Only Pleasure (36 page)

She shook her head.

"Don't argue with me." He turned to her, gripping her arms, his stare fierce, his expression so determined now that she knew better than to argue. "You can't stay here, Kia. And I'll be damned if you'll stay anywhere else but with me. Do you understand me?"

She stared up at him helplessly. She didn't want to be anywhere else. Right now, she knew anywhere else would be terrifying.

She nodded slowly. She couldn't argue with him; she didn't want to argue with him. She wanted to go home with him, hide in his arms, and pretend this hadn't happened until she could get a handle on the fear that sparked inside her.

"Let's go. Cam's downstairs with Ian and Khalid checking the security tapes. With any luck, we'll get the bastard."

There was no luck that day.

Kia sat on a small upholstered bench in the hallway, several other residents of the apartment building looking on curiously as uniformed officers moved from the elevator to the apartment and back, packing samples taken from it. Carl Allen stood with Chase, Cameron, Ian, and Khalid in front of her.

The security tapes were missing, Cameron reported. A full three hours' worth of auto-saved discs were missing from the security office where the equipment was held.

"Check Drew Stanton's whereabouts first," Chase was telling the detective. "He's her ex-husband and he's one of Rutherford's security experts. He maintains and installs all their security software for their offices and their warehouses."

There was no point in arguing further with Chase. A small part of Kia admitted she was afraid that perhaps Drew had been angry enough to do this. She hadn't seen it, though. Drew had a pattern to his anger, and he hadn't shown an escalation into rage.

Detective Allen had his own electronics investigator in there now, she heard him report. And still, she couldn't figure out why this has happened.

"Kia? Little one?" Khalid knelt in front of her as Chase and Cameron talked, only a few feet away from her. "You should let Chase take you back to the apartment. Get drunk. Get mad."

He touched her hands where they lay folded in her lap.

"My limo is just outside," he told her. "Fully stocked. You can drink until you get there."

She stared into his black eyes and sniffed at the tears that began to run down her face again.

His expression creased painfully. Reaching into his suit jacket he pulled free a handkerchief and wiped her eyes gently.

"Ah, little one, I would make this all better if I could." His eyes were filled with anger.

Kia shook her head before taking the handkerchief he pressed into her fingers.

"I'm okay." She cleared her throat, aware of Chase watching her now, concern heavy in his face. "I'll be okay."

It was just an apartment. They were just things. She was okay, her parents were okay, and Chase was okay. Things could be replaced. But they were her things. Five years of memories and what little comfort she had been able to draw from them during the two years she had forced herself to withdraw from her earlier life.

"Carl, I need to get her out of here," Chase said to the detective standing at his side. "She's had it."

Carl nodded. "We're almost done here. I'll let you know when you can get a cleaning crew in, but I want to wait and see what the lab comes up with, make sure they don't need anything else before I release it."

"If you need her, you know where she'll be." Chase nodded.

She would be in his home, in his bed. She would be safe. He was going to make damned certain of it.

As he turned back to her, Khalid rose from in front of her, shoving his hands in his slacks as he watched her straighten shakily from the bench.

She hated this. Hated feeling helpless and endangered. She had never felt endangered in her entire life. Not like this. And the feeling was threatening the last shreds of her control.

"Let's get you home," he said, his voice tight. "Cameron, Jaci, and Khalid will be with you for a while. I have a few things I have to take care of."

Kia paused, knowing instinctively what those few things were, and she wasn't having it.

"Chase." She finally shook her head again as she fought to make sense of everything. "Drew wasn't involved with this. If you go after him yourself, I'll walk out of that apartment of yours so fast it will make your head spin. Do you understand me?"

His eyes narrowed on her. "I'll take care of this, Kia."

"Do you understand me?" She stared back at him. "If you want me to trust you, then you have to trust me as well. You'll get proof. You won't handle this like some Western gunslinger intent on revenge. Are we clear?"

She watched the rage move, lightning-fast, through his gaze before resignation darkened the icy-green color of his eyes.

"I'm getting damned tired of you defending him," he burst out.

