by Lora Leigh
The investigator paused.
"Out with it," he snapped.
"Sir, Mr. Stanton informed Ms. Rutherford he requested you as a third one night, and you refused the offer."
Chase froze. He could feel the fury rising inside him now, a bleak, dark wave of sheer rage and knowledge.
"Fuck him." He came out of his chair, ignoring Cameron's and Ian's gazes, sharpening in concern. "Stay on him. I'm heading to the apartment building now."
"Yes, sir."
Chase disconnected the call, shoved the phone into the holster at his belt, then lifted his gaze to Ian.
"Stanton's out of control," he snapped. "I want something done with him."
Ian glanced at Cameron, then back to Chase. "You haven't declared her—"
"We made her a fucking promise," he said. "You contact the committee, Ian. I made her a promise and they backed me on it. They backed me on having the investigator check out the problem, and the problem is there. I want it handled."
Ian's eyes narrowed on him. "Within the bounds of your promise." He nodded slowly. "We'll discuss it when you return."
Chase wasn't listening. He slammed out of the office and moved quickly along the hallways to the front door. His car was waiting in the driveway where he had parked it earlier, the keys hanging in the ignition.
He tore out of the estate in a squeal of rubber and a snarl of fury.
Fucking Stanton, he was going to end up having to kill him at this rate. He was to stay away from Kia. Period. If his fist hadn't made that plain enough two years ago, then Chase figured a bit heavier of a blow might get the point across. Several of them perhaps.
Kia could feel the anger, resentment, and the overwhelming embarrassment rising inside her as she slammed the door to her apartment and tossed the bags that had been waiting for her with the apartment manager to the couch.
They tipped, they spilled, and she didn't give a damn. She had to dash away the furious tears beginning to drip from her eyes.
This was why she had stayed out of society. Because the barbs, the cutting remarks, and the pure cruelties that abounded sliced into her in ways she had no idea how to combat.
And Drew had struck the most telling blow since the night he had told her she wasn't woman enough for him. Hell, that had been even before he had brought his damned third in on her.
Chase had rejected her?
The fact that it wouldn't have mattered who Drew brought in that night was beside the point. The fact that had it been Chase she would have died of mortification was beside the point as well.
Chase had rejected her.
She swiped at her tears as she jerked the coverlet from the back of the couch and tossed it across the room. The pillow followed. The rage inside her had no outlet, and she had no idea what to do with it.
She kicked her shoes from her feet and snarled as one slapped into the wall and the other landed somewhere in the kitchen.
She was acting childishly and she knew it. Irrational, her mother would have said. She sniffed and didn't bother to wipe the tears from her face this time. She covered it with her hands, instead, leaned against the wall, and let the first sob break free.
She couldn't even understand why she felt so rejected, so forlorn inside. She felt as though her pride had been stripped again, and she had no idea how to repair the rift.
Oh God, if anyone had heard what he said. Did Rebecca know? Drew and Rebecca's husband were still friends. Did she know what Drew had done? That Chase hadn't wanted her then?
And she had been so pathetic. Eating him with her eyes just as Drew had charged. Fascinated with his dark, tanned good looks, his tall, hard body, the sensual, wicked knowledge in his eyes each time he looked at her.
He had been so far out of her league she had never even attempted to gain his attention. He was one of those men women worshipped from afar because they knew they could never hope to hold him.
She moved into the kitchen, dampened a dish towel, and laid it against her face. She didn't want
to cry. She had shed enough tears two years ago to float a small city. She couldn't afford to do so again.
But it hurt. It hurt to know that Drew had even asked him. The rejection only made the sting deeper, made the cut more jagged.
She wiped the tears from her face, and flinched as the doorbell sounded. More packages, no doubt. There were a few more expected.
Clothing she would likely hang in her closet and never find an occasion on which to wear it.
Lingerie she would wear with no one to see it.
She inhaled harshly. No, that wasn't true. Not this time. The clothes at least would be seen. She would make certain of it.
She stomped to the door and jerked it open.
She wished she had checked to see who was on the other side first.
Before she could slam the door in Khalid's face, he stepped inside and closed it softly behind him.
"Does Chase know you're here?" she asked furiously. "What? Did he send you to do his dirty work for him?"
He tilted his head slowly, the thick black strands of his hair shifting over his shoulders, giving him a dangerous, slightly barbaric look.
"I only do my own dirty work if you don't mind," he drawled. "I saw the confrontation with Stanton at the restaurant. I merely came to see how you fared."
