It was the most sinful, spectacular thing he’d ever seen, and when she’d come toward him, an avenging queen, insisting that he was trespassing, he’d wanted to catch her in his arms, carry her to that glorious window, press her back against it, and show her all the ways he would like to trespass.
But then the frustration had taken over. She’d been protecting this place in spite of the fact that it was overrun with the wives of The Fallen Angel’s owners and in spite of the fact that the Marquess of Bourne had paid him escort.
Which made him realize she wasn’t protecting the place.
She was protecting the man, just as she had the night before.
He doesn’t own me.
He heard her words again. The lie in them.
Because it was clear Chase owned her, just as he owned every bit of this club and all the men and women who frequented it. There was no freedom at The Fallen Angel. Everything – everyone – belonged to Chase.
And even now, as they stood alone in this dark room, with none but Lucifer to hear them – Georgiana protected the man who had ruined her life. Who continued to do so. And he was through with it. He wanted her out from under him. He wanted her far from this place and its sin and vice and history of taking lives for sport.
He wanted her safe, for God’s sake. Her and Caroline.
He’d get her married. But not because Chase had asked.
Because she deserved a chance at happiness – she, more than anyone he’d ever known.
He only wished he could be the one to give it to her. But he couldn’t, his secrets too legion, too dangerous. And so he would secure it for her in another way. He would face Chase. Free her, first. Protect himself, second.
Because somehow, in this strange play, she had become the most important.
His question hung between them. “Where is he?” And he willed her to tell him. To open the door and point in the direction of this mysterious man. To free herself along with the information.
She did not.
“He is not here,” she said.
He bit back his disappointment. “Bourne told me I would find him here.”
“Bourne does not know everything. I am the only one here.”
“And so I find you, once again, protecting he who does not need it.”
“He does —” she started, and he found he could not hear it any longer.
“Stop.”
She did, blessedly.
He came toward her, closing the distance more quickly than he would have liked – the speed betraying the emotions he had promised himself he would no longer reveal to her. Not after last night. Not after she’d so thoroughly rejected him.
Not that he could have given her what she deserved.
He met her eyes, willing to give anything to see the truth in them. “Stop,” he repeated, and this time, he was not certain if he meant the words for himself or for her. “Stop defending him. Stop lying for him. Christ, Georgiana, what does he have on you? What is this power he holds over you?”
She shook her head. “It’s not like that.”
“It is, though. You think I have lived an entire life and not learned to identify a woman in a man’s thrall?” He hated the words as they came – the truths they betrayed in him. He lifted his hands, cupped her face in them, adoring the way her skin felt at his fingers, soft and terribly tempting. “Tell me. Is he the one? Did he ruin you all those years ago? Did he offer you pretty promises that you could not refuse and that he did not keep?”
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“Is he Caroline’s father?”
The furrow cleared and her eyes went wide. “Is Chase Caroline’s father?”
“Say it,” he said. “Tell me the truth, and I will take pleasure in destroying him. In avenging both your names.”
She smiled, small and surprised. “You would do that?”
Of course he would. He would do anything for this woman, so perfect, so unmatched. How did she not see that? “With unbridled pleasure.”
The smile grew sad. “He is not Caroline’s father.”
There was truth in the words, and he hated that. Hated that there was not another reason to loathe this man who dominated her as surely as he breathed. “Then why?”
She lifted one shoulder. Let it drop. “We are two halves of a coin.”
The words were so simple, so honest, that they tore him asunder. Two halves of a coin. For a moment, he considered the implications of the words. The meaning of them. He wondered what it would be like to be so needed by her, so cared for by her, that he was the other half of her coin.
He pushed the thought from his head, liking it far too much.
He released her, moving back far enough to be out of her reach. He did not think he could bear her touch at this point.
“I am here to speak to him,” he said. “It has been six years, and I’ve never asked to meet him. It is time.”
She hesitated, and it seemed to him that she hovered on some kind of precipice in the moment – as though whatever decision she made would change her world. And perhaps it would.
If Chase gave him what he wanted, it would.
Chase’s identity for her freedom. For his own.
“Why?” she asked. “Why now?” He did not reply, and she pressed him again. “Six years and you’ve never cared to meet him. And now…”
She trailed off, and he filled the silence. “Things have changed.”
Now his life was on the line. His life, and Cynthia’s secrets.
But those reasons paled in comparison to the one that loomed so powerfully here and now. Chase was the key to Georgiana’s freedom. And he found he would do anything for that.