"And I'm getting damned tired of worrying about having his broken neck on your conscience," she snapped right back. "And don't you dare try to pretend it wouldn't affect you, Chase. Especially if you found out he was innocent."

"Do I look stupid?" The edge of silky danger in his voice had her shaking her head slowly.

"No, but you do look very very angry, Chase. And if you confront Drew now, you won't be confronting him over this." She waved her hand to the apartment across from her. "You would be confronting him over the past. And that I simply won't have."

He watched them leave the building. The way Falladay enclosed Kia among him, Khalid, and Khalid's chauffeur bodyguard.

Ian Sinclair and Cameron were behind them. All moved into the limo except Sinclair. He got into Chase's car and the two vehicles moved out together.

She was alive. He had known she was alive for the past week, and he still wasn't certain how he felt about it. Was he glad or sad? Happy or angry that she had survived?

There were so many emotions he couldn't make sense of and so much pain filling his soul.

Sweet Kia. She should have remained faithful. If only she had just remained faithful, been the wife she should have been, and stayed away from Falladay. Everything would have been okay then. She wouldn't have to be hurt or frightened.

How sad.

He breathed out a small, weary sigh and maneuvered his car onto the street, heading away from the direction the others had taken.

He had been watching for her, waiting for her to return home. He had wanted her to see. Wanted her to save herself by distancing herself from Falladay. But she hadn't. She was with him, and she would remain with him.

He had failed the first time, but he knew he wouldn't fail the next time. It was planned. Everything would go smoothly and he would stare her in the eye and pull the trigger. He would watch the life leave her eyes, and in that death Falladay would know how it felt to lose everything.

To hurt, every day. To ache. To dream of days when all had been lush and filled with life and happiness. He would know the agony of reality, the loss and the certainty that he had marked her for death.

Vengeance, It was going to be his. And, he promised himself, it would be sweet.

"You can't put a bubble around me." Kia stared at her fingers, interlaced in her lap. They twisted together, a nervous reaction, Chase realized.

Kia rarely showed her nerves. Even two years ago, facing him, knowing what he wanted from her, she hadn't shown any fear.

Steel spine. Tears fell silently when they did fall. She didn't sob, she didn't latch on to him and beg for strength, even silently. She wiped her eyes with that damned handkerchief Khalid had given her and tried to still the tears and the pain.

"I can do more than put a bubble around you," he told her. "I know what we're looking at now, and I
do
know how to protect you, Kia."

She lifted her head, her tongue swiping over her pale, dry lips.

"What are we looking at?"

"Someone out of control," he told her. "Someone you can anticipate." He drew her into his arms, feeling the fine tremor that raced through her body.

"Someone who will try again and again until he succeeds," she said.

"And when they do try, there will be protection," Khalid stated, his voice harsh, hard. "And he will be caught."

Kia shook her head, tense as Chase held her to him.

"Trust me, Kia," he whispered against her hair, his hand stroking her arm, trying to warm her. "Do you trust me to protect you?"

Kia kept her head lowered. She was aware of too many eyes on her, too many watching her. Khalid and Cameron. And Chase.

"Who will protect
you
?"

She fought to keep her hands in her lap, to keep from touching him, just to make certain he wasn't hurt, even though she knew he wasn't hurt. She felt his lips against the top of her head, his hand warming her arm under the sweater she wore. And she was terrified. For Chase.

"Protect
me
?" Chase lifted her face. Something in her voice, in the set of her body, filled him with a heat that threatened to burn him alive.

When his eyes met hers he felt that heat consume him. She wasn't worried about herself; the fear wasn't for herself. It was for him.

He felt his expression tighten. He couldn't help it. Emotion tore through him like an explosion, tightening his arms around her and clenching his teeth with brutal force.

Fuck. Damn her. She was ripping into his soul and there wasn't a damned thing he could do to stop her. No one had ever cared about his protection.

With the exception of Cameron, there had never been anyone who gave his life a thought above their own. Until Kia. It was her life in danger. She had been attacked, hurt, everything she owned brutalized, but she was worried about his protection?