Van made sure she was closest to the rail, stepping up behind her, putting his massive body between her and the crowds.
She was sure his protectiveness was instinctive and maybe it should have irritated her, yet she found herself feeling the opposite. Like she was being taken care of, which was somehow even more disturbing.
Don’t get close to him. He won’t give you what you want.
Yes, she knew that and it was okay, because she didn’t want anything, not from him. Or at least, what she wanted, she had already. Besides, he might be gorgeous and protective, might have given her pleasure beyond her wildest dreams, but in many ways, he was a lot like Noah. There was a core of reserve in him, as if she’d only ever be allowed so far and no further, and that was something she definitely did not want.
If she ever fell for someone, it was going to be for someone who’d give himself to her as fully as she gave herself to him. Not someone who’d only give her a few little pieces now and then.
She didn’t want to be somebody’s afterthought, not again.
“I’d love to skate.” She leaned on the rail, watching a woman pirouette gracefully on the ice. “Pity we can’t do it now.”
“We only have a couple of minutes before he shows up. Which means I have to leave.”
Nervousness twisted inside her, but she refused to give into it. Instead she kept her attention on the skater. “Okay. Maybe when this is all over then.”
There was a silence behind her.
Then she felt his hands settle on her hips and she was being turned around firmly.
He was looking down at her, the lights around them casting the most fascinating shadows across his face, highlighting the proud line of his nose and the sharp edges of his cheekbones. The flicker of apprehension in his eyes had gone, a furious light burning there instead. “You fucking better stay safe,” he ordered, low and intense, as if he was angry with her. “Understand me?”
But she knew he wasn’t angry. He was worried. And it came to her that for all his big, tough, SEAL attitude, right in this moment, he was as vulnerable as she was.
No, he wasn’t like Noah. Not in the slightest.
Her heart gave a kick inside her chest, making it difficult to breathe for a second. “I will,” she said thickly. “I promise.”
That fierce stare of his felt too hot, too consuming, and just when she thought she was going to catch fire right there and then, he cupped her face in his hands and bent his head, covering her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss.
There was something desperate about it, and possessive too, as if he was branding her or reminding her of something, and she found herself reaching up to push her hands in his short hair, wanting to hold onto him. Keep him there. But even as she did so, he was raising his head and letting her go, stepping back and away from her before she had a chance to touch him. Then, giving her one last intent, piercing look, he turned away, melting into the crowd.
She shouldn’t watch him go and yet she couldn’t help it, her mouth burning from his touch, unable to tear her gaze from the sight of his tall figure moving swiftly, threading through the knots of people with ease.
You’re alone again.
Chloe gave herself a shake, then dragged her attention away from Van, turning back to the rail once more, watching the skaters glide over the ice, ignoring the churning sensation in her gut.
No, she wasn’t alone. Not this time. She had Van and he was out there in the crowd, ready to come for her if she needed him. And he would, she had no doubt of that, no doubt at all.
A few minutes passed and then there was movement at her elbow, someone leaning against the rail next to her.
“Hello Chloe,” a smooth male voice said.
And even though she’d been expecting him, a bolt of shock raced down her spine anyway, and when she turned, she found herself staring into a pair of very blue, very familiar eyes.
Cesare de Santis smiled at her. “I got your email.”
* * *
Van moved through the crowds, his attention moving outward, every sense focused on the movement of the people around him, watching their faces, alert to their movements, reading them for any signs of threat.
Easier to do that than to think about Chloe, standing there at the rail by herself, waiting for that asshole de Santis to come. All alone and unprotected.
Instinct kicked at him to turn around and go back for her, pick her up and bundle her into a taxi, take her home. Make sure de Santis never found her.
But he shoved the feeling away, moving instead to a position by the rink that was far enough away that de Santis couldn’t spot him, yet close enough for him to keep an eye on Chloe and be ready should she give the signal.
If anything happens to her, it’ll be your fault, asshole. You should never have agreed to this.
No, maybe he shouldn’t, yet what other options were there? He couldn’t risk calling de Santis’s bluff on the takeover bid, not when they didn’t quite have all the information, and besides, they weren’t actually clear on what the prick actually wanted anyway. Which was something they needed to find out in order to deal with him once and for all.
Moving around the rink, Van paused near a large group of European tourists, standing back from the rail and casting a glance back to where he’d left Chloe.
She was standing by herself, watching the skaters. Her hood had fallen back, her hair tumbling down her back in an inky fall, black as the Wyoming night sky. She looked so small, so vulnerable. De Santis could take her so easily.
His fingers curled into fists in his pockets, but he didn’t move. She was right, it wasn’t in de Santis’s interests to harm her and certainly trying anything here, in a public space, wouldn’t be in his interests either.
But he could take her hostage. He could do that very easily. What would the old man say if that happened?
His jaw was so tight he could have ground concrete with it. Yeah, he didn’t need to imagine what Noah would say. He knew.
“Don’t tell me about what you didn’t achieve, Sullivan,” Noah used to say. “I don’t want to hear about the failures. Only the successes matter. Only the wins.”
