“What?” The unexpectedness, the bluntness of his questions, froze her mind.
He turned, his eyes dark with irritation. “Would you go to dinner with me?”
“Yes.” The word slipped from her mouth.
His heavy exhalation sounded loud in the room. “Well, that’s all I need to hear. Stop fighting me. Let’s just see what happens. No pressure. No assumptions.”
Angela huffed out a laugh. “No pressure? Robert is the pressure. Just because I’d like to have dinner with you doesn’t change the fact I’m on the run from an ex-husband who now knows where to find me.”
He shook his head, his jaw set. “I’m not going to let you give Masters permission to come back and destroy the new life you’re building.”
Irritation simmered in her stomach. “You won’t let me?”
“No.”
Their eyes locked. The irritation hitched up a notch and she crossed her arms. “And that makes you better than him?”
“What?”
“Aren’t you just throwing your weight around, telling me what to do?”
His eyes grew wide with disbelief. “Of course not.”
She opened her mouth to say more, but words failed her. What the hell was she doing? He didn’t deserve to have her psychological damage slathered all over him when he was doing nothing more than being nice. Guilt twisted. She was running out of ideas to keep him at bay. Robert had turned her into someone she didn’t like in any shape or form. She looked to the floor, shame burning her cheeks. “Nothing can start between us, Chris.”
Silence.
She looked up.
Angela guessed the frustration burning in his eyes was reflected in hers. The tension between them burned hot. Out of reach. In a different time, a different life, she would’ve strode forward and pressed her lips hard to his, leaned into his fit, muscular body and let him kiss her, touch her, take her, right there and then. The heat between them was so dangerous it drew her to him with a pull she had to fight with every ounce of her self-control. If she didn’t, the result could be disastrous.
She squeezed her eyes shut, unable to look at him. “This is a bad time for both of us to get into...whatever it is you think we should be getting into.”
Each fraught second beat with her heart. The movement of his feet across the carpet made her tremble. No. Don’t, Chris, please.
He touched her arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”
She opened her eyes. His soft hazel eyes bored into hers and took a little more of her resistance. “Neither am I.”
“Then what are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know.”
His gaze wandered over her face and hair, everything deathly quiet. “Give this a chance.”
She shook her head and looked past his shoulder when traitorous tears threatened at her eyes. “I can’t. Robert’s not going to scare me away, and he shouldn’t you, either, but if he sees us together...”
“We’ll deal with that if or when it happens.”
The softness in his voice wrapped around her heart. “I can’t.”
He lifted his hand and brushed some of her fallen hair behind her ear. “You can. Let me take you out to dinner. If you don’t want to see me or talk to me after that, I’ll leave you alone. I see something in your eyes when you look at me and I want to keep it there.”
She swallowed. God, he was so handsome. So kind. So caring. So strong. “What do you see?”
“Feelings. Interest. Whatever you want to call it. Don’t let him ruin something before it’s even started.”
Her gaze dropped to his mouth. “What if...”
He ran his thumb down her cheek and she shivered.
He smiled. “It’ll be okay. You don’t know my sister. You don’t know me. More than that, I don’t know you. What I do know is Masters has got one hell of a fight on his hands.”
“I really wish I didn’t have to get the police involved.”
His smile dissolved. “And I get that.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I read what happened before. How you were let down. How it was Masters’s words against yours while you were married.”
Angela looked past him to a spot on the wall. “It’s not a nice feeling having no faith in the people paid to look after you.”
“Hey.”
She met his eyes. “Cat’s different. She’ll believe anything you tell her. You have my word. We have to tell her about Masters calling me. I can’t keep that from her.”
Angela closed her eyes as she slumped her shoulders in defeat. She couldn’t possibly ask him to be dishonest. “Okay.”
“Angela?” He cupped his hand to her jaw.
Resisting the urge to turn her face into his palm, she opened her eyes.
He smiled. “Give yourself permission to get to know me. Please.”
The determination mixed with admiration in his eyes stole the last of her anger and her resistance snapped. He was right. She wanted to get to know him so much and in not doing so, Robert stripped her of her power all over again. Nerves jumped in her stomach as the beginnings of a smile tugged at her mouth. “Okay.”
He grinned. “Okay?”
She laughed. “Okay.”
He leaned closer and pressed a brief kiss to her lips. “Then let’s start clearing out the crap in here. The sooner we’re done, the sooner I can ask you out properly.”
Excitement swirled hot and heavy in her blood as he turned away. Dinner. A date. She deserved this. She’d done nothing wrong. Robert was wrong. Always had been.
Chris cleared his throat. “We can talk about the phone call as we work.”
The phone call. Angela stiffened, her smile vanishing as her momentary euphoria dissolved. The saliva drained from her mouth. “He called me, too.”
He stiffened. “What? When?”
“A couple of days ago.”
He tipped his head and looked to the ceiling, a muscle leaping at his jaw. “Cat doesn’t know, does she?”
“No.”
He dropped his chin. “You have to tell her.”
“I know. And I will.”
