The Waiting Game

Eve Devon

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Eve Devon. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com.

Edited by Rochelle French

Cover design by Fiona Jayde

Ebook ISBN 978-1-62266-081-0

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition May 2013

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Learjet 55, Facebook, the London Eye, Harrods.

To my very own hero—my husband. Thank you for believing.

Chapter One

Châteauroux, France

One hundred, ninety-three, eighty-six… Anxiety skittered along Brooke Bennet’s spine as she realized what she was doing. Counting backward in multiples. Damn. Five years had passed since the kidnapping, and although her therapist had been quick to reassure her the pattern of counting was simply a coping mechanism left over from the trauma, she hated that it sneaked up on her. It meant she wasn’t as fixed as she’d like to think.

In the living room of her tiny French country house, she repositioned herself on the yoga mat and forced the numbers from her head as she transitioned from Downward Dog to Warrior One.

She’d felt a little off all week. A little jumpy. But that wasn’t unusual for her. She simply had to keep busy in order to outmaneuver the unfurling tentacles of the eerie sensation. If she managed to keep the tension at bay, eventually the feeling would peter out. She just had to grit her teeth. Wait it out.

Easier said than done.

Usually a long yoga practice helped, but when the building tension forced her ribcage to contract rather than expand, she gave up any pretense of trying to find her spiritual center. Dropping out of the pose, she got to her feet and went to the kitchen to fix herself a drink.

She found a wineglass, and after setting it down on the granite counter, uncorked a bottle of pinot noir, poured the wine, and took a long sip, waiting for the alcohol to relax her muscles.

The furious bark of her neighbor’s dog caught her off guard. She jerked, accidentally knocking the glass of wine over the edge of the counter. It smashed on the unforgiving slate floor.

Her heart racing, she stood statue-still while she searched out the kitchen window for something—anything—out of place. But everything looked as it always did. After a few moments, the dog settled down.

Her thumping heart would take longer.

In the stark silence that followed, she stared at the floor. Crystal shards shone like a jagged cobweb under the harsh fluorescent light, mirroring the myriad fissures that had spread across her soul the last couple of years. She couldn’t seem to eradicate her internal mess, but at least she could clean up the one on the kitchen floor before the puddle of red wine left a stain.

She grabbed a newspaper off the countertop, then sank to her knees to pick up slivers of glass. In a few minutes, all evidence of the spill would be gone, but she couldn’t help wishing that erasing the aftereffects of what she’d endured could be as easy.

Get a grip. So the antsy feelings had freaked her out a little. She’d cope. She knew how to do this. Knew how to exist this way. And it wasn’t by focusing on the scars of her past, or even on the parts she’d managed to repair. It was by softening her focus and going about her simple and quiet existence. Nerves of steel were what it had taken to rebuild her life out here in quiet Châteauroux, only a two-hour drive outside bustling Paris.

But millions of miles away from what had come before.

The echoing peal of the doorbell startled her. But this time, panic didn’t spread through her system the way it had moments before. Control kept her even. Steady. That would be her neighbor, begging forgiveness for the dog’s bark, as usual. She rose to her feet, dumped paper and glass into the bin, then padded barefoot through the hall to the door. Plastering on a smile, she yanked open the door.

And stared uncomprehendingly.

Oh, God. Not her neighbor.

Shock rendered her voiceless. Breathless. And then joy and hope leaped along nerve endings.

Cameron Dexter.

On her doorstep.

As if by its own accord, her hand reached out, then froze in midair. Why was Cam here? Why now?

Staring at him, she struggled to compute his presence, so out of context. She took in his casual stance. How his hands were shoved into the back pockets of worn jeans. How the buttons of his shirt strained against the breadth of his shoulders. How his heart beat under the light fabric of his shirt.

But as she swung her gaze back up to his face, she caught his tight expression and the edge of something in his eyes that tugged at her and refused to let go—something she recognized but didn’t want to remember.

“Cam?” she said with a voice barely audible, and then her knees went weak.

She pitched forward, but his strong hands shot out in support. He eased her back, kicked the door shut, and propped her gently against the plastered hallway wall before taking a small step back. Leaving her to stand on her own. But his hands flexed at his sides as if ready to catch her again.

“You’re here,” she finally got out. In Châteauroux. In her house. Cameron. The man she’d once loved. The man whose life she’d destroyed, along with her own. Five years ago she’d run from him—from her life. Had gone into hiding, not even letting him know where she’d run to. “How did you know where to find me?” she managed.

“I’ve always known.”

“No.” She shook her head. He couldn’t have. Only a couple of people knew where she lived, and she’d made sure Cameron wasn’t one of them. Confusion set in. If he’d known her address, surely he would have made contact before now.

Despite the fact she’d refused to see him before fleeing England.

Maybe something had changed. Maybe somehow he’d found forgiveness and wanted her to know. Or he’d managed to tease her location out of Steven or Megan. Would her friends have told him where she was, though?

She wanted to reach out and touch him, but she didn’t dare. She had no rights where Cameron Dexter was concerned. Not after bringing everything crashing down around them the way she had. She hadn’t just let herself down, she’d let him down. And the two of them had ended up paying the highest price.

All because she had refused to listen to this man, the man who’d been in charge of security, hired to protect her and Megan on Nocturne’s world tour. Their musical duo had hit the limelight—until she’d brought everything down on their heads.

Cam reached out and briefly tightened his hands on her upper arms before stroking down the length of them to touch her fingertips. He inhaled sharply, then said, “Brooke, I need you to listen to me.”

The last time he’d asked her to listen, she’d been so angry she’d deliberately done the opposite.

And had walked straight into the darkest of nightmares.

The muscles in his jaw clenched, unclenched, clenched again, like a hypnotic metronome. Slowly, she dragged her gaze up to his dark and intense blue eyes, seeking information he now seemed reluctant to share. He returned her look as if weighing what he should say.

“I need you to pack. Clothes. Purse. Passport.”

“Pack?”

“Do it fast, okay?”

She stared up at him, grasping at comprehension, but failing. Seconds ticked by. Still she didn’t understand.

Finally, the tension in him filtered through to her. She no longer could deny what was lurking in his eyes. His body language, his expression, and the tone of his voice were all too recognizable from five years before.

Oh, God. Cameron wasn’t here to see her. He was here to protect her.

A slow dread seeped into all the tiny spaces within her. Something bad had happened.

Again.

Moving her hands into the gap between the small of her back and the wall behind her, she inhaled deep into her chest and rejected the instinct to run past him and out into the night. Run fast and run hard and never stop. Thankfully, the little shred of control she had left kept her rooted to the spot as she fought the cloying whirl of panic and waited for him to perform his duty.

“Why are you here, Cam? Why do I have to leave?”

He bent a little at the knees in order to look straight into her eyes, as if to make utterly sure his next words had her full attention. It was impossible not to feel surrounded by him.

“Spinks is out. He was released yesterday, fourteen hundred hours GMT. You’re in danger.”

…

Cameron hated that Brooke’s lips formed an instant denial. His gut twisted as eyes that had once shone with such life now stretched wide and flashed with full-fledged fear. “Brooke. I need to get you someplace safe. It’s possible Spinks could find you here.”

Her legs buckled again, and going against all the promises he’d mentally made before knocking at her door, he reached for her. Just one more touch. To soothe the shock, he rationalized. He smoothed his hand over her shoulder-length black hair before tucking it under the curtain of hair to caress the nape of her neck. He knew her, knew she had to be feeling the need to run—run anywhere as long as it was far, far away from him and the news he’d just brought. After one beat of his heart, two beats of hers, he pulled his hand away.

He thought he’d prepared himself for the sight of her. Yet all at once, she was familiar but not. Fragile but holding it together. Scared but still standing.

Just.

Before the monster named Andre Spinks had kidnapped her, Brooke had reacted to the world from her heart, not her head. Back then, Cameron had found her response to life frustrating as hell, challenging, and maybe a little bit charming. The fact that she was now attempting to master her emotional reaction to the news Spinks was out of prison impressed him, even as he warned himself to be wary. Sometime soon the dam holding in all that suppressed emotion would burst, rendering every little piece of sinew and muscle in that beautiful body of hers lethargic and useless. He wanted them to be well on their way to safety before that happened.

“He wouldn’t come here,” she said, the words clipped, as if forced out. “It’s over. He’s done with me. He wanted me left alive. He told me. He wanted me to suffer.”

Frustration burned in Cameron’s belly. Christ. Was that really what she thought? That the psycho wouldn’t try to finish what he’d started? Cameron wanted to rail at her that this was the danger of shutting herself off from the world without support and with no one to raise the alarm if she wasn’t seen for a couple of days. In her bid to get away from England and the media—and him, he thought bitterly—she’d left herself wide open. She wouldn’t have stood a chance if she’d opened the door to find Andre Spinks on her doorstep.

“Don’t tell me he won’t come looking for you,” Cameron ground out. “You were never that naive. At the very least, if he doesn’t find a way to follow you out here, the paparazzi are going to be beating down your door. They’ll find you. Do you want to invite all that into your life again? Bring your new life crashing down around your ears?”

He saw the moment his words sank in. Saw the horror, the shame, the guilt, all clash with what little pride she’d managed to rebuild. Five years ago she’d been a world-renowned musician, a darling of the media. A pain in the ass to protect. And then, because of him, her world had crumbled.

She drew herself upright and said in a determined voice that shook only a little, “What kind of clothes should I pack?”

