Page 34 of Chasin’s Surrender

“Shut. Up!”

“What? Is that not the truth? He’s got a great smile. I see it now.”

I closed my eyes and prayed for patience. God did not answer my prayer but He gave me something better. Something I’d had for a few days then lost. Once it was gone, I never thought I’d hear it again, and that hurt.

But right then, Chasin’s deep velvet laugh filled the room and coated my skin.

My mom cheats on my dad.

Shit. Shit. Shit. He had a reason, not an excuse but an actual reason, for being a dick. One that I fully understood because I’d let him walk away for my own reasons. Ones that were not the same but similar in that my parents had inflicted them and made sure their blame and hatred penetrated so deeply that I’d never forget it.

My parents’ alcoholism and abuse had colored my world, leaving me with something dark and sinister.

So I was holding a grudge I didn’t want to hold, out of fear.

Fear was my constant companion. I nurtured it through the years until it took root and grew so tall I lived under the shadows of a canopy of self-doubt.

Maybe I was wrong, thinking I didn’t want anyone to see the real me. Maybe that was all bullshit I’d made up as an excuse to push people away when they got close. I used my fame as a new excuse, a crutch to keep everyone at bay.

Maybe I was nothing more than a broken woman with a pocket full of bitterness and resentment.

Maybe it was time to fix that.

11

Chasin watched with fascinated pleasure as Genevieve’s lips curved into a beautiful smile that split her face and made her look like she had a secret—a really great one. Then slowly the smile turned into a frown and the warmth he’d been experiencing turned to ice.

What the fuck?

“Genevieve?” he called, all humor gone.

Her eyes came open, and for a moment pain—so stark it shone brightly before she closed down.

That shit was going to end. All of it. The pain in her eyes and the freeze-out. The first time Chasin had seen it was one time too many.

“Yeah?”

“We need to get to work.”

“Right. What do you need from me?”

Chasin took Genevieve in—her stiff posture, her hand still in Bobby’s. Only now she wasn’t trying to calm Bobby down or shut her up, she was using her as a lifeline. He knew that because there was a wobble in her voice he didn’t like and it had not one goddamn thing to do with the reason Jameson and Jonny were at her place.

Wherever she’d gone in her head wasn’t a good place to go. He knew that, too. Not only because of the wobble in her voice, the straight stiff posture, or her using Bobby as a shield, but he sensed something ugly leaking from her. But more than that, he felt it.

Straight up, he could feel the acid churning, and for once that feeling didn’t come from thinking about his twat of a mother. He was feeling for Genevieve. He felt her pain, and he was going to do something about it.

“Before we get down to business, I need a word, Genevieve.” She held his stare but made no effort to move. “In private,” he finished.

Bobby’s lips twisted in an attempt not to smile. She released Genevieve’s hand, and even went as far as giving Genevieve a gentle shove in Chasin’s direction.

Genevieve’s startled eyes went to Bobby, then back to Chasin, before she woodenly made her way across the room.

“Give us a minute,” he said, and followed Genevieve through the foyer and into the kitchen.

When she stopped, Chasin didn’t. He kept going until he was in Genevieve’s space and her ass was pressed against the countertop.

“Chas—”