Was she going to live like this her whole life? Scared, and deliberately closing her eyes to what was staring right back at her?
“Ms. Davenport?”
Throat tight with emotion, she glanced up to find her assistant staring at her, a worried frown on her face. “There’s a detective here to see you,” she announced.
Monica’s heart stopped as she glanced behind Kristy, and at the man across her office, hovering by the doors. Memories once more threatened to flood her, drown her.
At what time did you say you opened the door to find them dead in their bedroom, Miss Davenport?
Frantically pushing the memory aside, she stood and nodded. Kristy let the man in, then gave them some privacy and closed the door. Monica’s heart once again starting to freeze over. It was unavoidable. When your survival instincts kick in, it’s instinctive. You don’t ask them to be there, they’re just there. And already, Monica was starting to feel numb. Hurting for the loss of Daniel. For herself. And now, whatever this was, it made her feel cold as death.
“I don’t believe you had an appointment today, pardon, I didn’t catch your name?” she asked.
“Detective Louis Kline, Ms. Davenport. I’m actually here on behalf of Mr. Daniel Lexington.”
Her chest seized with pain, and she didn’t know if she wanted this man to get out of her office, or it if it were she, herself, who wanted to run. She wanted to ask about Daniel, to know if he was all right, what he’d been doing, if he’d been thinking about her, if he hated her, if he would even forgive her, if he loved her. Why hadn’t he come himself?
Because he hates you for being a coward, Monica.
Because he’s angry, and wounded, and probably well on his way to forgetting you …
Instead, she signaled at one of the upholstered chairs across her mahogany desk. “Sit down, please,” she said.
“He asked me to please deliver this to you. It has to do with your parents.” He handed over a manila folder he’d been clutching to a discreet navy blue tie that perfectly matched his suit.
Monica cautiously took it from his hand. “My parents committed suicide,” she said out loud. She didn’t know why she blurted this out, but suddenly she needed to remind herself of the verdict.
“They did. There’s no question. No one committed any murder here, Miss Davenport, Mr. Lexington was merely calling in a favor from me. He had wanted me to search a particular man by the name of Roland Gustafson … and we think you might be interested in what we found.”
Monica opened the file to first see a handwritten note—and her chest seized when she recognized Daniel’s handwriting. She’d seen it only few times. Mostly, in the boardroom. He had a manly, somewhat smooth style, and the sight caused havoc to her insides.
Monica,
Make the right choice.
Daniel
Behind the note was a picture of a young Roland kneeling at her mother’s gravesite, a dozen red roses in his hand. Puzzled, she spread out the rest of the contents to realize that wasn’t the only image. There were actually more. More images of Roland. Roland and her mother coming out of the hotel. Roland and her mother kissing outside a coffee shop.
An emotion filtered through Monica’s numbness, and it was disbelief.
Roland was the man her mother had had an affair with?
Bile rose up her throat, and she stirred uneasily in her chair, suddenly unable to keep looking at the photographs. She closed the folder with uneasy hands and met the detective’s gaze with a face that was quickly burning hot. “How did you get these?”
“The private detective your father had hired to follow her had been blackmailing your mother, and apparently she’d been paying the blackmail. We believe she paid the blackmail for your sake, as it is obvious she had wanted your father to know of her romantic entanglements. Anyway, the detective died of natural causes and his cases were taken over by the son. He didn’t even know he had these until years after the trial.”
Monica swallowed hard, trying not to reveal her anger, her embarrassment, her confusion, her total shock. Worse. Daniel knew about this, too.
“Thank you, Detective. You have no idea how enlightening this is.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Mr. Lexington,” he said with a small grin, and then with a nod, he was gone, leaving Monica staring down at that old, crumpled, smelly manila folder, feeling nauseated.
Had Daniel known this all along?
Or had he just found out?
A wave of humiliation crashed over her as she imagined him knowing she was in a relationship with a man who’d been with her mother.
Feeling completely bereft and desolate over not having him nearby to talk about this, she slipped the folder into her Birkin bag and retrieved Daniel’s note, impulsively raising it to her nose. His scent washed over her, and she closed her eyes and almost moaned. ImissyouIwantyouIneedyou!
Groaning at herself, she tucked the note into her jacket pocket and went back to the photographs for the ad campaign, her chest coming alive once more. Just the sight of Daniel’s broad shoulders and her fingers digging into his muscular back made her almost feel him close. But her heart ached heavily, because that wasn’t so.
“Let’s use this one,” she whispered as Kristy came back inside, lifting the photograph in the air for her assistant to see.
The one where her eyes were on fire with heat.
Where Daniel was in her arms.
And she did not want to let go.
Where she was holding the man she loved and letting him hold her, and for that one minute in her life, nothing else had mattered but the need to be with him, to connect, to be allowed to love and be loved by him.
“It’s my favorite,” Kristy said.
“Mine, too,” Monica said. And when she was left alone in her office, with the stunning view of Chicago and it seemed that the world was at her feet, she covered her face in her hands and let herself cry for him.