That she’d managed to find a little logic, a little fight within her, gave him some reassurance. If he was right and Spinks had a mind to begin his sick games again, then she would need every bit of strength she had in the days to come. He’d make sure she kept that fight in her and that she could control it before they took further action.

“Pack for comfort. Pack light. Can you do that?”

“I can do small.”

“Good. You pack. We go. It’s that simple. I’ll start locking everything up. You give anyone a spare set of keys?”

“No. Of course not,” she said, ducking her head and sidestepping him to stride off down the hall. “I’ll get you my set of keys. I keep them in the kitchen.”

Of course not. He blew out a breath as he followed her down the hall. She’d said it as if she would never again be comfortable giving someone that kind of access to her life. As if she’d never let herself trust anyone again. And for good reason.

“Make sure you gather all personal documents,” he said. If Spinks did find his way into this house, there was no way Cameron would let the monster use anything of Brooke’s to satisfy his sick urges. “How about a journal or diary?” He poked his head into the living room and got hit with a good dose of minimalism—blank walls and nondescript furniture—before following her down the hall. The walls in the hallway were like those in her living room. Crisp, white, and naked, no doubt the same as the day she’d moved in. What kind of life would she write about in a journal? Emptiness? Blank pages?

“You keep anything like that?” he prompted, glancing back at her, then quickly dragging his eyes away from the sway of her hips before she turned and shook her head.

He followed her into the kitchen, which he quickly scanned. Glossy white cabinets, the countertops and flooring a matching black-speckled granite. The only color in the room came from six shiny green apples nesting in a stainless steel bowl, and the only personal item was a sketchpad with a plan for a flower garden.

A flower garden, of all things. If this was all she felt capable of now, it was a bitter pill to swallow. He wondered how Megan McGuinness, her former bandmate, would reconcile the hollowed-out Brooke he saw before him with the vivacious and gregarious Brooke of before.

He tried convincing himself it would be easier to get her to leave a house barely lived in than one in which she’d made a home, but anger mashed with guilt, and he knew he’d have rather found her getting ready for a night out with friends. Living her life. Embracing her life. This didn’t look like living.

“Where is all your stuff?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, pulling out a kitchen drawer and placing a set of keys on the countertop.

“Mementos, photos, memorabilia—”

“Anything connected to Nocturne I left with Steven, or I put in storage.”

So Megan and Brooke’s former manager had possession of everything that defined Brooke Bennet. Pity lodged in Cameron’s heart, unwelcome. “You kept nothing?”

She shook her head, stepped back, and then gave a small gasp. Quickly, she pulled a knee up to her chest.

“What’s wrong?” In a nanosecond, he was at her side. Half-supporting her, he brought her over to a kitchen barstool.

“It’s nothing,” she said, sitting. “A glass shattered earlier. I must have stepped on a shard.”

Kneeling in front of her, he took her foot in his hands, wincing when he saw blood appear. “Do you have a first-aid kit?”

She pointed to the cupboard under the sink. “There’s a plastic tub with some bandages.”

Gently, he set her foot down to go retrieve the medical supplies.

Silence stretched between them as he rifled through the pitifully meager first-aid kit and thought about what to say. She had nothing personal to pack? Not even musical instruments? Photographs? Sheet music? He was both amazed and disheartened to see she’d walked away from her life so thoroughly. Music had been her everything.

Just one more thing Spinks had stolen.

Cameron swallowed the guilt back down, yanked a bandage from the tub, and turned back to her. With gentle fingers, he pressed around the wound on the sole of her foot, acutely aware of the warm softness of her skin, of her every reaction to his touch. When she shook, his thumb automatically pressed soothingly into the arch of her foot. A mistake, because her violent shudder vibrated all the way through him. Into his bones.

He looked up into her eyes, caught the dilated, glazed expression, and pretended to misunderstand. “Easy,” he said softly. “It’s only a tiny puncture. I want to make sure no glass fragments remain.”

“It’s fine. It’s not like I haven’t had worse.”

Cameron froze.

Yes, she had.

On account of him getting so engrossed in her, he’d not done his job properly.

He fixed the bandage in place before quickly rising to his feet. His words emerged gruffly when he said, “You’ve got ten minutes to pack, and then we’re leaving.”

She remained where she was, frowning. “I still don’t understand. Were you sent by Steven?”

“No.” Nocturne’s former manager had avoided him for years.

“Who, then? Someone had to have contracted you to protect me.”

“Why would they?”

“Because—” She sputtered to a stop, then breathed in and out a couple of times. “You’re saying you’re here of your own accord? What, you dropped everything at Dexter Security Consultants and got on the first plane as soon as you heard the news?”

He shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t have staff to keep DSC running when I’m not there.” He waited and watched as she dropped her gaze to stare down at her feet.

When she spoke again, guilt and confusion laced her voice. “I don’t know what to say about you feeling as though you had to come out here and rescue me.”

He inhaled sharply, then said with brutal and absolute finality, “I won’t fail this time. You have my word. This time it ends.”

“You didn’t fail me, Cameron. You saved me.”

Not the way he remembered the events of five years ago.

Not even remotely.

…

Brooke eased herself off the bar stool and retreated upstairs to pack. Stress must be the reason those words had slipped out, those horrible words that had to remind Cameron of what she’d gone through. Stress and humiliation. She hadn’t liked that he’d recoiled from her. But then it had never been all right for her to touch him, had it? With her body, her words, or even her emotions.

But that had been part of the problem. You’re just a job. That was what he used to shout at her when her flirting had gone too far. When she crossed every line he’d responsibly drawn in the sand.

Cam thought protecting her had been his only failure. And Cameron didn’t do failure. Cameron did accountability. Responsibility. Duty. Three words he had used over and over as a way of keeping her at bay.

Was that why he was here now? To correct his error and clear his record?

How had he even known she was living here? Steven had set her up in this place the day of the sentencing, the day Andre Spinks had started his sixteen-year prison sentence. Even though she and Megan had disbanded Nocturne and Steven wasn’t their manager anymore, he’d been kind to provide for her, to help her stay hidden from the media. From Cam.

From Spinks.

A sick sensation crawled up her spine. God, how the hell could Spinks be out? Had he escaped? Been granted a pardon? How could he ever be pardoned for what he’d subjected her to?

Where she’d felt hollow, she now felt riddled with fear. She forced herself not to pull at her skin, not to give in to the fierce need to rub at the scars. She wanted Spinks’s release to be some horrible mistake. But she knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Cam wouldn’t be here for any other reason.

She refused to let tears seep out from under her lashes even as they threatened, and instead reached blindly into her underwear drawer. She pulled out matching scraps of lace and silk and dumped them into a medium-sized suitcase. Jeans, socks, and sweaters followed.

She owed Cam. She would do well to remember that. Remembering would help keep everything simple.

Remembering could keep her alive.

She would show him she’d learned to follow the rules, and she would not be afraid. He wanted her to come with him—this time she’d follow procedure. Willingly.

Hurriedly, she swapped her jersey top and yoga pants for skinny jeans, flats, a white T-shirt, and a clingy cardigan. Reentering the kitchen, she found Cam leaning against her breakfast bar, studying a large road map.

He glanced at her and asked, “Got everything?”

She nodded.

“Sure?”

She frowned.

He reached out and picked something up off the countertop. “Here.”

The leather notebook sailed at her and she reacted automatically, catching it in midair. Her hands quickly sought the comfort of the worn leather, her fingertips tracing the soft embossed pattern of tree branches that spread out over the front cover.

“How did you…” Oh. He must have gone through her bookcase in the living room.

“I told you to make sure you brought all your personal items with you.”

“It’s not what you think.” This wasn’t a journal or diary.

“No? Looks pretty personal to me.”

“I don’t use it anymore. I mean, I—” Her psychologist had given her the notebook, encouraging her to move on. Embrace what had once brought her joy. And yet her attempts at writing music again had been pitiful, so she’d stopped. Had nearly stopped questioning if her reluctance to write in the notebook meant she was finally moving forward and truly becoming a new Brooke Bennet, or if it meant creating music had been lost to her because of Spinks. That bastard had stolen more than the public knew—he’d stolen her joy. The unfinished notebook was proof enough.

But clutching the warm leather provided comfort and gave her the courage to force the next words out. “How—why is he out?”

Cam started folding the map back up. “Same way all the other scum get out. He made a deal.”

A slow and steady burn started in the pit of her stomach. “I thought it was arranged so an early release could never be a possibility.” She questioned if she’d ever really believed he’d stay in prison forever, and the burn spread. It wasn’t as if deep down the belief had ever provided any comfort. Andre Spinks had systematically stripped her of all the strength ever forged into her personality. And when he was done with her, she’d been left with nothing she could use to recreate who she’d once been.

That had been the entire point.

That was what gave him his power.

Surely Spinks’s actions should have accounted for something more than five years in prison?

“I’m sorry,” Cam said, putting the map in his jacket pocket, then bending to pick up her bag. “I don’t know what to tell you. In this case, Spinks played by the rules. Sucked up to the decision-makers. Pretended to be something he wasn’t—and was granted an early release on the condition he stay away from you. He’s out legally.”

“Yeah? When do I get mine, then?” She hadn’t meant for the bitterness to leak out. She swallowed and rubbed a hand over her churning stomach. Realization hit. Had Megan heard that Spinks was out? “Megan—”

“She’s fine. I’ve sent word you’re safe. She’s strong. She’ll weather this, just like last time.”

Brooke had no choice but to stand squarely in the face of the wave of guilt crashing over her. As its tide receded, she tried to cling to some semblance of control.