His voice was soft, gentle, a male melody that would ease any woman. Except Kia. He could shove his melody right where it didn't matter who heard it.
"I'm faring just damned fine," she informed him bluntly.
"Yes." He nodded. "I can see this."
He looked around, no doubt seeing the clothes tipped out on the couch and floor, the blanket tossed carelessly across the room, the pillow on the other side of the room. Hell, she had forgotten what happened to her shoes.
"You can leave now. Close the door on your way out." She turned her back to him and paced into the kitchen toward the bottle of wine she had in the refrigerator.
"I haven't heard my damned door close." She turned, and he was there, standing just inside the kitchen, his expression faintly puzzled. "What?" She jerked the cork from the wine and lifted a glass from the glass rack. "I don't have time to deal with you today, Khalid."
"You have other appointments?" he asked her.
"Several." Her smile was full of teeth. "My schedule is filling up fast. Didn't you know?"
"And does Chase know of this?" He arched his brow quizzically.
"Chase wouldn't care if he did know." She held back the sob on that note.
She turned away from him and sipped at the wine as she pulled the freezer open. Cardboard.
She pulled a frozen meal out, ripped off the top, and opened the oven.
"That stuff is detestable." He pulled it from her hand and dumped it in the garbage. "I'll take you to dinner tonight. Something decent. If Chase isn't."<
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A mocking laugh left her lips. Yeah, she could see that one happening. "I asked you to leave, remember? Chase isn't here, Khalid. I can't—"
She turned to him, stared back at him. Pride, she reminded herself, was such a double-edged dagger. "I can't—" She swallowed tightly, unable to say the words "be with him sexually," as simple as they were. "I won't… without him."
"Ah. I see." He nodded, his voice quiet, his black eyes sharp as he watched her. "You're falling in love with him."
"Not hardly." Okay, pride was a dirty word, but she was entitled to a little bit of it. After today, she should be entitled to a whopping load of it.
He frowned then. "Why should it matter if Chase joins us or not?"
She pushed her fingers through her hair and turned away from him again. Exactly, why the hell should it matter? But it did matter.
"Why the hell are you here?" She set her wineglass on the counter, refilled it, and stared back at him, fighting to contain her hurt and anger.
She didn't want to come off as a shrew, or a bitch. She wanted to have a nice little weeping session, in private, and then get on with her life. She didn't want to deal with Khalid or the complications that seemed to have developed in her life lately.
"I came to be certain you were all right." He finally shrugged his shoulders beneath the white silk shirt he wore and shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "You were upset when you left the restaurant, and I wanted to make certain he hadn't—" He grimaced. "That he hadn't taken a bite out of your very lovely pride. But I see that's exactly what he has done."
A bite? Drew had ground her pride into the dust, but that was no one's business but her own.
"And I'm still breathing. What do you think of that?" she retorted mockingly. "Go home, Khalid.
Go find someone else to play with today."
"It doesn't always work that way," he told her broodingly.
"And why doesn't it work that way?" She faced him across the kitchen, wishing he would just leave.
He sighed heavily. "How do you see this relationship between you and Chase, Kia?" he finally asked her. "When a man brings a third in, he has established a trust, a bond between his woman and the friend who touches her as well. Your welfare and your happiness may be his priority, but they are also my concern."
"There would have to be a relationship first," she informed him, her voice brittle. "Only for the pleasure, remember, Khalid?"
He frowned again, his brows lowering heavily over his black eyes. "There is more to pleasure than simply taking you, Kia."
Not as far as Chase was concerned, and Kia wasn't going to inform Khalid of that fact either.
She had stepped into this with eyes wide open. She had known it was for the sex only; if she was starting to feel as though something were missing, then that was her fault, not Chase's.
She lifted her chin and stared back at him. "Did you know Drew asked him, two years ago, to be here?"
"To be his third?" Khalid clarified gently.
Kia nodded, seeing the knowledge in his eyes and forcing back a sob.
"I did not know this," he told her gently. "But Chase would not have mentioned it, little one. Such offers are always kept between those who make or accept them. Does it matter?"
She shrugged uncertainly, trying to figure out how it mattered.
"You feel rejected, do you not?" he asked her then, watching her quietly. "This man who is holding your heart now rejected you even at a time when you could not have accepted him."
"That's not it." But it was, in a way. "And forget I asked. What the hell business is it of yours anyway?"
His lips quirked ruefully. "I make you my business, lovely one, simply because you breathe the air and slide through it with grace and beauty." His eyes twinkled wickedly as he threw out the outrageous compliment.