* * *
On Saturday, she did what she always did before a gala. She had a long relaxing bath, then her staff come over to do her hair and makeup until she looked as perfect as a centerfold. Except tonight, she was wearing her hair down for Daniel Lexington.
Nervous at the thought of facing him, she finished getting ready, and then waited for Roland. He was supposed to arrive earlier, at seven, so they could discuss their relationship at length. Now that she thought about it, Monica realized there was really very little to discuss.
Soon, Roland Gustafson was exiting the elevators, distinguished in his tuxedo, with his deep thoughtful brow and that shock of gray in his temples. His gray eyes warmed at the sight of her, and he paused to take her in her elegant Christian Dior sapphire gown.
He lifted his arms high above. “My rose, my rose, you look stunning.”
Monica smiled coldly. He called her his rose because she had thorns, and was he ever going to feel the prick tonight.
“Come in, Roland. Sit.” She sat down in the living room and passed him the pictures, not offering him either a hug, a handshake, a kiss, or a drop of wine. She didn’t want to waste a moment more. She had been wasting too many years of her life already. “Why?” she asked him.
His usually calm demeanor broke as he flicked over the photographs, one by one, the color slowly draining from his face. “Where did you find these?”
“Apparently my father had you followed.”
He raised his head, his eyes wide and, surprisingly, tear-filled. “I loved her. I loved her, Monica.” He shook his head and glanced down at a picture where they were together, her mother and him. “I loved her. You’re a little part of her, rose.”
Monica stifled the impulse to deny her similarities to her mother, having spent an entire lifetime stifling her passionate side. But she just needed to know, so she asked, “How did you know her? You weren’t at the funeral.”
“At the country club.” A raw and primitive expression crossed his features. “I’d always had my eye on her, but she never ev
en glanced my way until the rumor of your father’s affair broke. She was passionate, Monica. She wanted me any way possible. And when I see you, I can’t help seeing a little bit of her. You make me ache to get a little of what she gave me. She made me promise to look after you if anything happened to her, and I have. I have. But I need you to want me like I want you.”
“You don’t want me, Roland, you want an illusion of my mother.”
He stared at her, visibly heartbroken. “No. I do love you, rose. I do. We go so well together. You’re poised and elegant. We both want the same things. Peace. Tranquility. Her death left me broken, too. She was using me, but I was not using her. I never used her.”
He took her hand from her lap and squeezed it between his, and Monica’s chest ached at the pain in his eyes.
“Roland,” she said, softening her voice, setting his hands back in his lap and patting them gently. “I’m sorry she did this. I’m sorry. But you see, that’s what I now realize. My mother was hurting, and she found relief with you. But I don’t want to use you like this, too. And I … I’ve been with you to forget another man.” She squeezed his hands as a wealth of emotion squeezed around her throat, and then let go, shaking her head with an immense sadness. “It’s wrong, I see that now. It was wrong of me, and wrong of you. We’re together for all the wrong reasons.”
“But Monica—”
“No, Roland. I’m really sorry, but we have to move on. You and I know, I think we’ve both known, there’s nothing here worth fighting for. There’s just nothing here at all.”
When he at last nodded, it was with a tear rolling down his sun-weathered cheek. It wasn’t easy, hugging him good-bye. Monica didn’t close up, now that she knew he would not be pushing for anything else. It was actually heartfelt, their last embrace. Representing the closing of another chapter of her life.
A chapter where she had been scared to feel, and had just kept thinking if she kept moving, working, she would survive.
She didn’t really want this life.
Make the right choice.
She dragged in a deep breath as she remembered his note, thinking, I will, Daniel. I have.
She didn’t know if it was the right choice, but she was beyond caring now. She wanted a life with the man she loved in it, and she wanted it with every inch of her aching heart. If it would sometimes hurt, then she just couldn’t believe it would hurt more than these past few days, when she’d been every second of the day hurting for him.
Thirty minutes later, Monica’s limo pulled over in front of the Four Seasons Hotel, and once again, she found herself entering the gala, alone. Flashes exploded around her until she was safely tucked inside the hotel ballroom, and her heart began kicking up in speed as she looked for Daniel among the glittering crowd.
The dramatic beat of the small live orchestra intensified her heartbeat, and suddenly every nerve and fiber in her body clamored to be closer to him, to be touched by him, to be loved by him. Him. He’d been inside her. He’d spilled his love all over her.
Roland would never be him. No man would. What she wanted—it was all in Daniel.
It was so clear to her now, so so clear when she saw that she could be Monica and still be strong.
Daniel could be accompanied tonight, and Monica shuddered at the thought, but suddenly she knew that she would fight for him with the same strength she fought for everything else. She would take her rightful place at his side no matter the price. She was at last ready to love him without fearing that what she felt for this man could possibly do anything but make her the happiest woman on the planet.
Suddenly, she spotted him at the far end, towering over a blonde who Monica instantly recognized as Chloe. His head was bent to her as they talked, Chloe looking up into his face and shaking her head.
Monica stopped in her tracks when she caught a sight of his profile, the shock of seeing him almost shattering her.
I choose him, she’d said, about Roland.
