by Day Leclaire
He circled the car to her driver’s-side door and made a circular, rolling-down motion. She lowered the tinted window, her expression one of undisguised fury. But it was the tears sliding down her cheeks that hit him like a fist to the gut. “It’s not what you think,” he informed her.
“Don’t hand me that, Chase. It’s exactly what I think. Rafe’s been calling the shots from the minute we met. For all I know he arranged for our accidental meeting back in November so you could gather intel on the Worths even then.” She wrapped annoying little air quotes around the words accidental meeting.
“Damn it, Emma, that’s not true and you know it.” He shot a hand through his damp hair. “Be reasonable. Come back inside and let’s discuss the situation in a rational manner like two civilized adults. I’m practically naked here, honey.”
She shook her head before he even finished speaking. “As far as I’m concerned there’s nothing left to discuss.”
Son of a bitch! “I’m not going to stand out here in a towel arguing with you.”
“I didn’t ask you to.” She threw the car in Reverse and pulled out of the parking spot. “Let it go, Chase. You and Rafe both got what you wanted. Be satisfied with that.”
“You’re pregnant with my child, Emma. That hasn’t changed.”
“No, it hasn’t, but I’ll tell you what.” She smiled brightly, a difficult proposition considering the tears overflowing her eyes. “I’ll get you the number of our family lawyer and you can funnel all of your concerns and requests through him.”
She didn’t give him time to offer any further arguments. She hit a button and her window silently rose, hiding her from view. Before he could think of a way to stop her, she pulled down the drive, through the gate and onto the main road. Turning, Chase shot back into the condo. He threw on jeans, snagged a shirt and shoved his feet into a pair of loafers. Finally, he snatched up his wallet, BlackBerry—damn Rafe to hell—her engagement ring and his car keys. The entire process took a precious four minutes. Four minutes during which Emma was screaming down the road away from him.
Slamming out of the condo, he hopped into the Fiorano and started the engine with a muted roar. Then he went after her. It didn’t matter what it took. It didn’t matter what he had to say or promise. Nothing mattered more to him than Emma. His hands clenched around the steering wheel.
Dear God, how he loved her.
Chase shook his head in disbelief. He’d always been so careful, so guarded. Emotions were dangerous. Once people knew which buttons to push, they could get to you and twist you to their agenda. They could hurt you. He’d learned his lesson well at the great age of ten. He’d learned to hide behind a carefully constructed facade. To bury his emotions deep where no one would find them or touch them or wound what mattered most to him. But with Emma…
She’d found a way beneath his guard. Maybe it was because they were both wounded. Maybe because one wary, battered soul recognized another. She’d been hurt, too, and had learned to guard herself just as he had. But from the moment they’d first touched, that had changed. The trappings had melted away, leaving a core of honesty between them.
Chase’s mouth tightened. Or it had until Rafe screwed things up. Until Rafe destroyed that fragile, delicate connection, tainting it with doubt and suspicion. He pulled off the highway at the exit Emma would have taken to return to the Worth estate. He wanted to get to her before she had the opportunity to barricade herself behind thick walls and locked doors. Before Ronald could step between them and interfere. To explain to her how it had all gone down and let her see the truth in his eyes and hear it in his voice. To confess what he should have last night.
To tell her he loved her.
Traffic grew heavier and the lights turned against him, but he managed to dart and weave his way forward until he caught a glimpse of a distinctive white BMW. Okay, if he squeezed around a couple more cars and hit one of the next few lights just right—an iffy proposition, he was forced to admit—he’d have her. He didn’t want to get too close. He wasn’t racing her, merely pacing the drive so he’d pull into the Worth estate right on her bumper.
At the next intersection, she turned right and a hard, grim smile ripped across his mouth. Perfect. He’d have her within the next block. He made the turn and saw Emma sitting at a red light. She was the first in line and there were several cars stacked between them. With luck she wouldn’t notice him, though with a screaming red Ferrari, it was a bit tough to fade into the background. Black, he reminded himself. Next time he’d rent a black car. You just couldn’t go wrong with basic black. The light turned green and Emma pulled into the intersection.
