably going to want to talk to you. You want me to send them over?”

  “Sure. I guess. If they can hold off until tomorrow, though, that’d be great.”

  “I’ll tell them to leave you the night to recover and stop by tomorrow if they need to. Between Rial, Leo, your father and me, we should be able to paint a pretty accurate picture of what happened.” He got in his car and left us and I helped Bobby inside.

  “Those bastards,” Bobby hissed. “I hope they rot in hell.”

  Aghast, I looked at him.

  “Sorry, but that’s what they deserve.”

  “You need to rest,” I said as I led him to the sofa. “The doctor said you’re not to lift anything or make any kind of strenuous movements.”

  With him settled in, I turned to head to my bedroom to pick up a fresh change of clothes and returned to check in on him. “Try to get some sleep, Bobby. I’m going to take a well-deserved shower.”

  “Take your time,” he said.

  “I will.”

  Flicking on the television, he went from channel to channel and finally settled on an old western. “Roy Rogers… in French. What a hoot.”

  Smiling, I walked to the bathroom. After tearing the last shreds of my soiled dress off me, I stared at it for a long pained moment. The panic of those hours spent with those men returned for a split second and the fear I’d felt sent a shiver down my spine. All those years ago I’d been incapacitated by the trauma they had caused, but I refused to let the ordeal take over my life again. I threw the dress away, never wanting to see the garment again, never wanting a reminder of the days I’d spent in the company of those men. And after a moment’s hesitation, I also threw away my bra and underwear.

  In the shower, I let the water spill over me a full five minutes before reaching for the soap and then I scrubbed my skin as if the soap had the power to wash away the pain of the ordeal that had finally ended.

  Half an hour later, feeling refreshed and renewed, and wearing a pair of comfy jeans and a white t-shirt that smelled of lavender, I returned to check in on Bobby. He was staring blindly at the television, a line of tears clinging heavily to his lashes.

  “Bobby?”

  Grimacing, he forced himself up when he saw me, but quickly laid back with a groan. He looked at me, his eyes full of worry.

  “What is it, Bobby? Does it hurt? I’ll run down to the pharmacy and get the painkillers the doctor prescribed. I knew we should have stopped on the way.” But he’d insisted he didn’t need them.

  “I told you, I don’t need those,” he hard-headedly maintained.

  “But you’re in pain and…”

  “It’s you, Lilly,” he said, his voice filled with anguish. “It’s you I’m worried about. I was so worried about you. We were all so terrified. We had no idea what they’d done to you and your father made it clear they were not kind and gentle men. He knows them, and knows how ruthless they can be. I kept imagining the worse. I can’t believe we were able to find you so soon… before they could really hurt you.”

  “Me, too, though I didn’t really think there was any chance of ever being found. I did try to get away when they were still holding me at the body shop, but it was a dismal failure.”

  He nodded. “We had your location then; Debosselage et peinture Gagner. I think we arrived only a few minutes a
fter they took you away from there. Zeroing in on the second location took a bit more time.” He shrugged. “I guess the signal from your phone wasn’t as strong.”

  “I’m so sorry you had to get hurt in the middle of all this.”

  “Hey, you heard what the doctor said. It’s just a scratch.”

  “Yeah, a scratch that needed fifteen stitches.”

  “I’ve had worse. When I gutted my arm opening that damned door a few years back, I needed twenty-eight stitches, and that damned tetanus shot.” His eyes turned solemn. “The important thing is that you're safe. That’s all that really matters.”

  “I am, and I’m going to take care of you. So sit still and I’ll go get you something to drink.”

  He grabbed my wrist and held me. “I’m not thirsty. Stay with me.”

  “I’ll be back in just a minute.”

  “Stay.”

  “All right.” I sat on the edge of the sofa and ran my hand over his brow, pushing his hair off his face. “Maybe we should call Taryn to let her know you're okay.”

  “Errol will take care of that.”

