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"I didn't want this to hurt you, Kia," he said as they moved toward Squire Point. "I didn't want it to hurt either of us. "
"It can't go on the way it was, Chase. "
And perhaps that was what he didn't want to hear. Chase drove on through the snow, the music soft in the background as Kia rode quietly beside him.
"Your father saw me leave the ball," he told her. "He didn't seem happy with me. "
He saw her amused grimace. "Daddy is under the impression we have a relationship. The 'just friends' line I gave him didn't go over so well. "
Chase winced. That definitely explained things.
"He's a good man," he said. "And a bad enemy. He reminds me some of what I remember my father as being. Dependable, but he had his own rules, and that was how his world ran. "
"That's Dad. " She turned and watched him curiously. "Your parents are gone, aren't they?"
He nodded. "Since we were thirteen. " And hell had begun that year.
"Did you have family?"
"If you could call her family. " He grimaced. "Aunt Davinda. My mother's sister. A demon from hell if one was ever born. "
He could feel the dark bitterness rising inside him, the knowledge that it had been his brother, Cameron, who she had nearly destroyed, and how she had done it. Accepting that in the past six months hadn't been easy. And in a way, perhaps Kia was paying for that, as well as another woman's insanity.
Moriah Brockheim. Cameron had nearly been killed by her. Chase had killed her—and ripped a part of his soul to pieces. Even now, he could see the neat little hole that bloomed in her forehead and the innocent confusion that filled her eyes at the instant of death.
His hands clenched on the steering wheel as bitterness rose higher. He hadn't wanted to believe Moriah had inside her anything that could harm another person. He had cared for her. Not as he cared for Kia, had always cared for Kia. But she had been important to him. And the emotion had clouded his judgment.
And if he made the same mistake with Kia? If he let himself care, let emotion cloud his vision and risked the destruction of his life again?
"Is your aunt the reason you don't let yourself get involved with your lovers, Chase?" Kia asked then.
He shook his head. "No. "
There were too many reasons, there were too many variables, and none of them were Kia's fault. Yet she was paying for them, because he was fighting an attraction to her that he couldn't seem to escape.
"Then why?"
She asked the one question he was hoping she wouldn't ask.
Chase frowned. Why? he wondered. Because Davinda had first taught him not to trust, and the years that followed had only reinforced it?
That wasn't a good enough reason. He couldn't explain the reasons why; he only knew the events that created him. And that was sad. Hell, she deserved better. He knew she deserved better, and still, he
couldn't let her go.
"Some men just don't have the sense God gave a mule," he finally stated, remembering something his father used to say. "We could give those mules lessons in stubbornness, you know?"
He flashed her a grin, picked up her hand, and played with her slender, delicate fingers. Even as he shifted the gears of the car, he held her hand beneath his, keeping that contact, that warmth, as they drove into Squire Point and he turned to take the narrow road that led to the back of Ian's property.
"Where are we going?" she asked softly.
"Ian's building a house out here," he told her. "He'll be turning the mansion over to the club once it's completed. "
"Really?"
He nodded. "It's quiet. Sheltered. I thought we could watch the snowfall. "
He pulled into the driveway that led to the half-finished mansion, driving along the blacktop and taking the turn that led to the area where a guest house would be built.