And that’s when it happened.
One minute life proceeded along normal, if turbulent channels, and the next it was unalterably changed, never to be the same again. A pickup came shooting through the light at a right angle to Emma’s BMW. It was the oddest sensation. Everything slowed, like a recording put on pause and then allowed to creep forward frame by hideous frame. It seemed as though someone had pushed the mute button on the sound, as well, though for years afterward the screech of brakes and shriek of metal would wrench Chase from a dead sleep, shouting out a futile warning.
Pure raw sunshine shot down from the heavens, spotlighting the intersection. He opened his mouth, thought he roared out a single word…“No!” But he couldn’t be certain. Maybe he called Emma’s name. Maybe both. The black pickup, all tricked out with flames painted on the side and chrome everything, careened along its path of doom. It had been jacked up off the ground with special suspension and huge off-road tires that chewed up deserts and blasted through mud. This time it blasted through Emma.
Her dainty cabriolet never stood a chance. The truck T-boned the smaller vehicle, sending it careening like a Ping-Pong ball, slamming first into the post of a streetlight and then into a helpless car sitting at the same red light the pickup had run. The BMW came to a rest, unrecognizable as the car it had once been, smoke and steam pouring from the crumbled bits and pieces that remained.
For a brief instant everything froze, a frightening tableau that defied understanding and belief. Then all hell broke loose. Around him people scrambled for their cells. Others ran toward the scene of the crash. The driver of the pickup stumbled out of the cab and dropped to the pavement on his hands and knees. No movement came from the BMW.
Every ounce of athletic grace and ability deserted Chase in those precious moments after the accident. He fumbled for the door and couldn’t seem to figure out how to operate the handle. When he finally got it opened, he tripped, losing one of his shoes. He kicked off the other and ran barefoot toward the scene of the accident. Bare-chested, too, since he’d never gotten around to shrugging on his shirt. Not that he cared. In that moment, nothing mattered but Emma. He dodged open car doors and milling witnesses, evading the hands that reached for him, ignoring the incomprehensible words tossed his way.
By the time Chase reached the intersection, the police were on the scene. He didn’t understand where they’d come from or how they’d arrived so quickly. He could only thank God they had. Right until one of the officers stopped him from getting to Emma.
The policeman straight-armed him, holding him at bay. “Please stay back, sir.”
“No!” He knocked the officer’s arm away. “You don’t understand. I have to get to Emma—”
The arm came up again, this time fisting around his biceps. Sunlight bounced off the gold name tag he wore. Garcia. Officer Garcia. Of course. It would be. “I said, stand back. There’s an injured woman. We need to keep the area clear for emergency personnel.”
“She’s mine. That woman is mine. It’s Emma. Emma Worth.”
Garcia’s eyes widened. “The Worth heiress? Ronald Worth’s daughter?”
“Yes.” Chase attempted to shove past the officer again. “Let me through. She’s my fiancée. I have to get to her.”
Sympathy gleamed in the cop’s eyes. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you do that. There�
�s a doctor with her now. He was in the vehicle behind hers.”
Chase fought to breathe. “Is she…?” He sucked air into his lungs, unable to use the d word, but Garcia understood.
“No, no. She’s alive. But you have to let them work on her.”
“She’s pregnant.” He strained to move past the policeman. “She’s pregnant with my baby.”
“We’ll let the doctor know. We’ll also let him know you’re here.” Compassion rippled across Garcia’s expression and colored his voice. “As soon as he okays it, I’ll let you through, I promise.”
“I need to be with her.”
“Trust me, I understand.”
The next five minutes felt like an eternity, filled with fear and helplessness. In the distance Chase heard a siren gradually, oh, so gradually, approaching. It seemed to be moving in slow motion like everything else around him. At long last one of the policemen stationed beside the remains of Emma’s car waved in Garcia’s direction.