She didn't want to hear compliments, but her lips twitched before she could control them.
She shook her head as the doorbell rang again. She started for the door and stared in shock as the security disengaged and the doorknob turned. Chase stepped inside, bold as brass, twirling a key in his hand and staring back at her with a hint of anger as he snapped the door closed behind him.
He found Khalid immediately, his gaze moving between her expression and the other man's.
"Is she okay?" he asked Khalid.
"I have yet to establish this," Khalid answered. "A bit angry, though I must admit she may well have reason to be."
"Hello, guys, excuse me. I am still here." She felt like bouncing something off both their heads as she stalked to Chase and jerked the key out of his hand. "How did you get this?"
His brow arched. "Ian owns the building. I'm his employee. Remember?"
She turned and stalked away from him, slapping the key on the counter before she lifted the wine and took a healthy swallow.
"I'm fine. Both of you can leave now."
She didn't look fine. She looked hurt. Pain glittered in her bright eyes. Her face was pale, her lips tight.
"What did he say to you?"
Kia set the wineglass down and stared back at him. God, she loved looking at him. The way his hair brushed over his forehead and framed his dark face. Those light green eyes. He was so tall he made her feel dainty, and so strong he reminded her she was a woman. And so much of what she should have known better than to try to have.
"Why didn't you tell me he asked you to be his third that night?" She finished her wine as she forced the words past her lips.
False courage. Two half glasses were enough. Champagne could put her under the table, wine made her too damned brave. Either way, alcohol was something she knew better than to consume when she needed to keep her wits about her.
She had managed to surprise him. His jaw clenched as he glanced back to Khalid. The other man shrugged, his expression inscrutable.
"I didn't tell you because I didn't want you hurt by it," he finally said. "I turned him down, Kia. I wasn't the one here with him that night."
"Oh yes, I'm very well aware of the fact you turned him down," she said. "He made that quite clear today. How many other people know? How many other men did he approach in that damned club of yours before he got lucky and found a taker?"
She crossed her arms over her breasts and hid her tears with her anger. She felt like a piece of meat that had been on display and hadn't measured up. Which was worse? she wondered.
Knowing she had been on display or knowing she had been rejected?
"I never asked him," Chase answered her, his voice too soft, almost warningly so. "And it doesn't matter at this point."
"But it does matter." She shook her head, trying to hold on to her anger because she didn't have anything else to hold on to.
"You need to stay away from Drew, Kia," Chase told her decisively, his expression flickering with anger as he moved to her, gripped her arms, and watched her demandingly. "Give me time to take care of things and he'll leave you alone again. Until then
, make certain you keep a
distance between you two."
She stared back at him incredulously before jerking her arms away. "Until you can do what?
Take care of things? What are you going to do, Chase? Lock him up somewhere?" She laughed bitterly as she turned her back to him. "Sorry about your luck there, big boy, but this isn't the Wild West. You don't just make your own rules."
"You're to stay away from him, Kia," he spit out again.
She turned back to him, staring at him in fury as he made his demands.
"You are the same man who didn't want me two years ago, right?" she finally asked him. "You know, when I got married, I thought all that preening and posturing to catch male attention was over. Who knew it only got worse? No, I wasn't shopping for a husband anymore. Hell no. I was shopping for a third. Who knew!"
She glared at both of them. They stood there, their gazes brooding as though she were the one who had somehow managed to lose her senses.
"Drew twisted what it's all about, Kia." Chase finally sighed. "You experienced something that was never meant to be."
"So just tell me what it was meant to be then," she demanded. "Or should I guess? Why, the husbands of your great and wonderful club just love their wives so much that they want to make sure there's someone to always watch over them," she said sarcastically. "So you have your little bunch of gigolos who play a nice little third in your beds so she's well and suitably watched over should something happen to you, right?"
"Gigolo?" Khalid murmured. "Should I be insulted, Chase?"
"Probably," Chase drawled, glancing at Kia with a hint of amusement.
"Definitely," she shot back at him. "So why don't you leave? Then you won't have to be insulted any longer."
"Sorry, baby, you got the terms a little off there." Chase tsktd .
"And you've got your arrogance a little off, Falladay," she snapped back. "I really don't care what your little boys club is or how their game-playing works. What I do care about is being humiliated, not once, but twice by one of your members. What I do care about is keeping my mouth shut to preserve your damned secrecy while that bastard you protect stands in public and begins informing me to my face that I was rejected in a dirty little game I didn't have any interest in."
