by Libby Rice
“Your insomnia’s back.”
Her lip quirked, but the reluctant humor didn’t last. “You look good, too.”
“I didn’t say anything about your looks.” He gentled his tone, wanting only to calm her skittishness. “You’re beautiful. But I’m right.”
“As usual.”
“What happened?” He burned to call her sweetheart, but one of her hands clung to the edge of the desk. The other gripped an arm of her chair, ready to push off and propel her around him and out the door. She wouldn’t welcome his endearments.
She ignored his question. “I thought you’d sworn off this den of idiocy. What brings you back ‘into the fold?’”
You. “Brian Wentworth is a damn fine attorney.”
The last bit of color leached from her ghostly features. “That he is.”
Ethan tensed. He’d said that wrong. “And he’s not you.”
Her eyes narrowed, and she shuddered against her seat. Almost imperceptible, but he noticed.
“Exactly,” she whispered. “But surely you didn’t come just to remind me I’m a shitty lawyer. I already know, so there’s no need. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“I meant that Brian’s not someone I…” He trailed off, searching for a way in. “Retaining him doesn’t present any conflicts, Scarlet.”
“Ah.” She looked away. “Brian’s your attorney. Not me. Is that honestly an invitation to pick up where we left off?”
Shit. He’d walked right into that one. “Would you say yes?”
Mirthless laughter bubbled up from her chest. Even that died quickly. “That’s rich. You haven’t been my client for weeks. Weeks, Ethan.”
“You needed time to rebuild. To recover.” And then come back to me. “I assumed you hadn’t repaired the damage of our affair, and I didn’t want to intrude on the progress.”
“An impossible task,” she said through her teeth.
A faint edge entered his tone. “What?”
“I can’t fix the damage.” Her palm slid over her forehead and rubbed in small circles as though the motion might appease a lingering ache. When she looked up, her eyes sparkled with unshed tears, like whiskey rimmed with the lighter edge of fire. “Ethan, I checked out of your life, just like you asked. We—Copenhagen was enough.”
His gut flooded with an unnerving premonition that something had gone drastically wrong. His fingers fairly burned to touch her. “It’ll never be enough,” he said in a ragged whisper. “Scarlet, tell me. Why did Brian say you aren’t busy? That you’re not ‘good?’ You’ve—”
“I’m fine.”
“—lost weight. You’re not sleeping, and I can tell you’re upset. Right now, you’re anxious and afraid.”
She didn’t answer, and her silent suffering broke over him when she buried her face in her hands. “Go,” she finally heaved between ragged breaths. “Leave.”
“No!” he roared, panic blooming at the possibility of her slipping though his fingers. He barreled around the desk, landing on his knees at her feet. “I’m not leaving until you tell me what’s going on. Hear me? I won’t leave.” Ever again.
She shuddered when his hands landed lightly on her upper arms. He saw a faint quiver of her lip in the space between her hands. Tears tracked down her cheeks. Afraid to make it worse, he burrowed through the flesh-and-bone barrier she’d erected and brushed each one away with the lightest phantom caress. “Look at me, sweetheart. Tell me.”
“You,” she choked, wiping furiously at her eyes. “You refused to wait for me. Fired me. I won’t let you do that again.”
His hand rested against her cheek. “No,” he whispered. Leaving was supposed to have helped her. He couldn’t have been that wrong. “You said we had to break it off. But you came to me right after. You wouldn’t have stayed away.”
He pulled her hair away from her face. “You left so stoically.” More than that, she’d stood up and marched out without a backward glance. “I didn’t know. I’d never hurt you this badly.”
The thought of what he’d done punched him between the ribs. He’d bought into her strong facade. Yet she’d been suffering while he waited for her to relent.
Her voice dropped to a wounded whisper. “Never hurt me? You kicked me out of your room. Accused me of trying to manipulate you. I don’t even know how to do that.”
“But I do.” He slid a finger under her chin, tipping her head back. “Don’t you get it? You said you needed time, then proved you wouldn’t take it on your own. I never intended to give you up. Not for a second. I fucking lied, Scarlet.”
