by Lucy Monroe
“Elle, sugar, I think you should pull over.”
“What?” She swiped at her cheeks. “Why?”
“You’re crying.”
“No, I’m not. Crying is for the weak, and I’m strong.”
“Princess, stop the car. Now.”
Elle found herself obeying, pulling into a lay-by and turning off the sports car’s purring engine.
Beau unbuckled both their seat belts and then pulled her against his chest, and damned if she didn’t let loose a sob.
“Why didn’t I teach him, Beau? Why was I so stupid?”
“Did he want to learn?”
“No. Kyle was a pacifist. He hated weapons and fighting.” But he’d loved her. He’d never once asked Elle to change careers. He’d always supported her. “I failed him.”
“It doesn’t sound like that to me. He wouldn’t have let you teach him if you’d offered.”
“I did offer.” And Beau was right. Kyle had turned her down. “I should have made him.”
“When you love someone, you respect his or her choices. You can’t force yours on that person.” He said it with such certainty, she could tell he knew exactly what he was talking about.
“But he would be alive right now.”
“No. You can’t change the past no matter how much you want to, not even in your own mind. If Kyle was a pacifist, he wouldn’t have fought the kidnappers regardless.”
“To save his own life…”
“You can’t change who he was and you wouldn’t want to, would you?”
“No.” She had loved Kyle so much. “He was an amazing man.”
“It’s not your fault he’s gone.”
“It feels like it. I should have been there to save him.”
“Maybe then you would be dead now, along with him.”
“I’m good at what I do.”
Beau chuckled. “All right, princess, no slurs on your deadliness, but all the what-ifs in the world aren’t going to bring Kyle back. They just make you miserable and I’m sure that’s not what he would have wanted.”
“How do you know?”
“He loved you. When you love someone, you want that person to be happy.”
Elle let the words sink in as she laid that particular ghost to rest. Kyle would not have wanted to learn self-defense and might very well have refused to use it if she had succeeded in bullying him into the lessons. She would never lose all the guilt she felt about being on assignment when her husband’s life was taken, but like Beau said…the past couldn’t be changed.
She realized she was snuggled in his muscular arms, having soaked his shirt with tears. Mortified at her weakness, she pushed away from him. “Maybe you should drive the rest of the way.”
Her eyes were still blurry.
“No problem.” The glee in Beau’s voice brought a small smile to her lips.
He definitely liked the idea of driving her car.
Mat knocked loudly on Chantal’s apartment door and then stepped back so she could see him through the peephole. He heard her on the other side of the door, but it didn’t open.
“Let me in, little one. We need to talk.” It was past time.
“It’s not a good time,” she said through the door.
He leaned against the wall facing the door. “I am not going anywhere.”
After a few seconds, the door swung inward. Chantal frowned at him from the open doorway. “You are very stubborn.”
He shrugged, pushing himself away from the wall and toward her.
Dressed in a fuzzy robe, bare feet peeking out from below the hem, Chantal retreated from his advance into her domain. He followed her, closing and locking the door behind him.
She stopped in the middle of the combination living-dining area. “What are you doing here? How did you find me?”
She sounded panicked. That was a little over the top for him showing up on her doorstep unannounced. He didn’t have to be a superspy, like his younger brother and sister were, to recognize that something was going on.
“I’m here because we need to talk. As for how I found you, you aren’t the only one who knows how to look an address up on the Internet.” Which wasn’t actually how he’d found her, but admitting he’d looked in her employee file might make him sound like a stalker, or like he was desperate, or something.
Her face lost all color, right down to her bow-shaped lips. “I thought I was unlisted.”
“Okay, so I looked in your employee file. You going to tell Frank?”
“No, I…Uh, what do we have to talk about?”
“Why did you run out of my office this afternoon?” She hadn’t just left his office; she’d left the building. He’d tried to call her, but gotten her voice mail. He hadn’t left a message.
He would have been here right after he got off from work, but he had promised Mama he would be there for dinner with Elle at the family home. He’d wanted to talk to his sister about Gil Bigsley anyway, but now he was starting to wonder if he should have gone with his first instinct and come directly to Chantal’s.
“I had things to do.”
“They weren’t work related. You left ETRD entirely.”
Her gaze was filled with worry; she bit her lip in a gesture that was growing familiar as well as more and more arousing.
Just like earlier in his office, he couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to save that sweet little bit of flesh. He gently pressed against it with his thumb. “Stop that.”
She released her lip with a small gasp, her hazel eyes dilating.
“You were starting to cry. In my office,” he reminded her, in case she’d forgotten.
She looked on the verge of tears now. “I…I had something in my eye.”
“You are a lousy liar.”
“Maybe because I’m so rotten at telling when someone is lying to me,” she said sadly, her small shoulders drooping.
“Who has been lying to you, little one?”
