But Harrison is out there.
“He…I think he hires someone, a detective maybe, to watch me. Each time when I feel like I might have a life, Colby Harrison comes in. Reveals my past. Gets me fired.” An endless cycle.
“He won’t be a problem any longer.” Noah’s voice was grim.
Claire glanced over her shoulder at him.
“He’s done, Claire. Done. He won’t ever get near you again.” He yanked a hand through his hair. “Nine years? Jesus, you put up with this for nine years? Why didn’t you get a restraining order against him? Why didn’t you—”
“He’s never physically hurt me.” There were so many other ways to hurt. Like when she’d been nineteen and her grandfather had been struck down by a heart attack. She’d flown back home to bury him. And at the funeral, Colby Harrison had been there…telling everyone that the whore was back in town.
“Never again,” Noah vowed.
She wished it could be that simple. “Noah, he’s not going to stop. Not until I’m dead or-or he is.”
Noah held her gaze. Nodded. “He’s done,” he said again, simply.
A chill skated over Claire’s spine.
His stare drifted over her face. Down her body. Lingered on her legs. “I was supposed to wine and dine you tonight.”
She’d never been wined and dined.
His golden eyes lifted. Locked on her mouth. “I knew one taste would do it for me. Claire, sweet Claire, you taste like candy.”
She could still taste him.
“No lover? Not in nine years?” He stood about five feet away from her.
Claire shook her head. “The people in the lobby—”
“I told you, what they saw doesn’t matter.”
“They saw you kiss me. The other—the other York Towers employees. They’ll all think—”
He took a step toward her. “That I’m f**king you.”
“Yes.”
He took another stop. “I told you, I don’t f**k my employees.”
He had said that but… “You kissed me.”
Another step. “Nothing would have stopped me from kissing you then.”
He hadn’t turned from her in shock or disgust. Hadn’t been embarrassed. After everything, he’d…wanted her. “You don’t think I did it? You don’t think I seduced Ethan Harrison into killing for me?”
“No.”
Her lips trembled. They’d crossed a line downstairs. She knew that. She also knew exactly what she had to do.
They saw us kiss. I can’t keep working for him now. Coming to Noah…taking the job…it was a mistake. One desperation had led her to make.
And perhaps she was about to make another mistake. But Claire found she didn’t care.
“I want to kiss you again,” Noah told her.
He took another step toward her.
So little space separated them. Claire shook her head.
Noah’s face hardened.
“I want more,” she told him, then Claire pulled in a deep breath, grabbed tight to her courage and asked, “Will you f**k me?”
***
“You shouldn’t have gone to the hotel,” Vincent murmured. “Th-that was a mistake, sir.”
“The mistake was made years ago,” Colby snapped back at him. “When that girl wasn’t charged along with my son.” Sure, Ethan had been troubled. He’d been a little wild, but he’d never killed.
Not until he’d gotten involved with Claire Kramer. A little cheap piece of ass who’d destroyed Colby’s world.
Vincent shifted uncomfortably beside Colby. They were in the back of a cab, heading to their hotel. Once, Colby had only ridden in limos. He’d had the D.C. folks jumping to do his bidding.
But he’d lost his congressional seat after the trial.
Nearly lost his fortune in the legal battles over the years.
He would have lost it all, if it hadn’t been for his other son. Austin has saved him.
Austin was the only good thing he had left.
Because Claire took my life away.
“Uh, sir, I read the newspaper articles. Ethan tried to kill Claire—”
The bastard dared to say that to him? “Because he couldn’t live with what she’d made him do! Ethan told me the truth. He couldn’t stand what she’d done, how she’d used him, and he was just trying to stop her from hurting anyone else.”
Claire Kramer. Not some sweet innocent girl. She was a lying, manipulative whore who’d destroyed his boy.
It was a good thing Colby’s wife hadn’t lived to see the tragedy that hit his son. But Lily had died when Ethan was just three years old. She’d slipped from Colby’s life too soon. His perfect Lily—gone.
Lily was in the ground, but Claire Kramer was still walking around, living the high life. That was so unfair.
His hands were shaking. His gut twisting. He yanked out his phone. Vincent was a damn idiot. He didn’t understand anything.
Colby’s call was answered on the second ring. “You were right,” Colby said, the words heaving out of him. “She was here. York brought her here. The bastard is probably screwing her.”
Because Claire always used her body to get just what she wanted.
The tremor in his hands got worse as his rage swelled. “It can’t go on any longer,” Colby said. “I’m going to make sure she suffers.”
As his boy suffered, every damn day in that prison cell.
Ethan had nothing.
Claire deserved the same fate.
***
Noah’s hand lifted and curved around Claire’s chin. “You need to be very sure. There will be no going back.”
There wasn’t any place for her to go back to.
“I want to be with you.” Her words were the truth. She wanted him for tonight because tomorrow, well, then she’d begin running again.
A new city.
A new job.
Maybe this time, it would take Colby Harrison longer to find her.
Maybe.
He leaned toward her. “I’m going to make you scream for me.”
She shook her head. She wasn’t the screaming type. Ethan had fumbled with her in the dark, and it had hurt, but she knew there had to be more to sex than rough touches. Others found pleasure in the act. She would, too.
I want the pleasure.
But Claire didn’t think she’d scream. Not even for a lover like Noah.