He shook his head and touched his fingers to her face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to go through any of this. I could kill...” He closed his eyes and slid his fingers from her face. “I’m sorry.”
Angela swallowed the urge to take his hand and put it to her lips, to kiss away the anguish and tension radiating from his skin. “I’m not sure what DI Garrett can do next, but hopefully this second call will be Robert’s downfall.”
He opened his eyes. “It will be. If I have my way, this phone call will be the one that gets the son of a bitch locked up for a very long time.” He pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket. “I wrote down the gist of what he said.”
She looked at the paper, at him and back to the paper again. “Of course you did.” She smiled softly. “How do you always remain so calm? So cool? I was a basket case when he rang.”
He pushed the paper into her hand. “Read it.”
She stared at it as though he held a loaded gun rather than a sheet of paper. Robert had called him and made his intentions known. He had no fear of her, the police or, now it seemed, the stranger who’d held her gaze so intensely it was captured in a photograph for the entire country to see.
Angela looked up.
He smiled. “Read it. It’s okay.”
Turning away as though giving her privacy, he tossed some of the mud-sodden debris into one of the crates, leaving her to open the folded sheet of paper. Angela didn’t move. She wanted to stay close enough that she could turn and touch his arm, his face...his lips. The need to be near him spoke volumes.
Drawing in a strengthening breath, she snapped open the paper in the
same vein she would a Band-Aid from an open cut. A deep cut. A cut where the scar seemed to take forever to heal. She looked at Chris’s scrawled handwriting, took a moment and then read the hurried words.
I’m the husband of the woman you supposedly saved, among others, from the flood a few days ago. A flood that looks like it was no big deal. How many died? Twenty? God, it’s hardly a bloody massacre, is it?
Angela is MINE. Her parents gave her to me. Understand? Not you. Me.
I will give you this single warning. Stay away from her. Stay away or Angela will pay for every mistake you make. Every single one.
She slowly refolded the paper. Rage swirled like a gathering storm in her abdomen, but she didn’t shake. Not even a tremor. A strange sense of calm settled over her as she turned to Chris. The crate lay forgotten at his feet. His eyes were a storm of questions and dangerously quiet patience as he watched her.
She released her held breath. “What if he’s already here?”
“We’ll deal with it.”
“We need to ring your sister.”
“I know.”
Time stood still as their eyes locked. Angela wanted to see inside his mind and guessed he felt the same. He stood barely a foot away from her and she leaned toward him.
He closed the gap and smoothed his hands up and down her upper arms. Her eyes fluttered closed as Robert’s words seeped into her pores and spread like poison. His fingers gripped her arms a little tighter. From suppressed anger or desire, she couldn’t be sure. She opened her eyes. Pure passion burned in his gaze. Something hot and heavy had lit inside him.
Her gaze dropped to his lips. “I want to get to know you, Chris.” A tear slipped as the admission shot into her heart, making it hurt with the power of wanting something she couldn’t have. “That scares me more than anything Robert might say or do.”
The smoldering fire in his gaze sparked hotter. “The thought of seeing you around the Cove, knowing you’re trying to fight him alone, scares me more than anything he could say or do to either of us. We’re in this together, okay?”
She nodded, knowing she didn’t have the energy to disagree and wanted nothing else but his mouth on hers, the firm length of his body wrapped around her rubber limbs and racing heart.
He hesitated before dipping his head and touching his lips to hers. Angela pressed in closer and his hands slipped from her arms to come tightly around her body. She desperately needed him to feel her fear and conflicting need for everything he’d described before she fainted—the love, the family, the future. Slipping her tongue into his mouth, Angela claimed him in a way she feared there would be no going back from.
Her passion, her anger melded into the kiss and her heart kicked as her center pulled when his tongue met hers with equal fervor. She moved her hands onto biceps that were strong and thick, the muscles tense beneath her fingertips. She dug in her nails and his groan whispered into her mouth. Their heads shifted as they kissed deeper, longer, harder. Desire lit like a firework and whooshed through her body at a rate she couldn’t control.
She whispered his name against his lips and dropped her head back. He moved his mouth to her neck, his teeth nipping in erotic and painful pleasure. Moment by moment, the heat lowered and the nips turned to featherlight kisses before he eased away.
His eyes were dark with arousal. “He’s not going to hurt you ever again. I promise.”
She stared at him, her breathing harried and her lips deliciously swollen. “But what if I do something to hurt you?”
Blinking against the tears stinging her eyes and the loss burning her soul, Angela moved away and strode on trembling legs toward her office at the far end of the room. “Ring your sister. She needs to know he called you.”
Grateful he didn’t follow, Angela hesitated at the open office door. No more running. She turned and forced herself to stay in the reception area. She leaned down and picked up the first ruined piece of correspondence from the floor. Then another. Then another.
His heavy exhalation filled the silence. “Cat? It’s me.”