“I…it’s not important.”
“It is to me.”
“Why?”
“We’re friends.”
“Are we?” She spun on her heel and walked quickly toward the kitchen area.
He followed her but stopped short when he saw the packed suitcase beside the two-person bistro-style table that comprised her dining room.
“What’s going on? You have a trip planned?”
She ignored him and walked into the kitchenette. It was separated from the rest of the living area by only a set of waist-high cabinets. “Would you like something to drink?”
“No, I want to know what this is for.” He tapped the suitcase with his foot.
She tried for a casual shrug, but it came off jerky and more than a little false. “I decided to take your advice and go visit my cousins.”
“When did you make this decision?”
“Tonight.” She turned and grabbed a glass from one of the upper cabinets on the far wall above the sink.
“They must not be too far away.”
“Actually, they’re out of the country,” she said, then snapped her mouth shut as if she regretted saying that.
“So, what? You’re going to spend tomorrow flying, spend a few hours with them and fly back Sunday? Sounds to me like you should plan this trip a little better.”
“I’m not coming back on Sunday.”
“You haven’t cleared a vacation with ETRD.” He would know; technically, she was his subordinate.
“You can tell Frank I’ll be gone.”
“How long?” His frustration grew with her vague answers, each of which only increased his growing certainty that she was in some kind of trouble.
“I don’t know.”
“What the hell is going on?” The words exploded out of him. Okay, so patience wasn’t his strong suit.
She jumped and dropped the glass she’d taken out of the cabinet. It landed in the sink, shattering. She stared down at the broken glass as if it held answers to the secrets of the universe.
He was in the kitchen in a heartbeat, pulling her into his arms. “Tell me what’s wrong, Chantal.”
“I can’t.”
“You can.” He cupped the nape under her silky blond mane. “You will.”
She shook her head.
“Yes. Little one, I can help you. You need to trust me.”
“Like I did ten years ago?”
Chapter 6
Mat had known the travesty of what had happened ten years ago would come up. How could it not? He had made a huge mistake and was only now realizing the cost it had on his own life.
He’d seen the cost to Chantal in her beautiful, vulnerable gaze ten years ago.
“That was a different time. I was younger. An idiot.” The words were a lot easier to say than Mat would have thought. Perhaps because he now knew how true they were.
“No, I was the stupid one. I thought a superhunk like you could really be interested in a geek like me.”
“I was interested.”
“In adding my virginity as a notch on your bedpost maybe.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Yes, it was.”
“My girlfriend had just dumped me. We were talking marriage and then suddenly she wanted out. She wanted to date other guys; she said I bored her. I was proving something to myself.”
“That you could seduce a geeky virgin? Doesn’t seem like you proved all that much.”
“You were shy, not a geek. But your shyness wasn’t the problem; my feelings were. I still loved my girlfriend, or thought I did. I realized the next morning I’d been totally unfair to you.”
“So, you dumped me and walked away.”
“I thought it was the right thing to do.” He wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, though. He would not be walking away. He would prove he was trustworthy too, no matter what the past held.
“You might as well walk away right now too.” She sounded resigned, but unhappy at the prospect. “Trust me, it’s for the best.”
It was her evident unhappiness that gave him hope. “That’s not happening.”
“It has to. Please, Mat. You’ve got to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” He rubbed her back through the fuzzy bathrobe. “Now, tell me what’s going on.”
“I’m scared, Matej.”
He loved the way she said his full name with that slight French accent. It made him hard, but it touched his heart too.
He tipped her head back with his hold at her nape. Their eyes met and he wouldn’t let her look away. “What’s scaring you?”
She just shook her head.
“Tell me, little one.”
“You need to go.”
The hell with that. He wasn’t leaving her like this, scared and all teary-eyed. She needed him.
He picked her up and held her cradled against his chest.
“Yipes!” She really said yipes.
Adorable.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“You broke a glass…you have bare feet.”
“It broke in the sink!”
“A piece could have landed on the floor. We can’t risk you cutting yourself.”
“Sacre bleu! You are being ridiculous.”
“You think?”
“Oui. Yes.”
“Did you know you slip into French when you are agitated? I noticed it when we made love ten years ago. You are still doing it.”
“That wasn’t making love; that was sex,” his little kitten spat. “There were no feelings attached to it.”
“You were in love with me. That is a feeling.”
“You…you…I…” she sputtered.
“Yes, you and I. And it was good. Very good. I was a fool to walk away from what we shared, but I will not be that misguided again.”
“We shared nothing.”
“Oh, but we did. We shared our bodies. We shared our hearts.”
“Your heart wasn’t involved.”
“I did not realize it, but it was. I now know that I left a big chunk of it behind with you. I want a full heart again.”
“You don’t mean that,” she said on a gasp.