“I can’t let you call her until we get to where we’re going,” he added. “And even then, you’ll be using my phone. No calls out on yours. No texts. No e-mails. You want to communicate with anyone, you run it by me first.”

There was no way she could talk to Megan. After the trial, Brooke had run from everyone, her best friend included. Now she was afraid that hearing Megan’s soft and gentle voice would make reality set in. And the knowledge that Andre Spinks wasn’t finished with her yet would be unleashed. She had to keep everything locked up tight inside of her. That meant not talking to Megan. “Whatever you say,” she told Cam. “You don’t have to worry.”

His silence told her he was reserving judgment.

Of course. He wasn’t used to Brooke Bennet following the rules. Well, he would just have to adjust, as she had been forced to. “Am I allowed to know where we’re going?” she asked.

“Someplace safe. Totally unconnected to you or anyone who knows you.”

“That didn’t exactly answer my question.”

He shot her a look that told her he’d been right to reserve judgment—she’d lasted precisely five seconds before compliance became a foreign word yet again. Chagrined, she held her hands up in apology and mentally vowed to hold her tongue. Showing him she had changed would take some work.

There was a grim twist to his mouth when he said, “All you need to know—all you need to believe—is that I am going to do everything and anything to make sure Spinks doesn’t get to you again. Do you understand?”

The conviction in his tone frightened her. Made it all seem so real. Too real. The ragged edge of panic descended again. She looked around the room, her vision swimming. This place was supposed to be her safe haven. Her sanctuary.

As if he understood, Cam offered quietly, “When we leave, it’ll be easier if you don’t look back. I appreciate this is hard, but it’s only a matter of time before Spinks works out a way of getting here. It’s important to know when to stay, when to run, and when to hide. Right now, you hide. At least until I can verify his intentions. You ready?”

“Yes.”

At the door, his hand shot out to stop her. “It’s the dark blue rental parked on the corner. I don’t have a driver. It’s not like being on tour. It’s going to be like the day you and I went to the beach on our own. Remember the drill?”

Dragging in a breath, she nodded.

This was it, then.

Life interrupted.

Again.

She couldn’t look at him. She was too afraid that if she caught his expression, she wouldn’t see him remembering that day at the beach when he’d relaxed his bodyguard attitude and kissed her, hot and deep and full of want. Afraid that instead of that warm memory, she’d see him remembering how he’d found her on day six of her disappearance.

In a damp, derelict boarding house.

Tied to a steel gurney.

Chapter Two

Biarritz, France

Three days later…

Fire spread through Brooke’s lungs as she flicked away a trickle of sweat and ran faster, harder, in a bid to block out her intense awareness of Cam, jogging at her side. Three days spent in a luxury campsite outside Biarritz, France, hiding out from Spinks, and still she hadn’t grown used to being so close to Cam. This was day three of what she’d privately termed “Cameron-induced cabin fever,” and in an attempt to halt her awakening senses and building arousal, she’d begged to be allowed out for a run.

When Cam agreed, she’d been pleased.

And when he appeared in running shorts and a white T-shirt and her mouth had dried up, she realized that her attraction to him and the awareness ratcheting up inside her nearly outweighed the desperation clawing at her over the incessant waiting. His searing gaze had roamed over her, leaving her feeling like she’d run a marathon before even stepping outside.

“Half a mile left,” he said. “Still got enough steam?”

Would a half mile be enough to fully desensitize her to his presence? She could only hope.

The forest floor undulated under her feet. Sunlight dappled through tree branches, and in the distance, the grasses in the meadow that housed the yurts where Cam and she were staying waved in the gentle breeze.

There was no comparison to the inside running track she’d grown used to in Châteauroux. There, the ground never shifted, the scenery never changed. But there she’d also figured she was safe. Secure. Not a victim. Not a target.

Was she a target now? It had been three days since she’d asked Cam where, specifically, in the security training manual it stated that if a psycho stalker had been released from prison, going “glamping” was a viable option.

Ignoring her outburst, he’d told her that psychologically, it was important they lay down their marker and wait. She couldn’t help wondering if while he was waiting—studying Spinks’s moves with his team—that psychologically, Cam was also studying her and her reaction to Spinks’s release. As if he was waiting for her to pass some sort of test.

Her breath pulled into her chest and rushed out through clenched teeth. Wasn’t she showing him every day that she knew how to follow his rules? She was no longer sure what waiting could achieve.

Unconsciously, she started running faster.

He drew up alongside her. “Slow it down, or you’ll hurt yourself.”

His quiet command rumbled over her, ruffling her feathers, and perversely, making her want to prove she wasn’t a novice at everything. Running had almost become second nature.

“Can’t you handle the pace?” she threw at him, and immediately regretted goading him.

“I don’t need you keeling over, nor do I need you twisting an ankle only a few hundred yards from base just to prove a point. What if we need to move in a hurry? So slow it down, or we don’t do this again.”

Shame slashed at her. She was supposed to be thinking about how her actions affected him instead of worrying about how he was affecting her.

She spared him a quick glance, caustically thinking he could at least do her the courtesy of breaking into a sweat while reminding her of her responsibility to follow the rules. But his T-shirt was barely damp. Clearly, owning and managing a large security consultancy hadn’t stopped him from keeping in shape. If anything, he looked even more fit than he had a couple of years ago.

Her heart kicked up its rhythm, and it had nothing to do with the run and everything to do with the strength and physicality emanating from the man beside her. She spied the structure up ahead and started to slow. But her heart kept revving.

A few minutes later, she’d reached the yurt’s entrance, Cam at her side.

“Water?” he offered.

“Please,” she puffed out, coming to a standstill. She reached out for the water bottle, drank thirstily, and handed it back to him. When he tipped his head back to swallow, she couldn’t drag her gaze away.

He lowered the water bottle. “I need you to stop doing that.”

“Huh?”

“Looking at me like that. It’s distracting, and—” His phone rang, and he broke off what he’d been about to say.

Her mouth dropped open. He’d caught her ogling him. How embarrassing. When he answered his phone, she ungraciously snatched the water bottle back and followed him into the yurt.

She wanted to be sarcastic and tell him surely she could be forgiven a little visual eye candy. But that sounded a little too much like how she used to tease him. She might be able to find the words, act like she used to around him, but in truth, even if she did flirt with him now, she’d never be able to follow through. Not after what had happened.

Her stomach suddenly roiled, and she automatically looked down at her long running shorts that ended just above the knee, hiding her scars. He would hardly be interested in her now.

As he spoke, she listened to the absolute authority in his tone. His orders were concise, curt, and delivered with the expectation they’d be followed to the letter, making her wonder how she’d ever gotten away with flirting with him when he’d served as head of security for Nocturne’s world tour.

From the first, she’d been attracted to his strength, the polite yet firm way he commanded his crew, the control he illustrated—despite the fact his blazing blue eyes seemed to see everything except her. And definitely despite the fact he analyzed and controlled her every movement, trampling all over the creative energy on which she thrived.

She’d flirted with him like crazy. And all the while, he’d remained professional. Distant at worst, impersonal at best.

Until that one time when she’d demanded he personally provide protection for her on a trip to the beach. There she’d brazenly kissed him—and for a moment, he’d kissed her back. When he pulled away, she’d seen for the first time the heat barely banked in his eyes. And she’d finally understood he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

But until the day he’d discovered her tied up and gagged, he hadn’t met her gaze again.

Blinking away the memories, she zoned back into the present, belatedly noticing him waving to get her attention.

“I need your phone,” he snapped out.

He didn’t look happy, and the restlessness the run had abated returned full measure. Now what had she done?

…

Cameron took Brooke’s phone from her and switched it on, still cursing himself for making that crack about her checking him out. What the hell had possessed him? For the first time since they’d entered the yurt three days earlier, the run outside had left them both in a more relaxed mood. And he’d had to go and ruin it all. But damn, it was hard to reconcile those hazel eyes that tracked him with burning desire and the vulnerability that slammed into them whenever she realized what she was doing.

Brooke Bennet had always packed a charming offensive equal to none, where he was concerned. This new, tentative Brooke was proving equally beguiling. Until he remembered what—no, who—had instilled that vulnerability within her, and then the anger and guilt came to coil and twist in his gut.

The screen on her phone came to life, showing seven missed calls from Steven Sheldrake. Her former manager must be frantic.

He lifted his own phone to his ear. “Listen up,” he said to Alex Bond, his second-in-command at DSC, who’d still been holding the line as he examined Brooke’s phone. “Forward me the e-mail now. Call Sheldrake back and reassure him Brooke’s safe with me.” He ended the call, got his laptop out of his bag, and took it over to the rattan table and chairs, clicking the computer on as he walked.

Brooke had waited maybe a full second for the laptop to boot up before she sat in one of the chairs opposite him. “What happened?” she asked.

He accessed his e-mails and opened the most recent. He was about to find out just how deep Spinks’s legacy had burrowed into her. “Yesterday Steven received an e-mail listing your property in Châteauroux for sale. He’s pretty sure the e-mail was sent by Spinks. So am I. Those missed calls are Steven trying to get in touch with you. When you didn’t answer, he called the agency, wanting to speak to me. He didn’t know I’d already picked you up.”

She shook her head slightly as if to denounce the threat. In the next moment, she snatched her phone off the table and started flicking through the texts from her agent. After breathing out sharply, she hovered over the last one and read aloud, “At least answer my calls. I can’t hold the press off much longer. Stop hiding and fight. Come back and show the bastard he won’t ever win.”