Oh, God, she wanted to die for saying that to him. What had she been thinking? Did loving him truly make her so afraid? How could being loved by a man like him be anything but uplifting and empowering? Daniel had been nothing but gentle to her—supportive, understanding, passionate, and open. How could feeling so good be dangerous to anyone? No. The danger would be denying it, making mistake after mistake, trying to run away from it.
Swallowing the lump of emotion in her throat, she urged her legs to take her forward, feeling as unsteady as her heels suddenly felt.
He had the power to destroy her.
To finish her off.
But she had to do this … was burning with the need to claim him as hers.
He’d been an adolescent crush that she had violently subdued under her strong will, but the love that had grown those evenings when he’d held her, saying nothing to her, only listening and supporting her, was undeniable. She’d asked him to spend time apart, so the paparazzi would stop linking them together, she’d said. But what she’d needed was to give her heart distance from the wild attachment she’d already had for a man who turned heads everywhere he went, whose money and power set him up to get whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
She’d feared that she would never be enough.
But she was.
Now, more than ever, it was right for them. Their bodies had caught up to their emotions, and they were too starved to be denied anymore. Always she’d been putting barriers between them. Distance. Other men. Roland could’ve been a shield for Daniel. And yet Monica had danced too close to the fire, and now she would forever come back to him, like a moth to the flame. Only Daniel could make her burn, and yearn, and love him like this.
Dragging in a steadying breath, she started toward him, knowing with frightening certainty that it wouldn’t be simple. She’d never be able to control him, like she had other men she dated. No, Daniel wouldn’t be easy.
He would be hard. Harder than Davenport’s. Harder than anything she’d ever done. He’d give everything to her, and he’d demand to be paid with the same penny.
Loving Daniel would be both the most difficult thing she’d ever done, and the easiest. And for the first time in her life, she was ready for it.
* * *
“She’s here.”
Daniel’s insides jolted at Chloe’s words.
He’d been aware of her ever since she entered. There was a shifting in the air, an altering in his senses. He hadn’t even turned yet, but a simmering tension lay beneath his muscles, and he was nearly breaking the champagne flute in his hand. Dragging in a deep breath, he set it down on a nearby table and clenched his hands at his sides, already jealous of whoever stood at her side, already desperate to pound the man’s face in until he was unrecognizable to his own kin.
“Just don’t punch anybody here, all right, Danny?” Chloe said, as if reading his mind.
He spoke under his breath. “I don’t know how I’ll react, Chlo, if I see her with him.”
The detective had given Monica the information he’d found about Roland, but Daniel still didn’t know what she would do. She might be delighted she had found the perfect unfeeling partner to spend the rest of her life with. Someone who might, also, love someone else. His stomach roiled with anger and frustration. Stop running away from me, Monica!
“Don’t punch anyone, Daniel,” Chloe warned. She squeezed his arm and whispered, “There are five hundred guests here, Daniel. You’ll never live something like this down, and if you do, then she and her reputation might not. So please. Take it easy.”
He clamped his jaw tight and nodded, but he still visualized turning, seeing them together, and charging down to pound the man to the ground.
It would feel so fucking good, he was already thirsting, was practically delighting in giving way to the raging urge to claim his woman inside him.
He could throw all common sense and logic to the wind and do it, he knew. But all it would do was prove to Monica that he, like her parents, would do violence for h
er. No. He’d be damned if he gave her the satisfaction of thinking she’d made the right choice. Denying what they had between them would never be the right choice. But he could be civil, couldn’t he?
Couldn’t he?
Maintaining himself immobile until he got himself under grips, he stared blindly at the live orchestra at the far end of the room, his blood hot and storming through his veins as he remembered their parting words …
He’s what I choose …
Anger and jealousy whirled inside him again. He wanted to fight for her, openly fight the threat, eliminate it, bump her on the head, and take her to his cave. His body throbbed with the impulse to do just that.
But he couldn’t do this. Not with Monica.
He didn’t want to be her companion. He didn’t want to end up with the Ice Maiden at his side, and no Monica. He loved the Ice Maiden, but he loved Monica more. He knew that to claim a woman like Monica, force was not the issue. She needed to come willingly, on her own, or else Daniel would be able to physically possess her and yet soon realize that, emotionally, she would never be his. No. He’d be damned before he settled for that.
It was all or nothing now.
He was still trying to calm his rapid heartbeat and ease his tense muscles when Chloe squeezed his arm. “She’s looking our way.”
A knot tightened in his chest, his fingers biting into his palms at his sides. “Who’s with her? That fucking fossil Gustafson?”
“I don’t see him. But she can’t take her eyes off you, brother. She is seriously gobbling you up with those—”
“Jesus! Stop. Just stop.” He dragged in a breath, then raked a hand through his hair and swung around. “Where is she?”
Chloe stopped him mid-turn and grabbed his jaw to hold his gaze within her eyes, green like Daniel’s and wide with anticipation. “She’s coming over. But Danny, if anything happens with you two, Graves will come get me in five minutes. Don’t even think about me.”
“Here,” he murmured, sliding one of his keys into her hand, his heart pounding. “That’s for the decoy in the back. You can’t miss it.”