“Go ahead,” the officer instructed.
Chase raced barefoot through the shards of metal and broken glass, avoiding most of it, ignoring what he didn’t manage to avoid. He crouched beside the driver’s door. Emma still sat trapped inside the crushed metal, her eyes closed. A powdery residue clung to everything. That didn’t worry him since he could tell it came from the exploded air bags that surrounded her. The blood, on the other hand, scared the hell out of him.
“She’s pregnant,” Chase informed the man he identified as the doctor.
“So I understand.”
“Is she going to be all right?”
“She’s been in and out of consciousness. We’ll have a better idea once we get her to the hospital and run some tests.”
“Is she—” His voice broke and he couldn’t continue. Couldn’t say the words. He wasn’t even sure he could handle the answer.
The doctor rested a hand on Chase’s shoulder. “She’s going to live. Thank God for air bags and well-built automobiles.”
Relief charged through him, bringing tears to his eyes. But his relief was short-lived. “And our baby?”
“I’m sorry.” Pity. His pity gave Chase the untenable answer. “I can’t answer that.”
Something strange had occurred.
Emma struggled to wrap her mind around it but found she couldn’t. The ability to focus eluded her. Voices came and went, phasing in and out. She could hear the concern sweeping beneath the words, but each time she attempted to latch onto one of the comments, it drifted just out of range.
Darkness beckoned and for a short time she succumbed to its allure, but something—no, someone—kept pulling her back, forcing her into that world of pain and confusion. The voice came again, coaxing and pleading. She tried to open her eyes in response but harsh light radiated from behind her closed eyelids, stabbing into her head. Opening her eyes would allow the pain in and she’d do just about anything to prevent that from happening.
“Don’t want to,” she attempted to explain.
“Don’t want to…what, sweetheart?”
Oh. She knew that voice. It was Chase’s voice. Her brows tugged together. Something about Chase. Something that caused even more pain. Only this wasn’t a physical hurt, but an emotional one.
“Emma, what don’t you want?”
The question compelled her to answer, brooked no opposition. “Don’t want to open my eyes. Hurts.”
“That’s okay.” For some reason her complaint pleased him. Relief rippled through the simple words. “You can keep them closed.”
“What happened?” Because clearly, something had. Something bad. Something that urged her to step back into the blackness that offered peace and an avenue of escape.
“You were in a car accident, Emma.”
It took a moment to process the words. Some part of her was screaming, begging her to drift away for a while and not analyze the information. Thinking about it, looking too closely, wouldn’t just bring more pain, but agony. And then it hit her.
“The baby?”
“We don’t know, Emma.” But she could hear the answer in his voice. A bitter coldness swept through her, intensifying the hurt to unbearable levels. Helpless tears slid down her face. “They’re about to take you to the hospital. Hang in there, sweetheart.”
The darkness beckoned again and this time she didn’t hesitate. She threw herself into its embrace.
“How is she?”
Chase looked up from where he’d been sitting slumped, staring at his heavily bandaged feet, to find Rafe approaching at a swift clip. How his brother had found him in the warren of hospital hallways, Chase had no idea. Right now, he waited outside of the room they’d assigned Emma while the umpteenth doctor performed the umpteenth examination on her.
“She lost our baby, Rafe. That’s how she is.” His hands clenched into fists. “They haven’t told me, yet, but I overheard her doctors talking. They were discussing her miscarriage. They’re in with her now.”
“I’m sorry, Chase.”
He heard his brother’s words, processed them on some gut level. But instead of finding solace in them, that simple apology filled him with fury. Over the past two-plus decades he’d learned to stuff that anger into a deep, dark hole. To interact with the world from a calm, unemotional distance. In the split second it took Chase to absorb his brother’s words, that calm vanished. For good. The hole split open and all the hurt, all the misery, all the suffering he’d experienced over the years he’d been known as Barron’s Bastard came rushing to the surface.
