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 her. 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.”
“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?”