  I nodded and we sat in awkward silence for a moment.

  “I feel responsible for what happened,” Bobby finally said.

  Shocked, I gaped at him. “You? How are you responsible?”

  “Your father. Those men have probably been waiting in the wings for months, years, just waiting for your father to show his face, and what do I do? I bring him over and next thing you know, you’re being carted off with a bag over your head.” He closed his eyes, tears piercing through his lashes. “I’ll never forget the sight of you being dragged away. I felt so helpless. We all did… just staring at you while these men…” He shook his head. “It was a nightmare… worse than a nightmare, and I can only imagine how it must have been for you.”

  “I don’t want to dwell on that, Bobby. It was horrible, and I’m probably going to have to go over it again and again with the police, but I’m not going to let it beat me this time. I’m stronger, Bobby. Those men are dark and evil. They want to ruin my father, and destroy me in the process, but I won’t let it happen.”

  Godfrey’s words suddenly came back to me with full force, so much so that my breath caught in my throat. I was the half-breed brat he wanted to destroy, the Cooke who tainted the Dumont name and had to be eliminated.

  “They’re going to go to prison, aren’t they?” My voice was small and frail, and I felt my resolve weaken. Would this destroy me after all? Was I really as strong as I said I was?

  “Of course they are. You okay?”

  I shook away the new wave of fear that threatened to take over and smiled. “Yes. I’m okay now, Bobby.” I tapped my fingertip to the end of his nose. “And don’t you dare for one minute think that you're responsible for what happened. Regardless of all this nastiness, I’m thrilled to have my father back in my life.”

  His grin was shy and unsure as he reached for my hand. “I’d do anything for you, you know.”

  The warmth of his hand enveloped mine, just as his grin touched my heart. He was such a good guy. “I know,” I whispered.

  He leaned up to kiss me, but fell back with a grimace.

  “You shouldn’t overexert yourself. You’ll end up pulling those stitches out.”

  “I wouldn’t have thought kissing you meant exerting myself.” Licking his lips, he wrapped his free hand around the nape of my neck and gave me a delicate tug.

  I wanted his kiss, but didn’t want to mislead him. While words of protest wrestled their way to my lips, I leaned into him and allowed his lips to steal my protest away.

  His lips were soft and warm, and I suddenly realized just how much I’d missed him. I let his lips engulf me, fill me with the sensations that thrilled me. When his tongue came to meet mine, I knew the situation could quickly get out of control if I didn’t put an end to it right away.

  Carefully pressing my hand to his chest, well above his wound, I pulled back. “I’m not so sure this is a good idea, Bobby. I don’t want to…”

  “Lead me on?”

  He was so innocent and yet so wild; this American boy who made my heart race. Barely a minute without his warm lips over mine, and I already longed to kiss him again.

  With a cocky grin, he pulled me back to him. “Lead me on all you want, Lilly. I’m a big boy. I know what I’m getting into.” He held me, my nose just inches from his as he stared into my eyes, as if trying to drill the message in. “I’m willing to take the risk.”

  His lips smothered mine, savagely pulling me in, sucking, nibbling and tasting me while his arms crushed me to him. A wealth of emotions swelled in my chest as I surrendered and let myself be carried away on his kisses. But as the kiss intensified, and he maneuvered me until I was stretched out on the sofa beside him, I knew the kiss had taken on a whole new meaning.

  He wanted me and I wasn’t sure if I had the strength or desire to stop him.

  I felt the tension in his body, the push of his hips and the pull of his hands as they traveled down my back and kept me pressed tightly to him. We panted short sweet breaths at one another as our kisses drove deeper and deeper.

  “I want you back,” he whispered.

  My heart surged at the sound of his heartfelt words then plummeted as I thought of the other love in my life.

  Bobby made my heart race, made me happy and made me smile, but Rial… there was something there too, something special and exhilarating. Something I wasn’t quite ready to give up.