She met his gaze, the molten hurt kindling in a flash of flame. Finally. He welcomed a million miles of her anger before one inch of sadness or hurt or fear.
“Where were you all this time?” Her voice took on a warning edge. “I trusted you.”
He trailed his knuckles along her neck, then up to an ear—a bare, pale earlobe bisected by an even paler scar. He stifled the question that blinked in the back of his mind.
“Waiting. For you. Until I couldn’t take it anymore. Then I hired Brian, and here I am, already at your feet after my first meeting with that prick.” He let out a frustrated growl. “I lied about him being a good lawyer, too. Your friend’s an asshole.”
That coaxed forth a watery grin, a real one, however slight. “The best ones are.”
“The best lawyers are assholes or the best assholes are lawyers?
“Both.”
Relief poured through him. Jokes meant progress. “But not you.”
He grew serious. Heartbreak explained some of her changed presence. Work-related stress might account for more. But that wasn’t all. Scarlet’s tentative smile was too forced. A terrible vulnerability simmered beneath the surface of genuine, but overblown, ire. She fought against owning up to it. “Scarlet, what—”
“Ethan, I still need—”
“Whatever it is, yes.” He dropped a kiss to her brow.
She stiffened at the intimacy. “Go. I need you to go.”
Anything but that. Carefully, he settled back, dropping to his haunches a few inches from her chair. His gaze searched her face, settling on her naked ears. And yeah, he deserved her see-through-you stare. “You should be angry,” he conceded, “but I can’t—won’t—leave you like this.”
“You don’t have a choice,” she said sadly. “You once said to me, ‘I want you gone.’ Take your own advice, Ethan.”
Copenhagen rushed in without an invitation. Not only her words. Hell, every one of her choices had shown she needed two things to thrive: safety and independence. He’d bet one or both of them had been threatened. The caveman routine probably wasn’t helping.
“Easy,” he murmured, rising and returning to the chair in front of her desk, prepared to launch a different, less-aggressive tactic. But as he folded himself into the miniature visitor’s seat, a speculative gleam overtook her gaze. She tilted her head, then drummed her index and middle fingers against a lifted chin.
After several moments of assessment, she said, “You still box,” as if his hobby were a revelation.
“Competitively. I never quit, though the winnings aren’t quite as important these days.”
She stared out the window. When she turned back, her flat look was heavy with decision. “I don’t trust you.”
He nodded, swallowing a coaxing retort.
“But you’re smart. Strong. And though you hung me up emotionally, I don’t think you want to see me hurt—physically, that is.”
“An understatement,” he said mildly. Hearing her describe his supposed feelings with such clinical calm nearly killed him. But he’d fix that later.
“I do need someone. A bodyguard of sorts. Nothing more, nothing less.”
He stilled. A bodyguard? Scarlet needed physical protection?
Her gaze shot past him, blank. “Gerard Chamber is free, and he wants another stab—no pun intended—at me.”
Breath abandoned him. After twenty seconds, he pounded on her d
esk to kick start the instinct to inhale. Then, bit by bit, he extracted himself from the damn micro-chair and inched back around the desk before gripping her head between both hands.
“Start talking.”
******
Elbows to thighs, Ethan sat on the edge of Scarlet’s spare bed with his hands clasped between his knees, waiting. Scarlet had alluded to loving him once. He’d laughed at her, implied she only said so in an attempt at manipulation. Now, when Ethan would give anything to break through her barriers, she took his help but kept herself locked away.
At least she trusted him to keep her body safe. It beat what he’d started out with.
A knock at the door brought Ethan to his feet. Scarlet stood in her bright hallway. Expression cautious, she held out a light summer blanket and several towels.
Guess he wouldn’t be helping her shower this time around.
