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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.”
“Go show her what she’s missing, brother.” Chloe kissed his cheek and he watched as she disappeared into the crowd. He was bracing himself as he slowly turned in search of Monica, his every cell and particle vibrating with need, and suddenly he jolted when he felt five soft, slender little fingers slip into his hand, and he heard that achingly familiar whisper at his ear.
“Hey, you…”
His heart trembled in his chest as the words spilled inside his body, soft and warm like her cashmere. Slowly, not even breathing, he shifted toward her, and their gazes collided, caught, held.
His lungs burned, and he devoured the sight of her, in a shimmering blue dress, her eyes wide and blue and almost imploring. The instinct to hold her was so acute, it took every effort in his body to keep from pulling her into his arms, lean over and scent her, touch her, feel her. No.
He had no right to do this.
She’d refused him. She didn’t want to want him. Chose not to be with him.
Not just once, but twice, and he feared a third time would kill him.
Even then, he would have to fight this stubborn woman until his last breath for now he knew, without a doubt, that he would never die in peace until this woman told him that she loved him.
“Where’s Grandpa?” he asked her, his timbre alien. Angry, and loaded with a thousand one frustrations.
Her voice was as low as his, and the open hunger in her gaze somehow made his gut wind into an even deeper set of knots. “I don’t know, nor do I care. It’s over. There was hardly anything to finish.”
“You seemed to be hanging pretty damn tight for hardly anything,” he angrily countered.
Suddenly he realized she’d worn her hair loose tonight. Like Daniel had once told her he liked. And she looked as soft and inviting as she had in her bedroom. In his arms. God, help me.
“Did you know all these years, Daniel? That he’d been with my mother?” she asked, her face upturned to his as she searched his eyes.
“No.” God, this was torture. His fists trembled at his sides to keep from reaching out to her. The music, the gala patrons, everything had faded in the background. Everything but her. “If I’d known, I’d have told you sooner. It never occurred to me to check him out before.”
“But you wanted to find something wrong with him, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he said gruffly. And he’d search every bastard she so much as looked at, until she realized there would be no one, ever, to know her like Daniel.
Then he noticed her eyes glistened with … hope? Tears? Whatever it was, it was clawing into him like talons. Deeply. Profoundly.
And suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re no longer with Gustafson, good for you. But what does your new situation mean for me?”
Holding his gaze as though startled, Monica bit her lip and then glanced at the hands he kept motionless at his sides.
“Does this mean anything for me?” he demanded.
When she only held her breath, still looking at his hands as though she wanted them on her, Daniel took a step forward, his heart screaming at the risk he was taking. If she kept saying no … if she kept shooting him down …
“Am I going to live my entire life wanting you and not having you?” he asked in quiet fury. “Would you have stayed with a man you don’t love if it weren’t for the out I found for you?”
She shook her head. “There were a lot of things wrong with Roland, actually.” She met his gaze squarely. “Starting with the fact that he’s not you.”