Her gaze flew to meet Cameron’s before she wrenched it away, breaking their connection. But not before he saw the flush of humiliation staining her cheeks. When she dropped the phone back on the table, he knew that anger was adding itself to the dangerous mix swirling inside her.

She pulled the laptop to her to study the e-mail he’d just opened. The e-mail showed a photograph of her house and the words, Vacant possession. One previously famous owner.

“Steven is right,” she said, her voice hoarse. “Spinks has made his move. We should go back to London and turn up at his front door and—”

“—and what? What should we do then?” Cameron demanded, then regretted interrupting the thought cycle she’d started. He needed to ascertain how scattered and panicked her reactions were. And in doing so, let her see her own lack of control and prove to herself that she wasn’t ready to run back to England. Certainly not without a firm idea of Spinks’s plan. And without a plan of her own.

“We stop him. He won’t stop unless someone stops him. You know he won’t. We have to act.”

He sat in silence and watched the color slowly leach out of her face as it dawned on her that he wasn’t going to jump up and lead the way. He noted how she had to breathe in and out a couple of times before she could form a coherent thought. Before she could speak. Then he grew concerned as her color came back and a fire lit in her eyes.

“All right, then,” she snapped out. “I’ll be the one to stop him.”

Whoa. Wait. This wasn’t the reaction he’d expected. Or wanted. He needed to get her back on track. Onto his plan.

Before she could get up, he reached out and locked his hand over hers, willing his touch to be soft so she wouldn’t react to the tension tunneling through him. “Wait a minute, now. Breathe. Think.”

“Let go.” She tried to pull her hand free.

He stroked his thumb across her wrist. “Explain to me exactly what you think you’ll be capable of doing to stop Spinks.” He searched her face and saw her starting to erect the mask he’d seen on the faces of so many other victims of violent crime. Inside, she had to be torn between flight or fight; on the outside, she appeared pumped and ready to fight. False bravado.

“All that adrenaline feeding your emotions would get you through a plane ride,” he continued, forcing his voice to sound conversational. “It may even get you through a couple of trips by taxi. And by then, who knows? You’ll probably be so fueled with anger, it might even get you to his front door. What then?” Her chin tipped up in defiance, and he leaned across the table, invading her space. Pushing her. “What then?”

Hatred, fear, and despair all flashed in her eyes.

“You really think someone like you could kill someone like him?” he asked, reaching out to tuck a strand of her silky hair behind her ear. “Because I don’t.” His thumb brushed against the rigid set of her jaw. His pulse spiked at the touch of skin on skin. He pulled his hand away and focused on what he had to do. “Without being able to claim self-defense, it takes more than what you’re feeling to kill a man. Even a man like Spinks. Do you really think you’re ready for that?”

He waited. Searched her face for a sign.

“I’m through waiting for that psycho to decide how, and more important, when he gets to toy with me again. Or rather, doesn’t get to,” she said, her voice shaking. “I want to take the fight to him. I want to take action.”

She didn’t look very convincing. Or strong.

He had to prove to her she wasn’t ready.

Or risk losing her to Spinks all over again.

And he hated what he was about to do. Even if it was to keep her safe.

“You want action?” He shot up from the table and wrenched her chair around so she faced him as he towered over her. Fear lit her up from the inside and had every muscle tensing in preparation. “You see? Look at you. You can’t handle action. Not after what that bastard put you through. Everything inside of you freezes like a deer in the headlights at the mere mention of Spinks. Until I can trust you to be able to follow instructions—” He winced as soon as the words left his lips.

“Oh. My. God. This is about before?” She stared back at him. “Do you think I didn’t learn my lesson? That I didn’t nearly pay the ultimate price for ignoring you that day? Do you think I didn’t swear with every breath I had in me that if I ever got out of there alive, I would never be careless about my safety again?” She pushed herself to her feet, then kicked the chair out from underneath her and paced.

His heart rate increased with each of her movements. He wanted to calm her down. Reassure her none of this was her fault. Instead, he let her rage on.

“You can’t know—you can’t possibly know the all-consuming guilt I have for what I put my friends, Steven, even you through by allowing anger to rule me and choosing to defy your orders that day.”

“Brooke…” He knew about guilt. How it could gnaw a hole clean through your soul, leaving you with nothing but the memory of your failure for company.

“Since the trial, I’ve lived in a safe manner. Trying to breathe life into my existence in a way that wouldn’t worry anyone. And okay, so my body might go into hyper-drive whenever I feel threatened. So I may never be able to get a full night’s sleep or ever fully relax. But to suggest I can’t be trusted to help keep myself safe?”

She stopped in front of him, her breath coming in choppy bursts. “I’ve done all of that, lived like that, and isn’t it ironic—”

“It’s not ironic. It’s sad,” he cut in, putting the truth right in front of her.

“What?” Her question came out tortured and hit him hard.

“You want to stand here in front of me and argue that the timid existence you’ve carved out for yourself is living? You haven’t been living. You’ve barely been going through the motions.”

Seconds passed. Then her shoulders slumped, and it seemed as if her spirit had folded in on itself.

Damn. He was scum.

That sense of self-loathing was marginally alleviated when a light finally reentered her eyes, and she recovered enough to draw air into her lungs. He didn’t know whether to feel proud of her or wary. He focused on her as she licked her lips and squared her frame.

“Spinks is waiting on purpose, you know,” she said dully. “Tiny actions that amount to nothing—that’s what he’ll use to pull us in and keep us on edge. He’ll string it out forever if he wants to. That’s how he works. And what will we do, Cameron? Will we wait forever, too?”

He let her march away from him, across the gleaming polished wood of the yurt’s raised floor. Let her spend a couple of minutes gathering a towel and fresh clothes from her bag. But when she made to brush past him, he blocked her path.

“I need you to use your head,” he said. “You have to know there’s no way I’m letting this end in a bloodbath. This ends with Spinks back where he belongs. In prison. And you getting to go back to your life.”

He stared down at her and waited. And while he waited, he held his breath. Finally, he felt the give in her stance. He exhaled.

She gave a short, tight nod of her head and said softly, “I’m going for a shower. That is, if I can be trusted?”

He may have won the battle, but so help him God, he’d also win the war.

For her.

…

Brooke glanced up from the blank page she’d been staring at, realizing it had grown dark. When had Cam switched on the solar lamps on either side of the bed and left her the mug of coffee? She touched the side of the mug. Stone cold.

She’d been sitting on the yurt’s bed with her leather notebook, attempting to write bits of melody, a few lyrics, anything, in the hope she’d anesthetize herself from their harsh exchange of earlier that day.

But it was no good. All the feelings of uncontrollable anger, the inescapability of emotions she was tired of battling, the distance she feared she would never gain—it all left her with one clear impression. Writing music wasn’t the key to letting the pain go, but rather an invitation to stay in hell. She couldn’t ever give herself permission to write unfiltered, untamed, anymore. She was too afraid the melody that would come out wouldn’t heal her heart, but would instead make it crack.

Her mouth went dry.

Cam had her in the same halfway state of affairs with Spinks—only allowed to go so far before stopping and waiting. And that wasn’t any better than doing nothing.

She had to try harder to convince Cam she was worthy of his trust. Convince him she’d take on any test he gave her so she could go back to London and face Spinks. She couldn’t spend her days here simply waiting. Hiding. Not now that Spinks had made a move. At some point, she had to break free of this purgatory.

But how to tell Cameron?

Getting up from the bed, she stretched and walked over to where he sat hunched over his laptop, engrossed in his work. He looked up distractedly, frowned, and casually switched screens, but not before she registered he’d been looking at Spinks’s prison records.

“What were you hoping to find in those?” she asked, nodding at the laptop.

“Something that will tell us his current state of mind.”

“I’d be surprised if he was anything other than a model prisoner. He’s too sly, too clever, to be anything else. Don’t you think?”

He brought his wrist up to look at his watch. “I didn’t realize how late it was,” he muttered.

She let him change the subject while she regrouped. Gently, she took off the silk comforter draped over the lower half of the bed and spread it out on the cold, hard floor where he’d insisted on sleeping since their arrival. Guilt ate at her, but she crawled into bed, slipping between the pristine white duvet and cotton sheet, still dressed in the yoga pants and T-shirt she’d put on after her shower. She stared up through the glass wheel at the top of the yurt to the starry midnight sky above and determined not to focus on how it hurt that he didn’t trust her, even though she understood why.

Moments later, she heard him settle down on the comforter. She screwed up her courage and said, “Cam? Whatever happens, I’ve come further than I thought I had. I’m stronger than I thought I was. I wish I could make you understand that. Make you believe me.”

She gave him time to respond. When he didn’t, she whispered, “I spent days, nights, hours, minutes, and seconds waiting for you to find me. But I’ll be damned if I’ll spend the same waiting for him.”

She’d nearly drifted off to sleep before she heard his quiet response. “Okay. I’ll start putting some plans into place.”

He would? She wondered what had changed his mind but decided not to risk asking. She must have passed one of his tests.

“Cam?” she asked softly, her mind shifting into quiet free fall.

“Yes?”

“You said you’d always known where to find me. Did you ever want to?”

Ears straining in the quiet of the yurt’s interior, she thought she heard his gentle sigh.

“Why don’t you ask me a question you don’t already know the answer to?” he murmured.

She couldn’t help it. She smiled.

…

Andre Spinks squinted against the ghostly white light from the computer screen as he scrolled through an online catalog of surgical instruments. Last time he’d used a different medium predominantly, making excellent use of his tattoo gun. This time, though… Taking in the different scalpels on the screen, he debated which ones to buy. He closed his eyes, imagining the satisfying weight of cold steel in his hands. Soon he would be wielding the blades as if they were paintbrushes and would carve out his vision and present it to the world.