She’d told him of Gerard’s release and that the bastard continued to evade arrest. In halting phrases, he’d dragged the entire story from her stiff lips. The Chamber family’s eviction… Anna Chamber’s murder… The perceived connection between Scarlet’s father, the Cora Tower, and the girl’s death. She’d even told him of a short-lived flight to cheaper rents—courtesy of finding JTS’s advertisement for her replacement online—and how she’d broken her new lease in the East Village when Gerard had appeared on her front steps.
Through it all, he’d been waiting for her, thinking he’d done her a favor. In reality, he’d nearly gotten her fired, evicted, and killed. In that order. If he hadn’t fired her, and with her JTS, she wouldn’t have faced unemployment. If her job had been secure, she wouldn’t have feared missing rent at the Cora. If she hadn’t been worried about the money, she wouldn’t have been traveling back and forth between her old and new apartments in the middle of the night, getting used to the exposure and eventually opening herself to a psychopath who wanted her dead.
No wonder he’d been relegated to the hired help.
For all the detail he’d coaxed out of her, the earrings had gone unmentioned. After the better part of a day, he’d realized her diamond studs, or lack thereof, had pricked his awareness in her office. When he’d caressed her face, they hadn’t winked at him through the silken mass of her hair. Instead, he’d seen more scars.
No explanation necessary. Ethan knew exactly what she’d done in a last-ditch effort to stay at the Cora.
Remorse balled in his gut, spreading outward to his limbs like he’d inhaled anthrax. Yet it wasn’t enough to torture himself with the knowledge of the hardship he’d caused. Forgiveness aside—because she may never offer it—he had to fix the damage.
Questions swirling in his brain, he moved slightly to the side and motioned her toward the bed with the linens, hoping little intimacies like close quarters—if only for a few moments—would reignite the spark.
Scarlet pressed in, careful to avoid physical contact, and set the supplies on the covers. “Do you need anything else?”
A dry swallow stuck in his throat. She wore a pair of black yoga pants that molded to every curve. Her baby tee fell to the waist, exposing a sliver of smooth skin between its hem and her low-rise waistband.
When he didn’t answer her question, she spun around, first looking at him and then down at herself, no doubt noticing the sweat that dampened her shirt between her breasts. “I work out here in the apartment. Guess I’ve taken on some sloppy habits.”
“No. It’s”—so fucking hot—“fine. I want you comfortable. That’s what I’m here for.” To please.
Scarlet looked around him to the doorway he now blocked. Gerard’s reappearance had taken a toll. She’d come out of her shell so much in Denmark, and as it sounded, even more here with her bold attempts to rent a more reasonable apartment and investigate Gerard. But her shallow breathing and the way her eyes darted around the room told another story. The drone of low-grade stress and fear had cost her.
Seeing it cost him.
With a casual sidestep, he propped a shoulder against the open door, clearing her path.
“Scarlet,” he said as she flitted past, obviously eager to end the moment.
She stopped next to him, eyes fixed forward.
He reached for her stiff shoulder but pulled back. “Gerard Chamber won’t get to you.” But I will.
In profile, her chin dipped in subtle acknowledgement. “Thank you.”
Then she was gone.
Chapter 25
The aroma of coffee drifted into Scarlet’s room with the sunshine. She rolled over, pulling her pillow against the crook of her neck on a deep sigh. Eggs hit next. Then cheese. Hesitant to leave the dream without a taste of bubbling cheddar, her eyes barely cracked. What she wouldn’t give for eggs over toast, accompanied by a stream of scalding, nutty coffee.
A loud clank sounded from the direction of the kitchen—metal against her gas range—and she jolted upright. She wasn’t alone. Her apartment really did smell like a bed and breakfast. Panic saturated her senses, and she dove for her phone on the nightstand. As her fingers slipped over the plastic casing, she remembered.
Ethan. In residence.
The tantalizing aromas had interrupted a deep slumber. Funny how Ethan had that effect on her when sleep was the last thing he brought to mind. After talking to him the night before in his room, she remembered showering, and then… nothing.
She snatched her hand to her chest and slid from beneath the covers.
