Glow (Glimmer and Glow #2)(2)
Lynn was the wife of Alan Durand, the maverick brilliant businessman who had founded Durand Enterprises, the multibillion-dollar international company that manufactured everything from candy to yogurt to sports drinks. Durand chocolates and confections were a mainstay across every candy counter in the world. Just through the surrounding woods was another Durand legacy: Camp Durand, an acclaimed summer camp that served at-risk children from Chicago and Detroit. Camp Durand was Alan and Lynn’s favorite charitable endeavor. Alice was a Camp Durand counselor, one of fifteen MBA graduates who had been handpicked by Durand executive officers to compete for nine highly coveted Durand junior management positions.
Was she really just going on her third week at Camp Durand? Time had become so difficult to gauge. Especially since a few days ago, when Alice’s life had been heaved completely upside-down.
Really, the first shaking of Alice’s known world came the moment she’d walked into the business department’s dean’s office months ago for an interview with the impossibly gorgeous, light-years-out-of-her-league CEO of Durand Enterprises, Dylan Fall: the man who currently held her naked body against his own.
The man who currently held her naked heart in his hand.
“I knew I would care about you. I had no idea I’d fall in love with you.”
She pressed her fingers against her breastbone. Her heart squeezed with anguished wonder at the memory of Dylan saying those words just hours ago, following their stormy lovemaking. The memory felt very beautiful to her: fragile and tender, new and raw, the weight of the reality of his words seemingly too big to hold inside her. She was desperate to believe him, but she wasn’t sure she could.
Especially given the magnitude of all the other information she’d been told in the last few days. The nightmare from which she’d awakened brought it home to her. She was very confused.
Very afraid?
In his sleep, Dylan shifted slightly and pulled her tighter against him. Unnamed emotion swelled in her chest, feeling like an expanding balloon. For a few panicked seconds, she couldn’t breathe from the pressure of it. Jesus. How was it possible for her to have acquired this level of feeling for him when she’d barely known he existed these last few months, and only been intimate with him for an even shorter period of time?
You’ve known him longer than a few months, that’s why. You’ve known him for most of your life, a firm, authoritative voice in her head said. She flinched instinctively at the harsh reminder, air popping out of her lungs. Alice could only withstand the truth in small, rapid doses. It was like her body and her brain weren’t entirely her own. Her weakness mortified her. She needed to do better. She needed to be stronger.
Alice Reed didn’t run from the truth.
The comforter and sheet had slipped beneath her breasts. The air conditioner felt chilly against her bare skin, but Dylan warmed her backside. Alice craved the sensation of sinking deeper into his embrace, of melting into him. He made her forget everything. His heat and touch were the sweetest addiction.
But just like the first time she’d awakened in his arms, she furtively eased out of his embrace.
Abandoning her defenses and submitting to comfort was something Alice had been nearly hardwired to resist. As a child, she’d forced herself to sleep with the windows open, even in the most frigid nights of a Chicago winter, warding herself against the toxic fumes inherent to Sissy’s “business.” Although the trailer resounded with the abrasive, harsh voices of her uncles and Sissy’s customers, Alice never used a fan, radio, or television to trick her brain into the safety of solid sleep. She needed to hear a threat coming to her locked bedroom, to prepare herself for a fight or an escape. A potential fire from Sissy’s meth lab was yet another nightly reality for which she had to prepare herself. Escaping her history was proving to be a challenge.
She shivered as she stood next to the bed, and then cautiously moved through the dark room. Earlier, she’d seen Dylan hang her clothing in the bathroom. The thunderstorm had caught them in its first furious lash. They’d only arrived at the rear entrance of Castle Durand several seconds after the rain began to pour down in torrents.
Her T-shirt was still a little damp. She hauled it on nevertheless, willfully ignoring the fluffy, cozy, dry robe Dylan had bought her. Her shivers amplified as she unrolled the damp fabric over her breasts and belly. She ignored her jean shorts and sufficed with her mostly dry underwear.
When she silently exited the bathroom, she paused for a moment in the still room, listening. Everything was silent. Dylan slept on. It was for the best. He wouldn’t approve of her mission. Or at the very least, he’d insist on being there by her side while she undertook it. She vividly recalled his words during their heated lovemaking last night as the storm raged around them.
“I don’t like you being down at that camp, Alice. I can’t control what happens to you.”
“You can’t control what happens every second of my day,” she whimpered, because he’d pressed her to him, her back to his front, and was reassuring himself of her existence and safety in the most elemental way.
“Maybe not,” he rasped, running his teeth over the skin of her neck and molding her breast to his hand. “But right now I can.”
Mixed feelings of renewed arousal, irritation, and stark compassion at his concern swept through Alice at the volatile memory. She’d struggled to be independent and self-determined for her entire life. Dylan’s proprietary attitude over her nettled a little. His possessiveness also thrilled her a lot, a fact that often had warning sirens going off in her head.