Behind the fallen curtain of her hair, Angela closed her eyes as her armor slipped back into place. She’d enjoyed being free of its gradual weight over the past couple of years but now, with almost every piece slipping back into its former place, she felt stronger, safer. If only she could find the platinum-plated box that her heart had resided in safe and untouchable until Chris came into her life and stole the damn key.
* * *
CHRIS GLANCED AT Angela as she worked. Her shoulders were stiff and her back turned. He couldn’t see her face but didn’t need to. He had a good idea of how she was feeling. The intensity of their kiss had said it all. There was no going back—with each other or Masters.
He turned away and leaned up against the warped and peeling desk behind him, tried to concentrate on listening to Cat.
“Chris, are you listening to me?”
He dug his fingers into the headache snaking across his forehead. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you call me as soon as Masters rang? Why take it to Angela?”
“I had to...see her. Make sure she was all right.”
A long moment stretched as Cat breathed down the line. She was well and truly pissed. She had every right to be, but as soon as he put down the phone to Masters, he’d jumped in the car not thinking about anything but getting to Angela.
Cat cursed. “It’s my job to look after her. Haven’t I made that clear already? Did Masters say anything about himself? What he’s thinking? Feeling?”
“Nothing apart from making Angela pay if I don’t back off.”
“Damn it.” Cat exhaled. “Damn it.”
Chris snapped his eyes open. Unease rolled through his gut. Cat’s tone told him something was off—badly off. “What’s happened?”
Angela halted and slowly turned to face him. Her gaze darted over his face, her brow furrowed.
Chris kept his eyes on hers. “Cat?”
“Is Angela with you now?”
“Yes. What’s wrong?”
“Give her the phone. I need to talk to her.”
“Talk to me.”
“Chris...”
Chris’s heart pounded. “There’s something else you should know.”
Cat cursed. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to bust someone’s ass when I get off this phone?”
He stared at Angela. Silently requesting her permission to tell Cat about Masters’s phone call to her. As though reading his mind, she nodded. He squeezed his eyes shut in preparation of Cat’s explosion. “Masters rang Angela, too.”
“What? When?”
“Yesterday...I think.” He opened his eyes.
Angela grimaced and shook her head. Chris glared. She’d kept it to herself for days?
“Let me talk to her, Chris. Now.” Cat practically spat down the line.
Goddamn it. He held out the phone to Angela. “She wants to speak to you.”
She tossed something into a crate and came toward him, her steps purposeful, her chin high. Her demeanor screamed of a woman in control and Chris’s heart lurched as a horrible sense of redundancy furled inside him. Who was he kidding? She didn’t need him. Maybe she was right. Maybe his need for her was greater than hers for him. She leaned against the desk beside him and held out her hand. Her eyes on his.
He passed her the phone. When she slid her free hand over his thigh and let it rest there, Chris’s relief washed over him in a wave. He covered her hand with his and held tight. She turned to stare ahead.
“Angela speaking.”
With each second, the color drained from her cheeks and the furrows across her forehead deepened. Chris tamped down the need to talk, the need to steal his arm around her shoulders and turn her head into his neck. Safe and secure. Protected.
<
br /> After what felt like an eternity, Angela snapped the phone closed and put it down on the desk beside her.
“She’s on her way.”
Chris frowned. “Here?”
She nodded, pushed away from the desk and came to stand in front of him. “She put in a call to one of the officers at Standbridge. Where Robert lives. Asked him to drive by and check he was still there.” She gave a wry smile and finally met his eyes. “She said she had a funny feeling when she woke up this morning.”
Chris took a deep breath. “And?”
“He’s gone.”
“He’s here?”
“They don’t know. She asked me to consider leaving again.” Her gaze dropped to his mouth as she eased closer to him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
The breath left his lungs as she leaned closer. Confusion threatened at the periphery of his mind. Did she want him to kiss her again? Did she want him to hold her? Her chocolate-brown eyes were dark with want and need and it pushed the air from his lungs. She slid her arms around his neck.
“Kiss me, Chris. Kiss me before the battle begins because God only knows if you’ll be able to do it again.”
Feeling like a cad for wanting her when her fear and tension were palpable, Chris wet his lips and gripped her waist, pulling her against him.
He kissed her and took her need deep inside him where it merged with his. Their mutual determination and apprehension mixed and warred until he didn’t know where hers started and his ended. They were in this together. For better or worse, Masters would have to kill him before he’d leave him open to touch a hair on Angela’s head.
Her words about neither of them being in a good place to start anything echoed in his mind, but he shoved them away. There was one thing his father’s death and his mother’s deterioration had taught him, nothing in life was guaranteed. When you found something good, you saw it through to the end, cherished and protected it. And goddamn it, his beating heart told him he’d found something good in Angela Taylor.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ANGELA DREW IN a shaky breath and glanced at the clock above her living room mantel for the thirtieth time in as many minutes. She was living the most surreal existence known to man. Ready early like an eager teenager on her first date while her violent ex-husband was nowhere to be found, but very possibly at the Cove, she was dressed in a floaty summer dress, a light jacket and heels waiting for a date.
A Man Like Him Page 14