Then he would be revered.

Not labeled.

Not that he gave any credence to the labels churned out from the psych evaluations he’d completed in order to stand trial. He’d known what he was when he created his art, and so had Brooke Bennet. He’d left her with the proof of his genius all over her body.

Satisfaction had been short lived. Prison had separated him from his art materials and from his precious living canvas. A blistering crimson rage had risen up inside. Everyone got to see his art—except him—the creator.

Time had held no meaning, each day drifting into the next, until finally he’d concluded that the only way he could be with his art again would be to get out early. And the only way he was getting out early was by using what was available to him. Being a good boy. Obeying the rules. Showing he was a model prisoner and would be a model citizen. And his plan had worked. They’d released him on license after he’d served half his sentence. With restrictions, of course, as part of the terms of release, but those restrictions wouldn’t limit him. He’d go near Brooke Bennet if he felt like it.

He closed the site he had bookmarked, checked his e-mail, and shut the computer down.

Stretching out on his bed, he smiled, knowing that somewhere under the same inky sky, Brooke Bennet was waiting.

Waiting for him to make another move.

…

Inside the yurt, Cameron held his phone to his ear, impatient at being on hold. He’d been dressing when Alex had called, and now stood in jeans and an unbuttoned shirt, waiting for Alex to answer another call that had beeped through. And as he waited, he watched Brooke in the meadow, contorting her body into yet another pretzel-like shape in the name of relaxation.

It was quite the sight, he thought, distracted as hell. The morning sun beat down heavily, making her skin glisten from sweat. At least she’d kept her promise to stay where he could see her from the yurt. He tracked her movements as she offered up her salute to the sun and suddenly found himself wanting to peel the sleeve of her soft gray T-shirt from her shoulder to see if the small musical note tattoo he’d been so drawn to from before was still there. As much as he’d cursed the damned tattoo for winking at him whenever she’d worn a strapless top or bikini, now he hoped it was still there. Waiting to surprise him. Waiting to tempt him.

He swore to himself and tore his gaze away from her before he wound himself up any tighter.

He was supposed to be finalizing plans to get them back to London, not ogling her the way he’d accused her of ogling him the day before.

“Sorry about the wait, sir,” he heard Alex say.

He rolled his eyes at the formality Alex insisted on using. “Do you have to keep calling me ‘sir’? I thought that would stop when I promoted you.”

“I know you did, sir,” Alex mocked.

Cameron fought back a rare grin. Alex had been a good find—and made a great bodyguard, even if he was overly formal. He would put Alex and one of his other top agents, Ellie Turner, on Brooke’s protective detail when they returned to the UK. That assignment would give his second-in-command a chance to prove himself.

“We’re coming back to London earlier than predicted,” Cameron said.

There was a small pause. “Right. What do you need me to do?”

“Work out the security angles at the airport and make sure there’s full cover.” Doubt still nudged him, but he shoved the emotion away. They’d take the fight to Spinks, but on Cameron’s terms. “The texts from Sheldrake did set her off,” he added.

“Understandable. But you wouldn’t be coming back if you didn’t think she could handle it.”

God, he hoped Alex was right. When he’d been sitting in the airplane on his way to see her, he’d presumed Brooke would be changed—would have grown afraid, her spirit weak. Her initial demeanor had proved him right. Then, when she hadn’t backed all the way down yesterday, and instead had collected herself and tried to take control in a considered and calm approach, she’d showed him she had more fight in her than he’d given her credit for. He cast his gaze back on her, absorbed in the fluid lines she made as she transitioned from one yoga pose to another.

Yesterday she had flat-out amazed him.

And that flat-out worried him. Was her determination to follow the rules for real? Or would she blindly take action again, without forethought and planning, and put herself in jeopardy?

“Any movement on Spinks?” he asked.

“Other than to open his apartment door to sign for a food delivery, there’s been nothing.”

“He’s become comfortable at waiting,” Cameron realized, remembering what Brooke had said about Spinks being able to wait forever.

“I agree.”

“So we make him uncomfortable. Put it on our terms.”

“Is it?”

“What do you mean?” he asked, irritated.

“Is it on our terms, or are we being manipulated into thinking that?”

“We need to focus on the end goal.” Protecting Brooke was Cameron’s primary goal. But to do so, their first objective was putting Spinks back where he could never get at her again. She was right—she couldn’t run forever.

“Perhaps you could use her former manager, Steven Sheldrake, to help you make your London entrance,” Alex suggested. “Get him to organize a press conference.”

“Damn it, I won’t parade her around like bait.”

“You’ve authorized it before, for other clients.”

“She’s not a client, she’s—” Damn. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration.

“Sir.” Alex said firmly. “Should I tell Sheldrake to back off?”

Under the right circumstances, media attention during Brooke’s arrival would be of benefit. He had an excellent team, and he’d be at her side. She’d be safe. He wiped a hand over his face. “No. It’s easier to control Spinks if we control the media. A press conference—one we control—will work.”

“Should I call Sheldrake then, and tell him Brooke is coming home?” Alex asked.

Cameron deliberately swung away from her workout to concentrate. He couldn’t let himself get caught up in emotions. The distraction could prove deadly, as it almost had last time. He was capable of separating emotion from logic. Had done it time and time again. “No. I’ll call him and order him to arrange a welcoming committee when we touch down. A few members of the press, that’s all. Spinks wouldn’t expect us to be so open about her return. He’ll be there, somewhere in the crowd. Be ready to record what he does. I’ll call you with the details. And Alex?”

“Sir?”

“Stop calling me sir.” Cameron shoved his phone into his pocket and turned his attention back to Brooke. She looked all relaxed and serene, but he needed to be confident she’d maintain that control when an hour’s yoga practice wasn’t at her disposal. And right now, he wasn’t confident.

He exited the yurt, headed to the meadow. Time to tell her the plan, and in doing so, test her resolve and control. Hopefully, going back to London would be what she wanted, and she wouldn’t hate him for asking Sheldrake to bring in the media. And hopefully she’d respond well to his test of her control. He had to be absolutely certain she was ready to return to the UK. And maybe even face her torturer.

She looked up from her pose. He found her gaze riveted to his abs. Christ. He should have buttoned his shirt before coming outside. Her gaze dropped lower, following the line of chest hair, and when her eyes flicked back up to his, he saw not vulnerability, but hot, healthy desire.

Arousal tore him up inside. Danger flashed in neon signs behind his eyelids.

And the devil in him taunted him to play with fire, until rationality reminded him it would be incautious to fan the flames.

He walked slowly toward her, pinning her with his stare, crowding her deliberately. Needing to push her. Checking one last time that she was capable of functioning even when all riled up. “It’s a new day,” he said. “I want the truth—you still think you’re ready for this? To go back to London?”

“Of course.”

Not good enough.

“What if something goes wrong and Spinks steps up behind you in a stairwell and puts a cloth over your mouth and you wake up tied to a metal gurney and all you see are his instruments of torture?” he said in a rush of words. “What are you going to say when he makes you wait while your imagination goes off the scale, wondering what he’s going to do to you?”

She swallowed. Fisted her hands at her sides. “That won’t happen. You’ll be at my side to protect me. You and your team. It’s going to be different this time. For a start, his pride would never take into consideration that I could be different from before. He expects me to be the same. But I’m not, and the minute he gets anywhere near me, he’ll have made his first mistake.”

Damned if he didn’t feel himself responding to the hope, the bravado in her voice. But still he pushed. “You’ve got it all figured out, haven’t you?”

“I’m not stupid, Cam. I know I can’t do this on my own.”

He took another step toward her. “Going back before we know exactly what he’s planning could be playing right into his hands. If I take you back now, it’s my show all the way, Brooke. You’re not going to like my response if you push back at me.”

“We’ve been over this. At some point you have to trust me. If I wait here, he’s won.”

“Waiting is what’s been keeping you safe,” he reminded her sharply. “Hiding is what’s been keeping you alive.”

“This?” She flung her hands out to gesture to the meadow. The rented yurt. “This isn’t living!”

“Neither was hiding out in your house. But at least you were breathing. Your heart pumping.” He reached out and molded his hands over her shoulders.

Her hands shot out for balance, latching onto the hard wall of his chest, and suddenly all thought was immediately replaced with pure need for her touch.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice low and throaty.

He knew he should stop. She’d passed his test when she held her ground and let him push her buttons. But now her warm, sun-kissed skin was under his hands, and his own buttons were being pressed hard enough to obliterate some of his hard-fought resolve.

“Challenging your version of what constitutes living.”

She let out a sardonic yet shaky laugh. “And how are you going to do that?” She shook her head, and her hair drifted over his fingers like silk strands. Her heady scent, warmed by the sun and enhanced by the meadow, entered his pores.

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. And his plans went up in flames. Without stopping to figure the angles, he drove his hands into her hair, tipped her head back, and slid his lips over hers.

His senses shot straight into overload. Her moan engulfed him, and as she opened her mouth, his tongue dipped inside. Every pulse point and nerve ending jumped to attention as his tongue stroked hers, over and under. Thoroughly. Confidently. Feeding off her explosive response to him, he groaned and stepped closer, wanting her imbued in the taste of him, the smell of him, the feel of him.

She trembled.