“Have I ever lied to you, even when it would have been easier on both of us?”
Chantal stared at Mat, for once her fear fading in the face of a stronger emotion. He could only hope it was what he hoped—that she still had feelings for him. He would fan the flame until it consumed them both. He was done being alone and so was she, even if she didn’t know it yet.
Finally, she spoke. “No.” She cleared her throat, her eyes glistening with suspicious moisture. “No. You have never lied to me.”
“And I never will.”
She nodded, swallowing.
He smiled at her and then walked around the counter into the other part of the room.
“You’re acting like a real Neanderthal,” she said in a conversational tone.
“Is that a good or bad thing?”
She laughed, shaking her head.
He smiled. Laughing was good.
He sat down on the sofa, placing her in his lap in the process. “Now, talk.”
“We can’t sit like this.”
“Why not? I like it.” He liked it a lot. In fact, he was pretty sure if she moved half an inch to her left, she’d feel just how much he liked it.
Chantal wasn’t sure how to answer. She had been on the verge of losing it when Mat arrived, and now she was dealing with a whole other set of emotions on top of the fear and desperation.
Licking her lips, she said, “You are my boss, not my boyfriend.”
“What if I want to be both?”
He couldn’t mean it. “No.”
“Why not?”
“You dumped me ten years ago.” She needed to remember that, but he’d said he was sorry, tried to explain. Even claimed he regretted walking away from her. And he’d never lied to her. Not once. Even when she wished he had. Nevertheless, she said, “I won’t let you hurt me like that again.”
“I won’t let me hurt you like that either. I’m playing for keeps here, little one.” His gray gaze was clear, hiding nothing. Or so she hoped.
“How can you say that? We barely know each other. What we had ten years ago is not now.”
“Neither of us has changed that much.”
“And that is exactly why we can’t date.” Only her arguments sounded hollow even to her own ears.
Chantal had never forgotten Mat and she never would. She’d compared every man she’d dated since to him. She’d daydreamed about him finding her again and telling her he was wrong to let her go. And here it was happening.
How could she trust him, though? Especially now.
“I wanted you then, but I was too stupid to realize it. I’ve gotten smarter in the ways that count.” He grinned down at her. “Mama and Baba are going to be thrilled. But it will not simply be relief that I am finally settling down. They are both going to love you. Papa too.”
Settling down? As in marriage? He couldn’t be talking about something that big. Only, knowing him, she figured he could be. Matej Chernichenko did not live life by anyone else’s rules. He hardly ever smiled at anyone else either. Only her. Why did she have to think of that now? “This is impossible. Stop it. We can’t.”
“Not impossible. Easy actually. It is right.”
She so wanted to believe him, but she shook her head.
“Tell me what’s got you so scared,” he prodded.
Could she? Could she not? “I don’t know where to start.”
“My father always told me the beginning is a good place to start with explanations.”
“Your father is a smart man.”
“He is.”
“I was dating Eddie.”
“Who?”
“Eddie Danza. The security guard who got let go for leaking company secrets.”
Ma
t’s usual frown was back. “The one who disappeared afterward? The security guard disappeared, too.”
“Yes.” Mat must have heard the rumors on the company grapevine. That’s how she found out Eddie had disappeared.
“How long were you dating?”
“A few months.”
“Were you sleeping with him?”
Chantal bristled. “What business is that of yours?”
“Probably no business of mine at all, but you’ll answer the question anyway.”
“I will?”
“Yes.”
“Why?” She might, if he didn’t say something dumb like because he’d told her to.
“You brought up dating him as part of something that’s scaring you enough to send you running to family who don’t want you around.”
“You told me they miss me.”
“And I’m sure they do, but you don’t believe it, and yet, you’re going to see them. I want to know why.”
“What has that got to do with me sleeping with Eddie?”
“I don’t know, but he’s part of this thing that has you wanting to run away. Everything should be out in the open.”
“Yes, all right?” She glared at Mat. “I was as stupid with him as I was with you. I haven’t managed to learn anything about telling the good guys from the creeps in ten years.”
Mat jerked back as if Chantal had slapped him. “I am not a creep.”
“You used me. He used me.”
“I did use you and I regret that more than anything else in my life. I will never use you again.”
“I want to believe you,” she admitted.
“I will help you.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“How did Danza use you?”
She turned her face away, not wanting to see Mat’s expression when she admitted to her naiveté. “I thought that he wanted me…that maybe he even loved me, but he just wanted an in with one of the scientists. I was the one dumb enough to fall for it.”
“Has he been threatening you?”
“No, he disappeared—I told you.”
“But you’re frightened of something.”
“The people he was working with still want the plans he got for them.”
“What plans?”
Chantal forced herself to meet Mat’s eyes, but she saw no disgust there. Just concern. “You heard that security was breached on the antigrav project?”