  Chapter 5

  The phone rang just as Bobby dozed off. Fearful it’d awaken him I rushed to answer. “Yes.”

  “Lilly, honey. I’m so happy to hear your voice. How did things go?”

  My heart jumped. It was Rial.

  “How are you? How’s Bobby?”

  “I’m doing well, Rial, and Bobby’s fine. They stitched him up and now he’s resting.”

  “He’s at your place?” His displeasure was all too evident.

  “I wanted to check up on him and make sure he was all right. After all, he was wounded trying to help me. It’s the least I owe him. The wound wasn’t quite as bad as we thought. He should be good to go tomorrow.”

  The line was silent for a long tense moment.

  “Rial?”

  “I don’t want you spending the night there with him.”

  I glanced over at Bobby. “Well, he’s resting comfortably now. I guess there would be no harm in leaving him to sleep for the night. Do you want to come over to get me?”

  “No.”

  I was stunned by the categorical refusal.

  “Did you look outside?”

  I glanced out the window. “It’s a beautiful day out. The sun should be going down in an hour or so.”

  “Not that. Go look. Do you see what’s waiting for you outside?” Rial said.

  Had he already sent the limo to pick me up? I walked to the window and looked down at the curb. The limo wasn’t there.

  “What am I supposed to be looking for?”

  “Something that’s red and shining like an apple.”

  A series of cars lined the curb, but a bright red sports car shined like a ruby among common stones.

  “Is that a…?”

  “A little Mercedes two-seater. It handles really nice.”

  I smiled as my eyes danced over the car. It certainly was a beautiful little gem. “Rial! You don’t have to,” I said.

  “After the ordeal you went through and me realizing how close I came to losing you, Lilly, this car…it’s the least I can do so you can have the confidence to be fully independent. After this, I will teach you how to fight, and get you a personal instructor. I’ll hire a bodyguard even, and…”

  “Rial! Rial!” I laughed, happy to hear how much he cared about me and loved me over the phone, but eager to stop his worrying.

  “You read me well,” I said. “Instead of coddling me after this ordeal, like what my father did years ago and I became worse and worse, you want to empow
er me, make me feel like I can take back some control over my life. Make me feel that I have the freedom to go anywhere I want and not be imprisoned in a room or kept hidden away in a convent like my father did.”

  “I’m sorry for everything you went through, Lilly,” Rial said. “Back then and now. I didn’t know about the kidnapping when you were a girl and thought it was just your father keeping you away from me. It was because he wanted to protect you, and he did it the way he thought was best, only it made you withdraw into yourself…the isolation, the fear. Someone of your spirit, your fire, you need the opposite. You need to get out, to taste freedom, not hide…that’s why the car…”

  “Rial,” I said. “You understand me perfectly. I didn’t think you would, but right now, I really need to get out, get away, feel the breeze through my hair, and get the taste of freedom. I need to get out. I need to…”

  “The keys are in your mailbox. Hurry over. I’m eager to see you, but enjoy your car.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right there.”

  As I hung up, Bobby stirred, but remained asleep. Tormented, I questioned the wisdom of leaving him alone. What if he awoke in the middle of the night, pained and disoriented? What if he tried to get up and opened his wound, or fumbled his way around my apartment and hurt himself even more?

  I suddenly wished I could split myself in two. I longed to stretch out with Bobby and keep him warm and watch over him for the entire night, but I missed Rial and my body tingle at the mere sound of his voice. I could tell he was worried about me still, and that he was deathly afraid of losing me again, mentally, and psychologically. Like the first time I was kidnapped by those men. I lost it, and tried to kill myself.

  I took another look at Bobby. He seemed to be resting well enough, after taking some of the pain medication the doctor had prescribed. I left him a quick note and the numbers of my neighbors, which he already knew, having lived with me briefly at this apartment.

  My phone buzzed, and I looked down. Rial.

  “Lilly, did I mentioned how much I love you? You are everything to me. I need to see you are alright.”