Gavin knew he’d revealed too much, but her words had brought light into one small corner of the gaping black hole inside him. He couldn’t tell if she was simply too stubborn to admit defeat or if she really cared, but right now, it didn’t make much of a difference. She’d told him she would stay.

And his Allie always kept her word.

He glanced up to find that she was no longer glaring at him. Instead, her face was gentle with understanding. He didn’t want to contemplate what she thought she had discovered about him.

As he brooded on that, he realized that this was the second time he’d been pitied at the Bellwether Club. Maybe he would have to find a new place to hide. Or new friends to hide from.

Friends. All of a sudden he had more of them than he could handle. That thought brightened another corner of the void.

He started to reach for the bottle before he realized that Allie had moved it across the table again. He should finish it off just to prove he hadn’t totally given in. As he leaned forward to seize it, he realized he had lost interest in getting drunk.

There were other, more interesting paths to forgetfulness.

“Let’s go home,” he said, leaving the bourbon where it sat.

Her face lit up. “Great idea.”

“Don’t humor me. I’m not doing it because you want me to.”

“I didn’t think that for even a split second.” She stood and watched as he lurched to his feet.

Alcohol affected him in an unusual way. A surprisingly small amount knocked his sense of balance askew, so he staggered as though he were falling-down drunk. Yet inside his mind, everything was painfully clear. Which was a damned nuisance when he was trying to drown his troubles in drink.

It worked in his favor this time, because it gave him a reasonable, rational excuse to put his arm around Allie. “Would you mind giving me a hand, sweetheart? Bourbon affects my inner ear.”

“Conveniently,” she said, but she moved to his side and let him drape his arm over her shoulders while she wrapped her arm around his waist. He didn’t even have to pull her close to him, because she got right up against his body, her grip surprisingly powerful. Then he remembered that her job included helping the injured and paralyzed learn to walk again.

How appropriate.

Chapter 18

Allie could tell when someone was faking it. Gavin wasn’t. He leaned heavily on her as they wove across the thick carpeting of the bar. She was accustomed to holding up those who were unsteady on their feet, but Gavin was much larger than she was, and she usually had some equipment to help her. She had to wedge herself against his warm, hard body to keep him upright.

Which was the best kind of torture, as she felt the imprint of his fingers on her shoulder, the lean strength of his oblique muscle under her palm, the graze of his thigh against her hip, and the heat of him infusing his cashmere sweater. The scent of expensive bourbon wafted past her nostrils as he exhaled a huff of frustration when he veered off course.

Either he was much drunker than he wanted to admit or he wasn’t lying about how he reacted to alcohol.

As they emerged from the bar, Frankie appeared at the top of the stairs. “I think you’d better use the elevator,” she said, gesturing down the hallway. “I don’t want a lawsuit for two broken necks. Jaros will meet you at the back entrance so you don’t have to deal with the front steps, either.”

“Frankie, you are an arch manipulator,” Gavin said. “How did you guess that my little slip of an Allie could practically carry me out bodily?”

“I know a strong woman when I see one,” Frankie said, giving Allie a wink.

“Considering the amount of money I pay to belong to this club, I would think you’d let me get drunk here in lonely majesty,” Gavin said.

“You weren’t meant to drink alone,” Frankie said as the elevator door slid open.

Gavin stumbled forward into the elevator, taking Allie along with him.

Frankie leaned in and pushed the lowest button. “Vincent will meet you downstairs.”

“Thank you for everything,” Allie called out as the door glided closed.

She thought she caught a smile of satisfaction on Frankie’s face, but her glimpse was too brief to be sure.

The club owner was more proof that Gavin could command loyal friendship.

Gavin braced himself against the wall, taking some of his weight off Allie’s shoulders. “I knew you’d come,” he said.

She wished she could see his face to find out if that was good or bad. “You didn’t make it easy.”

“It was the Bellwether Club or Southampton, so be grateful I chose the former.”

The doors slid open on a stone-floored hallway with flickering wall sconces that were shaped like human arms holding torches. The security guard, Vincent, stood waiting.

As Gavin staggered out of the elevator, Vincent stepped forward to lift the writer’s other arm onto his shoulders.

“Thank you,” Allie said with sincerity as her load lightened.

“Yes, ma’am,” Vincent said.

“I feel like a sack of coal,” Gavin complained.

“Yes, you do,” Allie said. “A very heavy one.”

Gavin laughed, and she felt him shift more of his weight away from her.

Vincent steered them out a door made of massive wooden planks bound together by medieval-looking metalwork.

“It’s a dungeon,” Allie murmured, entertained by Frankie’s whimsy.

“But Frankie won’t tell me where the torture chamber is,” Gavin said.

The Bentley gleamed in the light cast by a heavy iron lantern, and Jaros leaped forward to help guide Gavin into the backseat.

Allie settled in beside him, waving her appreciation to Vincent before Jaros closed the door with a solid thunk. The privacy screen was raised, and Jaros’s voice came through the intercom. “Home, Mr. Gavin?”

“Where else?”

“Yes, sir.”

The car purred into motion along the narrow alleyway.

“I just hope Hugh has gone to bed,” Gavin muttered. “I can’t stand any more pity today.”

Annoyance pinched at Allie. “When your friends care, you think it’s pity?”

Gavin shifted on the seat so she could see his face, which meant that he could see hers. “Aren’t you here because you feel sorry for me?”