Authors: Red Garnier
His usually calm demeanor broke as he flicked over the photographs, one by one, the
color slowly draining from his face. “Where did you find these?”
“Apparently my father had you followed.”
He raised his head, his eyes wide and, surprisingly, tear-filled. “I loved her. I
loved her, Monica.” He shook his head and glanced down at a picture where they were
together, her mother and him. “I loved her. You’re a little part of her, rose.”
Monica stifled the impulse to deny her similarities to her mother, having spent an
entire lifetime stifling her passionate side. But she just needed to know, so she
asked, “How did you know her? You weren’t at the funeral.”
“At the country club.” A raw and primitive expression crossed his features. “I’d always
had my eye on her, but she never even glanced my way until the rumor of your father’s
affair broke. She was passionate, Monica. She wanted me any way possible. And when
I see you, I can’t help seeing a little bit of her. You make me ache to get a little
of what she gave me. She made me promise to look after you if anything happened to
her, and I have. I
have
. But I need you to want me like I want you.”
“You don’t want me, Roland, you want an illusion of my
mother
.”
He stared at her, visibly heartbroken. “No. I do love you, rose. I do. We go so well
together. You’re poised and elegant. We both want the same things. Peace. Tranquility.
Her death left me broken, too. She was using me, but I was not using her. I never
used her.”
He took her hand from her lap and squeezed it between his, and Monica’s chest ached
at the pain in his eyes.
“Roland,” she said, softening her voice, setting his hands back in his lap and patting
them gently. “I’m sorry she did this. I’m sorry. But you see, that’s what I now realize.
My mother was hurting, and she found relief with you. But I don’t want to use you
like this, too. And I … I’ve been with you to forget another man.” She squeezed his
hands as a wealth of emotion squeezed around her throat, and then let go, shaking
her head with an immense sadness. “It’s wrong, I see that now. It was wrong of me,
and wrong of you. We’re together for all the wrong reasons.”
“But Monica—”
“No, Roland. I’m really sorry, but we have to move on. You and I know, I think we’ve
both
known, there’s nothing here worth fighting for. There’s just nothing here at all.”
When he at last nodded, it was with a tear rolling down his sun-weathered cheek. It
wasn’t easy, hugging him good-bye. Monica didn’t close up, now that she knew he would
not be pushing for anything else. It was actually heartfelt, their last embrace. Representing
the closing of another chapter of her life.
A chapter where she had been scared to feel, and had just kept thinking if she kept
moving, working, she would survive.
She didn’t really want this life.
Make the right choice.
She dragged in a deep breath as she remembered his note, thinking,
I will, Daniel. I have.
She didn’t know if it was the right choice, but she was beyond caring now. She wanted
a life with the man she loved in it, and she wanted it with every inch of her aching
heart. If it would sometimes hurt, then she just couldn’t believe it would hurt more
than these past few days, when she’d been every second of the day
hurting
for him.
Thirty minutes later, Monica’s limo pulled over in front of the Four Seasons Hotel,
and once again, she found herself entering the gala, alone. Flashes exploded around
her until she was safely tucked inside the hotel ballroom, and her heart began kicking
up in speed as she looked for Daniel among the glittering crowd.
The dramatic beat of the small live orchestra intensified her heartbeat, and suddenly
every nerve and fiber in her body clamored to be closer to him, to be touched by him,
to be loved by him. Him. He’d been inside her. He’d spilled his love all over her.
Roland would never be him. No man would. What she wanted—it was all in Daniel.
It was so clear to her now, so
so
clear when she saw that she could be Monica and
still
be strong.
Daniel could be accompanied tonight, and Monica shuddered at the thought, but suddenly
she knew that she would fight for him with the same strength she fought for everything
else. She would take her rightful place at his side no matter the price. She was at
last ready to love him without fearing that what she felt for this man could possibly
do anything but make her the happiest woman on the planet.