In her closet she found an ice-blue satin robe. After securing the material with a tie about the waist, she set out to find the chef.
One step into the hall had her returning to her bathroom. She brushed her teeth and hair. Splashed cold water over her face and smoothed on a dab of moisturizer. And, hell, a tiny bit of tinted lip gloss never hurt anyone.
He’d practically admitted to tearing her down for her own sake, and she couldn’t accept that kind of management. Yet he threw himself into protecting her without question or hesitation.
A little primping for a guardian like that had to be normal. Surely.
In the kitchen Ethan manned the stove. He slid something that smelled divine onto a plate. With the reach of a long muscular arm, he set what had to be a five-egg omelet in front of her place at the bar. Lips sealed, he took in the deep vee of her robe. When he looked up, his pupils had dilated, telling her exactly what he wanted for breakfast.
“Ethan, I’m not the entire first string of the New York Giants. I can’t eat this.”
He bent over the counter, fork in hand, and sliced off a corner of the omelet. Holding it to her lips, he enticed her to bite down. “You can try for me.”
As she chewed, he pressed a steaming mug to her palm, never taking his gaze from her mouth. “Eat what you can. I’ll handle the rest.”
There was an edge to having such a big man in her small kitchen. Cooking for her. Feeding her. No doubt she sampled a winning omelet. But in worn jeans and a faded black T-shirt that emphasized the lean sculpt of his arms and torso, Ethan didn’t look tame enough for domestic use.
A fork clattered against the porcelain of his plate. “That depends on the type of use you have in mind, sweetheart.”
She choked on the food. Not again.
After a long, hard look, he let it drop. Still standing on the opposite side of her bar, his omelet disappeared with clean, efficient movements. Then he quietly ate half of hers.
“You mentioned Donna Chamber’s preoccupation with the Landmarks Preservation Commission.” His tone dripped suspicion.
Scarlet slurped a spoonful of coffee, wishing she could ignore his question. “I did.”
“You know something,” he observed smoothly.
She set the spoon aside and plunked an elbow down on the counter, cradling her cheek in an elevated hand. “Gerard’s mother had a point. It would have been an extraordinary move for the Commission to approve the demolition of an entire apartment complex in a historical district, especially to be replaced with an ultramodern high-ris
e.”
“A bribe?”
Bribe, payoff, kickback. “Maybe.” She’d avoided saying the words, even thinking them too loudly, as though denial could distance her father from her attack.
Stillness fell over them, and she got the impression he played a hundred different scenarios out in his head, missing nothing.
“Business as usual for you today,” he announced with a glance at his watch. “I’ll take you to the office. Then I’ll dig into it. Brian and Billboard have my affairs handled.”
Wait. Instinctive gratitude flooded her system. But that wouldn’t do. As late as yesterday, he’d sworn her off. Today he offered easy understanding, safety, breakfast, and now help making sense of it all.
Wary, she cleared her throat with a discrete cough. “Why are you doing this?”
The fork making its way to his mouth stopped in mid-air. “I wish you didn’t have to ask.”
Hearing the news from him might ease its sting, but letting him take over would send her tumbling halfway down a slope that still looked awfully slippery. She could find the answers, knew where to look.
“I’ll handle the research. We settled on protection. Nothing more, nothing less.”
He repeated the last along with her.
******
The trick would be ensuring Scarlet’s safety while using her as bait.
Ethan picked Scarlet up at her building late in the afternoon. Brian walked her from her desk to the passenger door of Ethan’s car while Ethan scrutinized the urban landscape surrounding her office. Satisfied, he drove them straight to the Cora. She obviously equated her building with safety, but he’d begun to think they should relocate to his penthouse, if not Bermuda.
His mood darkened. Leaving wouldn’t draw Gerard out.
Entering from the secure garage, she checked her mail and they rode the elevator to the twentieth floor. Within an hour, dinner arrived in the lobby.
“Do you think it’s strange he hasn’t made a move?” Scarlet asked, eyeing a bite of filet mignon. “It’s been days and… nothing.”