Into The Night

Vegas from California.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone that!” she said, her tone panicked. “I’m eighteen and I want to be with Preston.”

Both Sloane and Gwen had done an excellent job in brainwashing the young girl. “What Preston did, what Gwen did, was against the law.” Wanting to offer Holly comfort, Nicole reached out to grab the girl’s hand.

Holly yanked her arm away, sat up in bed, and glared at Nicole. “I don’t care. I’ll do anything to be with Preston, to make him happy. He’ll find me and he’ll come for me. I know he will!”

“He’s not coming for you,” Nicole said, not wanting Holly to be under any illusions. “As soon as your parents are located, you’ll be reunited with them, and they’ll take you back home.”

Holly shook her head wildly, and tears brimmed in her eyes. “I don’t want to go back. My mother doesn’t want me. She’s never wanted me.”

It didn’t escape Nicole’s notice that Holly only mentioned the one parent, and it seemed like the relationship hadn’t been a good one. It was hard to imagine that a mother would discard a child so easily, and she wondered if Holly’s perception of what it had been like at home was somehow skewed after her time with Sloane.

“Why do you think your mother doesn’t want you?” Nicole asked. Her own parents would have come for her in a heartbeat, just as Angela’s had.

Tears ran down the girl’s cheek as memories of her past seemed to overwhelm her. “My mother was always too busy with her boyfriend of the week, and most of them were creeps. She left me alone all the time while she and whatever guy she was dating went out and partied. Sometimes, she didn’t even come home until the morning. I wanted to live with my dad, but my mom wouldn’t let me.”

“Where’s your dad?” Nicole asked, curious to know why her father hadn’t been a direct part of her life.

“He’s in the army,” she said, and swiped away the wet tears from her face. “He’s stationed in Germany. I miss him so much.”

Oh, hell. It sounded as though Holly’s home life had been a heart-wrenchingly dysfunctional one. Most likely she’d rebelled in various ways in the hope of getting just a fraction of the attention her mother gave to her boyfriends. When her attempts hadn’t worked, she’d decided to run away. And then Sloane had come along and had given her what she craved the most-attention, affection, and gifts to make her feel loved.

“I want Preston.” Holly lay back down on the bed, facing away from Nicole this time. “He loves me, I know he does,” she said, and Nicole knew Holly believed her own words.

“If Preston loved you, why was he asking you to be with other men?” Nicole asked, hoping the question would break through the girl’s stubborn mind-set. It was the same question she’d asked herself over and over, while fighting an internal struggle over Mark’s request to sleep with another man.

Holly stiffened. “Go away,” she said, choosing not to answer, probably because there was no justification for what Sloane had done to her. “I want to be alone.”

There was so much more Nicole could say to Holly to point out all of Sloane’s immoral flaws, but in the girl’s current mental state, Preston was her hero, the man who’d taken her in and had given her nice things and a false sense of security and love. Never mind that he’d also exploited her and had already started passing her around to other men. Nicole had no doubt that he would have eventually sold her off to his Russian connections for an even worse life, with no chance of ever going home again.

There was no reasoning with Holly in her current frame of mind, and it would be a waste of Nicole’s breath to continue trying. The girl required the kind of professional help that Nicole wasn’t equipped to provide, and she’d talk to Caleb to make sure she received some kind of counseling to heal her damaged emotions.

But in the meantime, she wanted to be sure the girl had someone to talk to if she needed support. She looked through the nightstand and found a pen and a notepad, then jotted down her name and her cell phone number. She ripped off the piece of paper, came around the bed and tucked it beneath Holly’s hand, then gently touched her hair, wishing there was some easy way to make all this go away for Holly. Unfortunately, there was nothing simple or easy about what the girl had been through.

Holly didn’t move or acknowledge her touch or the note she’d given her. “If you ever need someone to talk to, that’s my cell number. You can call me anytime .”

Again, Holly didn’t respond, but neither did she crumple up her phone number and toss it aside, which Nicole took as a positive sign.

The longer she stared at Holly, the more Nicole saw a part of herself in the young girl. From the very beginning, she’d been drawn to Holly, the need to protect her strong because she knew what the girl was going through.

All too well, Nicole understood the pain of Holly’s situation-of once being Sloane’s “it” girl, of being asked to do unmentionable things with other men, then being cast off for someone younger and prettier. Mark Reeves had been older and charming-a man who knew all the right words to make a girl’s heart beat faster. Yet beneath all that charisma had been a selfish, egotistical player who had no qualms about using his female students for his own sexual gratification.

She’d fallen in love with Mark quickly and completely, and had been willing to do anything to make him happy, to make sure he loved her, and only her. To the point that she’d done degrading, humiliating things because she’d been just as obsessed with Mark as Holly was with Preston. Her entire world had revolved around her professor, to the exclusion of everything else.

A shiver rippled down her spine, and the chill of a deep-seated fear touched her heart. After Mark, she’d deliberately spent years in casual relationships, keeping her emotions out of the equation while embracing her independence and working toward building her career as a journalist. She’d learned the difficult lesson that giving any man control over her emotions was the most painful, self-destructive thing she’d ever done.

She’d only known Nathan a few weeks, yet already she couldn’t get enough of him. Her strong feelings for him were crossing all those emotional boundaries she’d set for herself, the ones she’d erected to protect her heart and everything else that was important to her.

An onslaught of doubts swept through her, forcing her to question whether her emotions toward Nathan were even real, or if he was nothing more than an obsession, a result of their close proximity over the past few weeks. Was she about to repeat the pattern of her past and risk losing her identity as a journalist and as a woman? And what price would she pay to love Nathan, knowing he could walk away at any given moment?

She feared the answer.

Oh, God . She pressed her fingers to her lips as she looked down at Holly, a clear-cut reminder of what giving her heart and soul to someone could reduce her to. And that’s when Nicole knew she just didn’t have it in her to take that risk with Nathan, because she’d never be able to survive the heartbreak of losing him.

Nicole had to make a choice, and she knew which one it had to be. She couldn’t lose focus as a woman or as a reporter, not when she was on the cusp of something huge with her career. She was about to get the big breakout story on Sloane after all, and she was confident that the exclusive would open up myriad opportunities for her. The kind that would require dedication and commitment to her job. She needed to remain true to herself this time, making the choice to leave before it was made for her. Or before she did something stupid in the name of love.

It was time to end things between them. She knew saying good-bye was going to hurt, that she would miss so many things about Nathan. But she knew it was much easier to shut the door on someone else than have it shut on her. Their story was done. It was time for her to move on and heal.

A soft knock on the door startled Nicole out of her troubling thoughts, and she glanced from Holly to Valerie, who stood just inside the bedroom.

“I heard you two talking in here a while ago and thought I’d give you a break,” the other woman said, her gaze compassionate. Then, in a lower voice, she said, “Nathan is waiting to talk to you in the other room.”

“Thanks,” Nicole said, even though she had no intention of having a long, drawn-out conversation with Nathan about them.

Nathan wanted to talk, but for her, there was nothing left to discuss.

* * *

Nathan glanced up from the information he and Caleb were reviewing on his laptop as Nicole entered the living