And realization hit. He was kissing Brooke Bennet. He pulled back. Saw her eyes, wide and shocked. Appalled at his loss of control, he dropped his arms, letting her go. What the hell was he doing? All he’d wanted was to test her resolve. Her sense of control. Her willingness to let him lead the way. Not to give in to the desire that had been dormant for so long. Not to unearth the past.

…

Brooke watched with horrified fascination as Cameron schooled his expression to one of cool indifference. At first she wondered how he could disassociate from her so easily. And then she realized. His pushing her, his goading her, his kissing her was all one big test. The little remaining breath he hadn’t already stolen from her shuddered out of her lungs. Moments before, she’d been steeped in the sweetest of sensations, plastered against his body, experiencing wants and needs she’d deliberately ignored because of the physical and emotional scars she bore.

“You kissed me to challenge me?” The words tumbled out of her. How dare he use her desire for him against her? Fury ate at her. Then humiliation set in.

She pushed away and forced herself to stay and not run. Lifting her chin, she held his gaze. Emotion flickered behind his blue irises. For a second, she hesitated. Maybe she’d gotten it wrong. But Cam blinked, and his expression turned inscrutable again.

If this was a test, had she failed or passed? She’d allowed him to kiss her, but at least she hadn’t run from him when she realized the kiss had been a test. But still… “You don’t need to play dirty with me.”

“Brooke, I—”

“Forget it,” she said, putting two more steps between them. He didn’t believe she’d changed. He thought that if pushed, she would still choose to act first, think later.

But she had changed. She did understand what Spinks’s release from prison meant for her. The man who’d taken everything from her—her ability to create music, her friends, and her love for life—was free to walk the streets. And find her again.

She wasn’t in denial. Far from it.

Forcing some steel into her voice, she said, “How many more tests must I pass before you’ll believe me?”

Chapter Three

Cameron’s watch showed him they had twenty minutes until the Learjet 55 they were traveling in touched down in London. He glanced to the screened-off room at the rear of the plane. Brooke was changing into clothes suitable for facing the storm of publicity he’d ordered Steven Sheldrake to orchestrate for their arrival. There’d be one big splash of public attention, and then she would go with Cameron straight to a secure hotel to wait. Spinks would make a move at some point, and Cameron would be there to get the police proof the man had broken the conditions of his release. That’s all it would take to get Spinks behind bars.

It would take more than that, though, to bring Brooke back to life.

He glanced again at the rear of the plane. What was taking her so long?

Maybe she was using the opportunity to steer clear of him. Not that he could blame her, he thought, after the stunt he’d pulled at the yurt, when he’d lost control and kissed her. He eased back in his leather seat and turned to stare out the window at the rolling fields of grain below. Protecting Brooke and giving her back her freedom was supposed to be his only concern. Not her body and the way it had fit against his.

He drummed his fingers against the armrest as much to drive out the memory as to ground him back in the present. There was an edgy, jumpy feeling in his gut, telling him Spinks was going to be there when they landed. Cameron knew him well enough to know Spinks would be driven to get a look. But not get close enough to break the conditions of his release. No, he wouldn’t risk prison again by making it that easy.

Fingers tightened against the leather. A look was all Spinks would get. Because this time, Cameron would be at her side.

Sensing movement, he turned to see Megan McGuinness walking down the plane’s narrow gangway. When he ordered Steven to let them use his private jet, he hadn’t expected to find Megan on board when the jet had arrived in France. But the excited, almost cheerful look on Brooke’s face when she saw her friend made up for Steven overstepping the mark. He’d deal with Steven when they landed—a private talk that would leave the man in no doubt there’d be no more surprises. All decisions had to go through Cameron. He’d allow for nothing less.

Megan sat in one of the leather seats opposite him and casually slipped a magazine out of her bag, feigning an air of nonchalance, but shadows lurked in her eyes. He wasn’t fooled for a minute.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why did she send you out of the changing room?”

Megan stared at him over the rim of her magazine. “She made some excuse about there not being enough space, but truthfully?” She swallowed. “She won’t let me in with her while she’s dressing. I’m guessing because of the scars that evil bastard inflicted.” The usual veneer of serenity Megan carried slipped away, and anguish showed on her face. “God, she used to be so open, you know?”

He gritted his teeth. Brooke still had that capacity. When they’d kissed, she’d been deliciously open. Dangerously so. He’d struggled hard to rein in his response to her openness before he got carried away.

Megan craned her neck to check if Brooke was still out of earshot. “I used to marvel at the way she could embrace new experiences without fear. Finally, I realized she felt the fear all right, but she never let it hold her back.”

When Megan sighed, he felt her sadness, her frustration at not being able to help Brooke, and her apprehension of what Andre Spinks might still have in store for her friend.

“Maybe coming back reminds her of how strong she is,” Megan added.

Cameron absorbed Megan’s words. “I need her to remember and know it absolutely. What Spinks did to her was incredibly specific. She wasn’t just anyone. He felt a connection to her—and he’s going to want to reconnect. He’s not finished with her. He’s only just begun.”

Megan searched his face for a moment, then said with conviction, “So you’ll stop him. Just like before.”

Megan didn’t question his responsibility to keep her safe. To do his job, and this time do it right. She accepted it one hundred percent. Maybe he could get her to explain it to Brooke.

“And when it’s over,” she continued softly, “maybe you’ll persuade her to stay in England. Close to the people who care about her.”

He shifted in his seat. “My responsibility is to keep Brooke safe and put Spinks back where he belongs. After this is over, she’s free to live where she wants. And if that’s back in Châteauroux,” he added, “it’s nothing to do with me.”

Megan frowned. “You can’t manage to have one deep and meaningful conversation with her, to set her back on the right path? Make her remember England is her home?”

Having let Brooke down when it mattered most, he had no right to interfere in her future. “You want her to live here so much, you persuade her,” he said.

“Do you think I haven’t tried? It’s been hard enough to get her to keep in touch. Being so isolated can’t be healthy.” Megan looked at him thoughtfully. “You’ve seen her place in France. What’s it like?”

He grimaced. “Sparse.”

Megan pursed her lips. “Keep chipping away at her, then. Eventually that brain of hers will show her what she’s been missing, hiding from life the way she has.”

“Again, not my job.” He turned away, heard signs of Brooke emerging from the other room, but didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared out the window, noting the scenery below had changed from rural to urban. It wouldn’t be long before they touched down.

Awareness whispered over his skin the moment she stepped into his line of vision, and he glanced up.

“Do you think this is okay?” she asked, gesturing to her outfit, a thread of apprehension apparent in her tone.

“You’re asking me for fashion advice?” He looked from her to Megan, who simply smiled.

“I’m asking you whether you think this will get me noticed, achieve what we’re setting out to achieve. In Nocturne, our clothes were either chosen for us or supplied as freebies from top designers. I’m not used to having to pull an outfit together on my own that says, ‘Write about me in tomorrow’s papers, but don’t put me on the worst dressed page.’”

He tilted his head to the side and subjected her to a slow and deliberate appraisal. They had spent twenty minutes in a small boutique before boarding the plane, and she’d seemed grimly determined to make the detour as painless as possible for both of them. The jeans were designer, the scarlet sweater cashmere, and the matching red shoes definitely killer. He dragged his gaze up to linger a little on the soft red of her lips before moving up to her eyes, knowing he shouldn’t feel so satisfied when he noted the color flushing high on her cheekbones.

“You look fine,” he said, eliminating any emotion from his voice. “And since Steven’s arranged for the paparazzi to be there as a welcoming committee, I’d suggest wearing sunglasses.”

Brooke reached into her bag to retrieve something. “Big shades. Celebrity staple. Check.”

The flight attendant came by to ask them to prepare for landing, and when Brooke settled back in her seat and made to snap the seatbelt, her hands shook.

Her evident fear sent cold dread into his belly. “You know, it’s not too late to change the plan,” he said carefully.

She blew out a short, sharp breath. “We’ve been over this. I’m fine.”

“Okay. Then there are some ground rules to go over.”

“Sure. Whatever.”

“When the plane lands, we remain on board until I’m satisfied about the setup on the other side of the doors.”

“Check.”

“One of my agents, Ellie Turner, will meet the plane and escort Megan out of the airport and away from the press.”

At Brooke’s raised eyebrows, he quickly added, “I know Steven did you a kindness by sending Megan with the plane, but I suspect he did so to give the impression that you two being seen together is one step away from Nocturne reforming. The concept makes for great publicity. But tempting the paparazzi with the possible reformation of Nocturne wasn’t part of my plan, so that’s not how this is going to go down. This is you landing back in London under my protection. Understand?”

“Check.”

“As soon as we clear arrivals, you don’t stop for anyone or anything.”

“Check.”

“Once in the car, we head straight to the hotel. No stops along the way.”

“Check.”

Was she even listening? Taking this seriously?

“At the hotel, we head straight for the nearest bed.”

“Check—excuse me?” She looked at him now, her eyes wide, pupils dilated.

“Just making sure you’re not so eager to tell me what you think I want to hear that you aren’t really listening.”

She frowned at him. “You don’t think I’m taking this seriously?” she asked, her voice pitching higher with each word.

He held his hands up in surrender. Her eagerness to avoid repeating the details was a way of disassociating from the swirling emotion of returning to London.

“I suppose I should be thankful,” she said resignedly, after several moments. “If it wasn’t for that warped honor code of yours, we’d probably still be twiddling our thumbs back in France. The irony is that it’s this same warped honor code that started this again in the first place. I could be enjoying my life in blissful ignorance if you had taken some of your own medicine and just waited to see what Spinks was going to do. Maybe he never would have come after me.”