There would be no wins if he lost Chloe. There would be no wins ever again. But he wasn’t under any illusions that the real difficulty here was dealing not only with the past and what had happened to Sofia, but also with his own control issues.
He had to trust Chloe to handle herself. To be strong. And he hadn’t realized quite how hard that would be until he’d walked away from her.
She’s got you by the balls.
He tried not to think about that. Tried to ignore the tension winding tighter and tighter inside him as he forced himself to look away from her small figure. Instead he studied the crowds around her, trying to see if he could spot de Santis or his men. But either the idiot who’d given himself away a couple of days ago at the Tate mansion was an isolated incident, or de Santis had hired better security, because all he could see were office workers and tourists.
Okay, so where was de Santis? The bastard would be there somewhere around, Van was sure of it. Unless, of course, this insistence on seeing Chloe was a ruse …
He glanced back at where she’d been standing a moment earlier.
She was gone.
An intense cold feeling settled in his gut and began to spread out, tendrils of ice snaking through his bloodstream. Ah, Christ, he could not let this get to him. He could not.
Switching into military mode, calm but alert, he made his way to the terrace above the rink, scanning the crowds for anyone who even looked remotely like Chloe. There were any one of a number of reasons for her not to be by that rail of course, except he couldn’t think of a single one.
Deep inside him the cold shifted, twisted harder, tighter.
See? This is what happens when you trust someone to handle themselves.
Van shoved the snide voice ruthlessly aside.
She wasn’t around the sides of the rink so he widened his perimeter, movin
g to take in the whole of the plaza area, scanning for anything, anything at all that might be suspicious or give any clue as to where she’d gone.
He couldn’t see her though. He just couldn’t see her.
The cold was beginning to rise up into his chest, freezing his heart, his lungs, making them feel like he couldn’t take a breath, and he had to stop for a moment to get some fucking air.
This shouldn’t be affecting him as badly as it was and he couldn’t seem to get a grip on himself. He’d never felt this way when he’d been protecting anyone else, not even Sofia, so what the fuck was with him now?
Because it’s her. Because it’s Chloe.
Maybe that was it. She was family after all.
It’s more than that and you know it.
But before he could acknowledge that, suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, on the street and partially hidden by the crowds, he saw a long, low black car pulled up to the curb. A limo. There were three guys in suits standing near it, all of them built, all of them surveying the crowd with the same slow, intense focus as he’d been doing not seconds earlier.
Military, he could tell. And armed. He could tell that too.
The cold seemed to swallow him whole, because there was no question at all in his mind who that car belonged to.
Cesare de Santis. The bastard had turned up after all.
Instantly, Van was moving, pulling his Glock from the waistband of his jeans and holding it low down at his side as he headed straight toward the limo. There were so many fucking people and he didn’t want to cause a scene, so he had to thread his way through the crowds without drawing attention. It hampered him, especially when all he wanted to do was to fling all these fucking idiots standing between him and de Santis out of the way and just go at the guy.
He was here for Chloe, of that Van was certain.
As he dodged a crowd of Japanese tourists, he caught a glimpse of a tall man with gray hair approaching the limo. One of the military assholes guarding the car made for the rear door, pulling it open. The tall man stopped, moving aside, making way for a small, slight figure in a dark blue hoodie.
Chloe. What the hell was she doing?
Everything fell away. The crowds, the guards, even the prick standing next to her. There was only her. Only her and the distance between them. A distance he was never going to close if he didn’t start running right the fuck now.
That primitive and deeply possessive thing inside him roared to life and he did start to run, not caring about drawing attention to himself. Not caring about people or obstacles standing in his way. All he cared about was getting to her before de Santis forced her into that car and took her away from him.
Someone shouted after him and someone else cursed, heads turning as he sprinted toward the car, shoving people out of the way. But he didn’t take any notice of them, all his attention focused on that small, slight figure.
“Chloe!” He hurled her name through the air that separated them and she lifted her head and turned toward him. De Santis had his hand on her back and Van couldn’t tell what the expression was on her face because she was too far away, but she looked white. Christ, if she’d been hurt or scared in any way, he was going to kill someone. And he meant that literally.
The assholes guarding the car had seen him and were coming toward him now, their hands already going for their weapons. Fucking idiots. Didn’t they know who he was? He’d be able to take them on one-handed even if he hadn’t had Chloe to defend. But with her on the line … well, they’d be lucky if he let them come away with their balls intact let alone alive.
“Chloe!” he shouted again, already raising his arm as asshole number one reached him. He smashed the fucker over the face with the butt of his Glock, only just remembering that pulling the trigger in a plaza full of people would be a really fucking stupid idea. The prick went down, but number two was already on him. Luckily Van already had that covered, delivering a vicious, hard punch to the man’s gut that had him doubling over, choking.
Chloe was still turned toward him, staring, transfixed. And he realized belatedly that no one had a gun on her and that de Santis had dropped his hand from her back. There was nothing stopping her from running to him, nothing to stop her escape. Yet she wasn’t moving.