Suddenly, she spotted him at the far end, towering over a blonde who Monica instantly
recognized as Chloe. His head was bent to her as they talked, Chloe looking up into
his face and shaking her head.
Monica stopped in her tracks when she caught a sight of his profile, the shock of
seeing him almost shattering her.
I choose him,
she’d said, about Roland.
Oh, God, she wanted to die for saying that to him. What had she been
thinking
? Did loving him truly make her so afraid? How could being loved by a man like him
be anything but uplifting and empowering? Daniel had been nothing but gentle to her—supportive,
understanding, passionate, and open. How could feeling so good be dangerous to anyone?
No. The danger would be denying it, making mistake after
mistake,
trying to run away from it.
Swallowing the lump of emotion in her throat, she urged her legs to take her forward,
feeling as unsteady as her heels suddenly felt.
He had the power to destroy her.
To finish her off.
But she had to do this … was burning with the need to claim him as hers.
He’d been an adolescent crush that she had violently subdued under her strong will,
but the love that had grown those evenings when he’d held her, saying nothing to her,
only listening and supporting her, was undeniable. She’d asked him to spend time apart,
so the paparazzi would stop linking them together, she’d said. But what she’d needed
was to give her heart distance from the wild attachment she’d already had for a man
who turned heads everywhere he went, whose money and power set him up to get whomever
he wanted, whenever he wanted.
She’d feared that she would never be enough.
But she was.
Now, more than ever, it was right for them. Their bodies had caught up to their emotions,
and they were too starved to be denied anymore. Always she’d been putting barriers
between them. Distance. Other men. Roland could’ve been a shield for Daniel. And yet
Monica had danced too close to the fire, and now she would forever come back to him,
like a moth to the flame. Only Daniel could make her burn, and yearn, and love him
like this.
Dragging in a steadying breath, she started toward him, knowing with frightening certainty
that it wouldn’t be simple. She’d never be able to control him, like she had other
men she dated. No, Daniel wouldn’t be easy.
He would be hard. Harder than Davenport’s. Harder than anything she’d ever done. He’d
give everything to her, and he’d demand to be paid with the same penny.
Loving Daniel would be both the most difficult thing she’d ever done, and the easiest.
And for the first time in her life, she was ready for it.
* * *
“She’s here.”
Daniel’s insides jolted at Chloe’s words.
He’d been aware of her ever since she entered. There was a shifting in the air, an
altering in his senses. He hadn’t even turned yet, but a simmering tension lay beneath
his muscles, and he was nearly breaking the champagne flute in his hand. Dragging
in a deep breath, he set it down on a nearby table and clenched his hands at his sides,
already jealous of whoever stood at her side, already desperate to pound the man’s
face in until he was unrecognizable to his own kin.
“Just don’t punch anybody here, all right, Danny?” Chloe said, as if reading his mind.
He spoke under his breath. “I don’t know how I’ll react, Chlo, if I see her with him.”
The detective had given Monica the information he’d found about Roland, but Daniel
still didn’t know what she would do. She might be delighted she had found the perfect
unfeeling partner to spend the rest of her life with. Someone who might, also, love
someone else. His stomach roiled with anger and frustration.
Stop running away from me, Monica!
“Don’t
punch
anyone, Daniel,” Chloe warned. She squeezed his arm and whispered, “There are five
hundred guests here, Daniel. You’ll never live something like this down, and if you
do,
then
she
and her reputation might not. So please. Take it easy.”
He clamped his jaw tight and nodded, but he still visualized turning, seeing them
together, and charging down to pound the man to the ground.
It would feel so fucking good, he was already thirsting, was practically delighting
in giving way to the raging urge to claim his woman inside him.
He could throw all common sense and logic to the wind and do it, he knew. But all
it would do was prove to Monica that he, like her parents, would do violence for her.
No. He’d be damned if he gave her the satisfaction of thinking she’d made the right
choice. Denying what they had between them would
never
be the right choice. But he could be civil, couldn’t he?
Couldn’t he?