Stand by and do nothing? Leave her alone in that house in France? She was crazy if she thought that would have ever happened. Besides, the situation was completely different. For one thing, it was his job to protect her. Had been his job, the quiet voice in his head told him. He studiously ignored it.

“Maybe I did you a favor,” he said. “Can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me you were enjoying that ‘life’ you’ve been so busy living? Come on, five years ago you were out conquering the world with a passion that was breathtaking. Now you spend your Friday nights planning what flowers to plant.”

Brooke cast a nervous glance toward Megan, and when her friend simply looked innocently back at her, she returned her gaze to him. “But it’s really none of your business how I live my life now, is it? And anyway, when you’re back running your agency, I’ll be back in my quiet little house in France. We can’t all run around in high-stress environments for the rest of our lives,” she said, her words taunting.

“I understand that life changes naturally as you get older, and it grows slower, but your life didn’t change naturally, Brooke. You went through a life-altering event. I’d hate to see you look back in fifty years and be able to divide your life into two parts. A vivid life before the events of five years ago and the half life you led after.”

“You don’t know the first thing about it,” she said, looking down to remove a piece of invisible lint from the walnut-veneered table separating them.

“I can imagine.”

“No. You really can’t.” She shook her head as if to physically banish the demons.

The pervasive guilt threatened to overwhelm him.

“You can’t have it both ways, Cameron. Maybe I will change the way I live my life in the future, but in the meantime, at least no one will be able to accuse me of wallowing under a false sense of security.” She broke off, as if aware she had just reduced the conversation back to its bare bones.

…

Moving through the airport’s bustling foyers, Andre Spinks privately laughed at the visible security measures. Cameras that recorded the movements of thousands of people every day was all very well, but it was the staff behind the cameras who had the power. You couldn’t tell him those staff didn’t overlook the average in favor of investigating the unusual. If you weren’t on a “list,” or better yet, if you weren’t even traveling, with the right attitude and the appropriate demeanor, you could move around as you liked, at least in the public areas. Areas where the paparazzi hung out. Where lovers waited to be reunited. Where people claimed their baggage, arranged for rental cars, and dealt with travel-weary kids screaming for fish and chips.

And while the last word Andre Spinks would ever wish to be associated with was “average,” blending in allowed him to move through public spaces unnoticed.

Whistling, he looked right in the lens of the security camera perched high on the wall before casually walking through the unmarked door underneath. Excellent. There were already a few people gathered.

She would have the audience he knew she deserved.

When he took her this next time, he would videotape the entire process. Before, he’d thought he had all the time in the world to complete his canvas. Now he wasn’t taking any chances. Besides, if he posted his artistic process on the Internet, she could have her audience right up until the very end.

And so would he.

In truth, he preferred to take photographs. To his mind, photography required more artistic skill, skill spent properly framing and cropping each shot. But for a second chance at completing his canvas, he’d use the immediacy, the expediency, of video, so that it could show him working in real time.

Bitterness crept along his spine. He hadn’t had access to all his photographs while in prison. No matter. Being alone with the images these past few days had almost made up for the time he had been without them.

Almost.

Swinging his camera bag more securely over his shoulder, he deliberately bumped into the guy in front of him. When the man turned, Spinks held up his camera in apology. He let the man look him over. Let him register the casual clothes, the efficient camera equipment, and the laminate passes hanging around his neck and tucked into his front shirt pocket. He had thought the laminates a nice touch. Was pleased someone had noticed them. There was nothing like being looked over and dismissed as one of the guys from the same industry.

“You get the tip-off, too?” he asked.

“The former singer from Nocturne? Yeah. Got an e-mail earlier today. She should be coming out within the next half hour.”

Spinks looked casually around. “Think the cars will be at the north exit?”

“Probably. Either way, she’s got to come out past us.” The man’s eyes moved briefly over the laminate credentials again. “You freelance?”

Spinks held his ground. He had no cause to be worried. He smiled enigmatically and nodded his head toward the growing group of reporters and photographers. “Looks like she’s going to get quite the turnout. Not bad for a Facebook posting and a couple of tweets.”

“Good one. You can bet her management is behind all of this. Must admit I never thought I’d get this opportunity again. Heard that guy who kidnapped her was released from prison. Proper mad, she is, coming back here after something like that, but, hey”—the man put his palms up as if he wasn’t bothered—“I just get the art. And the art’s gonna sell.”

Spinks listened dispassionately, secure in the knowledge that neither the man chatting him up nor anyone else would ever suspect that he had already killed a man that morning. He didn’t regret it. The death had been inevitable. With the game changing and the stakes rising, there already was—what was it called? Collateral damage.

A sudden turn in an alley, a knife pushed in as deep as it would go, a slumped body bleeding out.

With luck, the man wouldn’t be found for another couple of hours. Leaving Spinks plenty of time to get a look at Brooke and still make it back to his hideaway.

A sense of elation filled him as he thought about how everything was going to plan. He had the location—a place no one could tie him to—and his instruments would arrive soon. Getting this second chance to complete his canvas was meant to be. And when he took Brooke and the officials were running around wondering why he hadn’t obeyed the conditions of his release when he’d been such a good prisoner, he would be showing the world just how creative he was. From a place where he could never be found. And neither would she.

He didn’t have much left to do to prepare the space. As soon as he had all the equipment stowed away, he would be ready.

It was a shame she would have to die this time. But that way, he would preserve his art. The thing that mattered most. He could hear the pounding in his ears, feel the blood thickening in his veins.

All that would remain to sustain him afterward would be the film.

The photographs.

The art.

…

Inside the private jet, Brooke watched Cameron run a hand through his hair in frustration, cell phone glued to his ear. He continued listening to the information relayed to him while he told the flight attendant to remain by the cabin door and not open it until he gave the order.

Brooke’s stomach churned, and her knees shook. Wanting to keep busy, she retrieved her sunglasses out of her bag and put her bag over her shoulder. Uncomfortable, she swapped it to her other shoulder, all the while worrying she wouldn’t be able to get herself to put one foot in front of another.

Fear.

Icy-cold, debilitating fear gnawed at her.

She tried telling herself she would be all right. That she’d experienced these exact feelings before. That it was just adrenaline pumping through her body. She was doing this to regain control over her life. Action was better than no action.

But she couldn’t mistake the thread of unease in Cam’s tone. She tried to detach emotionally, but the tension building in his voice made that impossible.

“What do you mean, you’ve lost him?” Cam spoke in a carefully controlled tone. “We’ve been right outside his door for days. Who did you put on him for today’s shift?”

Tiny darts of anxiety attacked her breathing.

Megan grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“Alex, find out where Spinks is,” Cam snapped out. “And find Jenkins. Bring him straight in for a debrief. Plus, I want an extra unit at the hotel. Pull them off another job if you have to.”

He slid the phone shut and stored it in his pocket. Brooke forced herself to meet his gaze.

“I don’t have a location for Spinks, or for Jenkins, the agent camped outside his front door. Contact was lost this morning, forty minutes after Spinks left his house on foot. I’ve got my second-in-command, Alex, on it. We’ll find him.”

She nodded sharply, tried to breathe evenly. In, out. In, out.

He gestured to the plane door. “The agent I told you about, Ellie Turner, will be at the bottom of these steps in one minute. The door will open, and Megan will leave.” He faced Megan. “Are you ready?”

Megan nodded, grabbed her bag, and turned to Brooke. She tugged Brooke’s shades from her vice-like grip. “Okay. Let’s make sure you’re fit for the public. You really only need two things anyway. Shades, celebrity staple—check,” she joked gently. “And then there’s Cameron here, the ultimate music star accessory, bodyguard to the rich and famous. Now you’re totally good to go.”

Brooke snapped her head up. “You think so, huh?” Her gaze slid to Cam.

He was watching her. Silently focused and efficiently intimidating.

His phone beeped and he glanced down, then looked out the window and over to the flight attendant. “Open the door and let Ellie in. Megan, it’s time you said good-bye.”

Brooke swallowed and gave Megan a tremulous smile. “I’ll see you soon. I can’t thank you enough for being here.”

“Hey, thank Steven,” Megan responded, giving her a quick hug. “Although—”

“Megan.” Cam interrupted Megan’s farewell hug when a blond woman with intelligent-looking eyes stepped purposefully into the cabin. “This is agent Ellie Turner. Do exactly what she tells you.”

Brooke didn’t know whether Cam deliberately blocked her eyesight so she didn’t have to watch Megan leave or whether it was unintentional. But all too soon it was back to being just the two of them. She lifted her chin and glanced at him.

He frowned. Ran his hand over the back of his head. “I need to make sure you understand what losing eyes on Spinks could mean. We have to assume he’s here. I don’t like that we don’t have eyes on him, but I have agents around this place and I’ll be right at your side.”

“I understand.” She aimed for a confident smile, all the while thinking she had made the second biggest mistake of her life. Maybe it wasn’t too late to tell him? A woman’s prerogative and all that. Surely no one would be all that surprised if she asked him to turn the plane around and take her back to that quiet, safe, romantic hideaway she had insisted on leaving. Or they could go someplace else. She could be generous in giving control back to Cam and let him choose where they went, as long as it was far away from here. As long as she was allowed to turn tail and run like her life depended on it.

“Remember the ground rules?”

Cameron’s voice brought her back. “Check,” she heard herself say from a distance and immediately felt her smile give a betraying wobble. She watched him clock the wobble, and from somewhere deep inside came the understanding that ultimately she didn’t want to give him any ammunition to argue they should be somewhere else, waiting it out. She plastered a determined smile on her face and said, “Let’s do this.”