“Sorry,” Chase repeated softly. He came off his chair and caught Rafe by his elegantly knotted tie and slammed him into the wall. Pain ripped through his feet, which only drove his wrath to greater heights. “You’re sorry? Do you have any idea why Emma was at that intersection at that particular moment, you son of a bitch?”
“Let go of me, Chase.”
“She was there because of you. She was there because she saw that email you sent to my BlackBerry.”
Rafe’s expression darkened in outrage. “What the hell was she doing reading private emails on your BlackBerry? Damn it, Larson. It’s not my fault that she went behind your back and checked up on you.”
“It is your fault. It’s all your fault.” Grief howled through him. “Why do you think I’m with her, Rafe? Have you ever wondered?”
A wintry remoteness swept across Rafe’s demeanor and settled into his eyes and attitude. “Because I asked you to keep an eye on her. To distract her while I sewed up the Worth deal. Because doing so lined both of our pockets.”
“Not even close.”
“Well… And the baby.”
“Wrong again. There’s only one reason I’m with Emma.”
That gave Rafe pause. “I don’t get it.”
“No, you sure as hell don’t. You never have. You’ve spent so much of your life intent on revenge, filled with rage, that it doesn’t even occur to you that I’m with Emma because I love her. I love her more than I thought it possible to love another person.” Chase shoved Rafe away with a sound of disgust. “You know what? I’m done.”
Rafe eyed him warily. “What do you mean, you’re done?”
“It means that whatever you plan to do with Worth Industries—”
“Cameron Enterprises.”
Chase slashed the air between them with his hand. “Fine. Cameron Enterprises. Whatever your future plans for the factory, it’s all on you. Tear it down brick by brick if that’s what you intend, but I want no part of it. I’ve shown you how the business can be turned around. How you can upgrade the technology and make it even bigger and more viable than ever before. But you don’t want to hear any of that, do you?”
“Not particularly.”
“Well, you better hear this.” He glared at his brother though red-rimmed eyes. “Emma is mine. And I’ll do whatever necessary to protect her, even if it means taking you down.”
A noise came from behind them. “Um, Chase…?”
Rafe
stepped closer, a glacial warning sweeping like a bitter wind across his expression. “You can try and take me down, but it’ll never happen.”
“Get out of here, Rafe. You’ve done enough damage.” Chase dug the heels of his palms into eyes that burned with misery and exhaustion. “In a few minutes I have to walk into Emma’s room and tell her that our baby died. And then I have to hope like hell I can convince her I love her and want to spend the rest of my life with her. Not because of our baby, but because she’s the only woman in the world for me.”
“Chase.”
His name finally penetrated and he spun around. Emma stood in the doorway of her room, garbed in a blue patterned gown. A purple plaster cast encircled her wrist and a sling held her arm close to her side. Her hair was a disaster, the ice-blond strands sticking up at odd angles. Not a lick of makeup touched the porcelain whiteness of her face, a whiteness relieved by a deep violet bruise decorating her cheekbone. In addition her left eye was swollen almost shut and he could tell from personal experience that in a few more hours it would turn black as ebony.
He’d never seen a more beautiful sight in all his life.
“Emma?” He locked his knees in place so the linoleum wouldn’t have to catch them on his way down. Then he frowned. “What the hell are you doing out of bed? You should be resting.”
“How am I supposed to rest with all the shouting?” Her gaze swept over his shoulder toward where Rafe continued to stand. “Thanks for stopping by. I’ll take it from here.”
“I’m sorry, Emma,” Rafe said. “It was never my intention that you read that message to Chase. I meant it as a joke, but I realize now it was in very poor taste. Worse, it led to your being injured—and the baby…” His throat convulsed and it took him a moment to continue. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that.” For the first time ever, Chase caught a strong note of regret in his brother’s voice.
Emma nodded. “I know. It’ll be okay. Chase will give you a call in a little while.”
Chase stiffened. “Don’t tell him that it’ll be okay. It won’t be okay.”