Asshole number three was suddenly in his face, the barrel of something small and sleek sticking into his gut. Reflexively, Van reached for it, wrenching it to the side and twisting to pull it out of the other man’s grip.
De Santis had bent his head, murmuring something in Chloe’s ear and she turned to look up at him.
Someone hit Van from behind, a vicious kick to the kidney, making him catch his breath. Fuck, he was getting distracted. He shifted, sending his elbow back, connecting with something hard that made a cracking sound. Then, reaching forward fast with the same arm, he grabbed the guy in front of him around the neck, pulling him down at the same time as Van drove his knee up into the man’s stomach. The guy groaned, dropping like a stone to lie gasping on the ground.
Chloe had turned back to look at Van but still she made no move toward him. The guy he’d elbowed tried to trip him, but he avoided it easily, delivering a kick to the asshole he’d kneed in the stomach for good measure, starting back toward the limo again.
Maybe she was too afraid to move. Maybe she was in shock and didn’t know what to do.
Footsteps behind him. Clearly, one of those pricks had decided to come back for more.
Van ignored him, raising his Glock as he moved. “Don’t, Chloe!” he roared at her. “Get down!”
But she didn’t. She only stared at him for one long second before turning away and getting into the car.
He shouted her name again, aiming at de Santis’s head, ready to pull that fucking trigger and blow the guy the fuck away if he had to. But the bastard only smirked at him and followed Chloe into the limo as if he didn’t have a gun pointed at his head by a SEAL commander full of murderous rage.
You can’t do this in public, you fucking idiot. You’re in full fucking view. What are the media going to say about the new heir of Tate Oil opening fire in Rockefeller Plaza?
The limo was pulling away from the curb, accelerating into traffic, and his hand was shaking with the effort to keep himself from pulling that trigger because, unfortunately, it was all true. He couldn’t kill a man in public, neither could he start shooting at the car.
And actually, if he didn’t get out of here now, he was going to be at risk of being picked up by the police. Yeah, his superiors would be pretty unimpressed with him if that happened.
Rage burned inside him, hot and thick and choking. And beneath that, a fear he didn’t want to acknowledge.
Behind him someone was getting ready to throw a punch—he could tell by the rustle of fabric and the slight sound of an indrawn breath. Turning sharply, Van smashed his fist into the guy’s face. He went down without a sound.
People were shouting, a crowd starting to gather.
Van didn’t wait. His hood had fallen back so he pulled it up and turned in the direction of Lucas’s apartment, fury and the terrible, sick sense that somehow something had gone wrong with Chloe flooding through him.
Something had gone wrong and he didn’t know what it was.
They both knew de Santis was an enemy and that her safety with him couldn’t be guaranteed, yet she hadn’t given Van the signal. And she’d gotten into that car willingly.
She’d seen him charging toward her and she’d still gotten in.
A dangerous kind of feeling lurched inside him, but he refused it. He couldn’t afford any feelings right now, not a single one. The only thing that mattered was getting Chloe back.
Ignoring the rage and the strange emotion that felt oddly like betrayal, Van started sprinting down the street.
He would not fail another woman. Not this time.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Chloe leaned back against the ridiculously soft creamy leather of the limo’s interior, her heart shu
ddering. All she could see was Van’s desperate face as he tried to get to her, the hoarse sound of his voice calling to her ringing in her ears. He’d thought she was being kidnapped …
You know what this will do to him.
She looked down at her hands clasped tightly together in her lap. Yeah, she knew. But going with de Santis had been the only way. He’d promised her that all her questions would be answered if she came with him. And yes, she knew how empty promises were from fathers, but it was a chance she couldn’t give up.
She and Van had to know whether de Santis had enough shares for a hostile takeover and what he wanted with her.
It’s not just about that. You want some answers yourself.
Well, that was true. She did. Answers about a great many things, and no one could give her those answers but the man sitting beside her.
So yes, going with de Santis without giving Van a heads-up was a calculated risk, but it was a risk she had to take. She’d asked Van to trust her to handle herself and she hoped he would. Anyway, the sooner she got the answers, the sooner Van could fulfill his responsibility to her and get back to the Navy, where he belonged.
“Don’t worry,” Cesare de Santis—her father—said, settling into the seat beside her. “He’ll be fine.”
“I’m not worried.” She didn’t turn and look out the back window, some instinct telling her it was better not to reveal too much in front of this man and most especially not the nature of her relationship with Van. Luckily, she’d had a lot of practice with keeping her feelings locked down.
“You don’t much care for your brother?” The question was casual-sounding, almost offhand.
“Foster brother,” Chloe corrected absently, studying her hands. They were white. She hadn’t realized how cold she’d been until she’d gotten into the limo where it was nice and warm. “And no. He’s a little arrogant for my tastes.”
“Well, that’s true.” There was an amused note in de Santis’s voice. “He wasn’t happy to see you leave with me, that’s for sure.”
Chloe let her lashes fall for a second, a quiver running through her at the look on Van’s face just before she’d gotten into the limo. Because he would have seen that she wasn’t being forced into it, that it wasn’t a kidnapping. That she’d deliberately chosen to go with de Santis.
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