Maintaining himself immobile until he got himself under grips, he stared blindly at
the live orchestra at the far end of the room, his blood hot and storming through
his veins as he remembered their parting words …
He’s what I choose …
Anger and jealousy whirled inside him again. He wanted to fight for her, openly fight
the threat, eliminate it, bump her on the head, and take her to his cave. His body
throbbed with the impulse to do just that.
But he couldn’t do this. Not with Monica.
He didn’t want to be her companion. He didn’t want to end up with the Ice Maiden at
his side, and no Monica. He loved the Ice Maiden, but he loved Monica more. He knew
that to claim a woman like Monica, force was not the issue. She needed to come willingly,
on her own, or else Daniel would be able to physically possess her and yet soon realize
that, emotionally, she would never be his. No. He’d be damned before he settled for
that.
It was all or nothing now.
He was still trying to calm his rapid heartbeat and ease his tense muscles when Chloe
squeezed his arm. “She’s looking our way.”
A knot tightened in his chest, his fingers biting into his palms at his sides. “Who’s
with her? That fucking fossil Gustafson?”
“I don’t see him. But she can’t take her eyes off you, brother. She is seriously gobbling
you up with those—”
“Jesus! Stop. Just
stop
.” He dragged in a breath, then raked a hand through his hair and swung around. “Where
is she?”
Chloe stopped him mid-turn and grabbed his jaw to hold his gaze within her eyes, green
like Daniel’s and wide with anticipation. “She’s coming over. But Danny, if anything
happens with you two, Graves will come get me in five minutes. Don’t even think about
me.”
“Here,” he murmured, sliding one of his keys into her hand, his heart pounding. “That’s
for the decoy in the back. You can’t miss it.”
“Go show her what she’s missing, brother.” Chloe kissed his cheek and he watched as
she disappeared into the crowd. He was bracing himself as he slowly turned in search
of Monica, his every cell and particle vibrating with need, and suddenly he jolted
when he felt five soft, slender little fingers slip into his hand, and he heard that
achingly familiar whisper at his ear.
“Hey, you…”
His heart trembled in his chest as the words spilled inside his body, soft and warm
like her cashmere. Slowly, not even breathing, he shifted toward her, and their gazes
collided, caught, held.
His lungs burned, and he devoured the sight of her, in a shimmering blue dress, her
eyes wide and blue and almost imploring. The instinct to hold her was so acute, it
took every effort in his body to keep from pulling her into his arms, lean over and
scent her, touch her, feel her. No.
He had no right to do this.
She’d refused him. She didn’t want to want him. Chose not to be with him.
Not just once, but twice, and he feared a third time would kill him.
Even then, he would have to fight this stubborn woman until his last breath for now
he knew, without a doubt, that he would never die in peace until this woman told him
that she
loved
him.
“Where’s Grandpa?” he asked her, his timbre alien. Angry, and loaded with a thousand
one frustrations.
Her voice was as low as his, and the open hunger in her gaze somehow made his gut
wind into an even deeper set of knots. “I don’t know, nor do I care. It’s over. There
was hardly anything to finish.”
“You seemed to be hanging pretty damn tight for hardly anything,” he angrily countered.
Suddenly he realized she’d worn her hair loose tonight. Like Daniel had once told
her he liked. And she looked as soft and inviting as she had in her bedroom. In his
arms.
God, help me.
“Did you know all these years, Daniel? That he’d been with my mother?” she asked,
her face upturned to his as she searched his eyes.
“No.” God, this was torture. His fists trembled at his sides to keep from reaching
out to her. The music, the gala patrons, everything had faded in the background. Everything
but her. “If I’d known, I’d have told you sooner. It never occurred to me to check
him out before.”
“But you wanted to find something wrong with him, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said gruffly. And he’d search every bastard she so much as looked at, until
she realized there would be no one, ever, to know her like
Daniel
.
Then he noticed her eyes glistened with … hope? Tears? Whatever it was, it was clawing
into him like talons. Deeply. Profoundly.