He started to reply.
She waved her hand, stopping him. “It’s not because you’ve got some super awesome spy skills, so don’t think that. I’ve been slipping away from guards since I was six. Since my mom died.” Don’t go there. Don’t! “I could have slipped away from you, too, if I’d wanted.”
One brow lifted. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that.”
Cocky. “I am.” Gwen had evasion down to an art. “I didn’t ditch you because I wanted to be with you.” A simple, stark truth. “And my father…he knew how I felt about you. So if he wanted to make sure I had protection, he’d call you. Because he would know that…” Say it. “He’d know that I wouldn’t be able to turn you away.”
Not Chance. The others, yes, but not him.
His eyes had darkened even more with a surge of emotion—but it was emotion she couldn’t read.
“You have too many secrets, Chance,” Gwen told him, hating that he could be so controlled when she felt so raw from the rip of her emotions. “I don’t have any, not from you. I need you to share your secrets with me.”
He stared back at her. Just stared.
Fine. She spun on her heel and marched for the door. She wasn’t going to bare her soul anymore while he stood there and said nothing. Did nothing. Not while he—
“You father knows how I feel, too.”
His words stopped her near the door.
“He knows that I would do anything, anything at all, for you.”
Hesitant now, Gwen turned back to face him. He was still behind the desk. But his expression wasn’t unreadable. There was need on his face. In his eyes. Need, fury.
So much desire.
All for me.
“I’ve wanted you for a long time, baby. Hell, since the first day I met you. But you were the boss’s daughter, and if anyone was hands-off, it was you.”
She wanted his hands on her.
She had…since the first day.
“I needed that job, at first. I was looking to build more security contacts, and I knew that job would give me the opportunities I needed. So I worked for your father. I focused on my plans. The dreams I had for my own business. I knew I could make those dreams come alive I if I bided my time. If I did my job for Will.”
VJS Protection.
So, right. He’d had his dreams.
She’d had hers. My dreams were about you, Chance.
“Then something changed.” His voice deepened even more. “I started dreaming about you. You got into my head, and I couldn’t get you out. I tried to keep a distance between us, but you were smashing right through every wall that I put up. And then that night…shit, that one night when the champagne had been flowing and the snow falling and you—you were in that sexy red dress and you came to me. That damn night—the night I kissed you for the first time…”
“Christmas.” No, she hadn’t meant to say it, but she had. It had almost been a year before. Christmas Eve. She’d been at her father’s home. Chance had been there. He’d just seemed so…lonely. Aloof. She’d learned that he had no family. No one had been waiting at home for him. She’d actually felt his pain, and she’d wanted to comfort him.
But when she’d followed him outside and wrapped her arms around Chance, comfort had soon been the last thing on her mind.
He’d kissed her with wild passion. Kissed her with hot desire. And she’d thought…finally. Finally, we can be together. Finally, I can have him.
Then he’d pushed her away.
“I can’t do this,” she whispered.
“Gwen—”
“Those were your words, when I was offering all of myself to you.” Not just her body, but her heart. “And you turned and you walked away from me.” She’d just been left standing out on her father’s balcony as the snow fell on her. The snow and her tear drops had felt the same as they slid down her cheeks. So cold.
A few months later, she’d walked into Wicked. She’d given into the urge to let go of her emotions. To feel. She’d hooked up with Ethan—
“You stopped coming to your father’s. You stopped talking to me.” His voice sounded wooden. “You know how some people say they don’t even realize what they really have until it’s gone? I always thought that line was utter bullshit, but then you slipped away from me. Everything else in my life seemed worthless then. Shit, I used to stay extra hours at your father’s business, just hoping I’d catch a glimpse of you. I needed you. I missed you.”
She shook her head.
“And when I realized you were more important than anything else, it was too late. You were with Ethan.” His jaw hardened. “He wasn’t good enough for you. I knew it. I didn’t need your father to tell me that. But when Will asked me to dig into the guy’s past, I did. And I found the skeletons there.”
Shady deals. An ex-fiancée who’d died under mysterious circumstances. Another former lover who swore that Ethan had become obsessed and attacked her…or at least, that was what the police report claimed. The woman had later dropped those charges and seemingly just vanished from the face of the earth. The dark secrets from Ethan’s past had kept piling up, and they’d terrified Gwen.
But even before Chance had revealed all of the dirty details of Ethan’s past to her, Gwen had already realized she was done with the other man. Her heart had never been with him. She’d been trying to escape the emptiness she felt inside by being with Ethan. But there was no escape.
I could never get away from Chance.
“I was planning to break up with him, even before you came with your evidence.” He’d been so cold that day. Just seeing Chance had hurt. And to learn so many painful truths about Ethan. I suck at choosing lovers.
Either she picked men who didn’t want her…like Chance.
Or she picked men who were psychotically determined to never let her go. Like Ethan?
So screwed.
“I was jealous of him,” Chance said.
Her brows pulled together.
“Insanely jealous.” Now he walked from behind the desk. His steps were slow. His gaze fierce. “I hated the thought of him touching you. I hated the thought of him being anywhere near you. I wanted him gone from your life long before I found out about his past.”
“Chance?”
“Some of the things he said today at Wicked were true. I did think the bastard never should have touched you.”