“Okay,” he said, signaling for the door to be opened as he took a step toward it.

She was not afraid. She was not afraid. She was… “Hey, Cam?”

He turned back to her. “What is it?”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I seem to be having a little trouble getting my legs to do what I want.” Tears of embarrassment and frustration gathered at the corner of her eyes, and she heard him swear softly under his breath.

“I’ll be right by your side the whole time.” He paused and bent slightly at the knees to look directly into her eyes. “I know you can do this. Five minutes. Then we’re in the car. Fifteen minutes later, we’re at the hotel. You’ll be safe the entire time. At no point will I leave you.”

“Okay. I’m so—”

“Don’t apologize. But also don’t let the fear hijack you. You say you’re through with waiting, with hiding, right?” At her nod, he continued. “Then you have to emerge confident. If he is there, do you want him to see how scared you are?”

She swallowed and shook her head. “This is what I wanted, Cameron. I asked for this.”

“Then take control of your emotions. I get how much of an ordeal this is. But we can’t focus on that. We focus on getting to the car. That’s all.”

Her eyes settled on his broad and powerful chest and suddenly she was back at that yurt, pressed against him, luxuriating in the incredible feeling of his barely leashed strength aligning itself to her. Now, watching that same chest rise and fall, its steady rhythm unfaltering, she could believe he meant it when he said he wasn’t going to let anyone get at her. She could almost even believe in his confidence that she could conquer her fear and walk out of this plane, head held high.

This all seemed different than before, when his job had provided a barrier for him to hide behind. Now his protection seemed personal. And if he believed that much in her ability to rise above her fears, she could, too. She’d asked to do this. Wanted to draw Spinks out. Wanted to stop hiding. She just hadn’t realized how hard it would be to put her plan into action.

She stopped, blew out a breath. Pulled herself upright.

“Focus on getting to the car. That’s all. Okay?”

They stepped out from the plane to begin the long walk through arrivals and to the car. Sheer guts and determination had her forcing her feet to go where she told them. Mentally converting all the jelly-like properties of her legs into energy, she lengthened her stride and tried to walk with rhythm and confidence, matching the smooth yet fast pace Cam set.

She was fine until she could see the double doors in the distance that would bring her into direct contact with the public. Her steps faltered, and his arm shot out to support her. The last time she had exited an airport to the awaiting press, Megan and she had been returning for the home leg of Nocturne’s world tour. But within days, she’d received a visit from Steven and Cameron. Cam had stayed in the background, careful to let the information about the first signs of stalking and the delivered photos come from her manager, but his gaze had never left her.

From that moment on, everything had changed.

She breathed in sharply and tried to find her center, tried to steel her core and lengthen her spine. She couldn’t afford to get caught up in past memories. Falling to pieces in front of the press wasn’t an option. But the more she tried to stiffen her spine, the more brittle she felt, and the more she thought she might snap in two. Oh, Lord.

Focus on getting to the car. Focus on getting to the car.

Whether Cam heard her mutterings she didn’t know, but he didn’t pause at the double doors. Instead, he opened them wide, and she followed.

She bowed her head as the first camera flash hit her.

He kept the two of them moving. His commanding presence was capable of keeping a little distance between them and the press, who fanned out in front of them walking backward, intent only on getting as many workable photographs and quotes as possible.

She bit down hard on the insides of her cheeks. In this game, mystery equaled guaranteed copy. Steven had taught both Megan and her that, when he’d been building Nocturne’s brand. Phase two would be to include a few statements, to stop and pose for pictures. For now, she needed to remain silent and keep moving. Something she was finding incredibly difficult to do.

“Brooke? Ms. Bennet? What brings you back to London?”

“Is this to be your home again?”

The questions kept coming, but she kept her face as impassive as possible, kept her head bowed, kept walking, doing her best to ignore the questions that kept coming like bullets.

“What do you think about Andre Spinks being released?”

“Do you think he’s capable of hurting another woman, or were you special?”

The question made her want to retch. She stumbled, and Cam’s arm shot out to steady her without breaking stride.

The car was up ahead. Just a few more yards. Oh, Lord. She wasn’t going to make it.

He inclined his head toward her and murmured, “So what happened to your tattoo?”

She automatically looked up at him. With the cameras flashing all around her, the question still managed to stop her panic in its tracks. Was he referring to the only one that had been her choice? “My tattoo? The treble clef?”

“Is that what the musical thingy was on your shoulder?”

“Yes. Um, I had it removed.”

A man in a nondescript suit opened the car door. Cam held onto the doorframe and raked his eyes over the crowd surrounding them.

“I always thought it looked hot.”

If it wasn’t for the quick heated look he sent her way before scanning the crowd once more, she would have told herself she had imagined his words. As it was, she brought a hand up to lower her glasses and look up at him. If this was his way of distracting her from the paparazzi and her building fear, he’d succeeded.

Almost.

The next thing she knew, she was being tucked safely into the car and they were pulling away.

As the airport buildings whizzed by, she sat ramrod straight, staring out the window, fighting the dizziness that threatened to suffocate her. She wished the car would turn suddenly so that she could accidently slide across the leather seat and into the shadow of safety he provided. But she had to be strong.

She was back in enemy territory.

And she was scared.

Ninety-eight, ninety-two, eighty-six…

Chapter Four

In the hotel, Brooke stood in the center of the luxury suite’s salon, lost in thought. Less than an hour back in England, and she was floundering and unsure. This wasn’t how she’d expected arriving home would be. She thought she’d have been stronger. More ready to take the fight to Spinks. Now she blinked away the hot sting of useless tears. She would have to get used to interacting with the world again if she wanted to present a strong front. It wasn’t going to come easy, though. Not if walking out of the airport arrival lounge had been anything to go by. God, her skin was still crawling at the thought that somewhere behind all the blinding camera flashes, Spinks might have been watching.

Surely she would have known if he had been, right? Felt his presence somehow?

“Brooke?”

She let her eyes drift shut. She was so tired. Exhausted, really.

“Brooke.”

At the sharp use of her name, she snapped back into the moment and popped her eyes open to find Cam standing right in front of her. “Sorry.” She licked her lips and forced herself to focus.

“You okay?” He placed his hands lightly on her upper arms.

“I’m fine. Just tired, I guess.”

“You were quiet in the car.”

Her breath caught. Her quietness in the car hadn’t solely been due to the media attention and Spinks. She’d also been absorbing the impact of Cam’s reference to her tattoo. Had she been right to have all her tattoos removed? The decision had been instinctive—but could the decision have been wrong? She wanted to trust that her instincts hadn’t disappeared along with the tattoos. With Spinks.

“Was he—do you think he was there?” she asked, locking her knees tight to keep herself upright.

Cam’s hands squeezed and stroked. Warmth and reassurance fluttered under the surface of her skin, spreading down her arms, and it occurred to her that she could become way too used to his healing touch. But she was too tired to warn herself off and pull herself clear of his hands.

“I can’t be certain,” he said, grimacing. “If he wanted to hide in plain sight, he would have to wear a disguise good enough to blend in. Difficult, but not impossible.”

“I thought I’d know instantly. Thought I’d sense him. Instead, I felt so overwhelmed. I’d forgotten what it was like—the way everything starts pressing in on you. I couldn’t separate general fear from a specific threat.”

“It’s okay. You did well back there. Really well.” As if acutely aware he was still caressing her arms, he dropped his hands to his sides. “You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You got to the car.”

She offered up a brief smile and rubbed her arms over where his hands had been. She didn’t exactly feel proud. How quickly the bravado she’d demonstrated in France had faded. Walking out of those double doors today had been a far cry from the last time she’d touched down in London in order to start the final leg of their tour. That day, Megan and she, complete with entourage, had walked toward the cars in a bubble of anticipation.

The exhilaration she had felt then—the sheer exuberance that told her she was exactly where she was supposed to be, doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing in life—was completely alien to how she felt today.

Today, the reporters’ quick questions hadn’t been so easy to ignore. She’d felt sick to her stomach when asked if she thought Spinks might go after someone else. She hadn’t considered anything other than putting an end to the waiting. She had effectively done what she’d promised herself she was through with doing.

She’d run.

Run away from the waiting, under the mistaken impression she was taking action.

Cam must have realized that was what she was doing. And yet he was here, standing by her side.

“Next time I’ll be more prepared,” she muttered, sitting down on one of the overstuffed sofas. “Next time I’ll know for certain if he’s there.”

“This isn’t a competition. Cut yourself some slack.”

“I just need a bit more practice. In Nocturne, I was always the spokesperson. After Spinks, I didn’t—couldn’t do any interviews. Steven looked after all that. He…” Her voice trailed off as she took in Cam’s expression. “What?”

“Wasn’t that his job?”

“You don’t understand.” Now she was back in the UK, she wondered what would be written about her if the media discovered she couldn’t sing or write music anymore. That she was effectively still in free fall. “The media can be really ugly,” she continued. “It couldn’t have been easy for Steven to stand up day after day and speak for me the way he did.” Frowning, she once again tried to recall the specifics of those first months. The memories continued to be hazy, her brain protecting her by only providing information when she was ready to process it.

She knew the bare bones. Cam had found her. Had called police. In minutes, medics had whisked her away. At some point she’d been moved to a private hospital and then finished recuperating at a house in the country. Later, when she’d crumpled at the thought of resuming work, Steven had issued a statement saying that in light of what had happened, the world-famous musical duo of Nocturne had disbanded.

She had been delivered to a private room in the courthouse for each day of the trial. Her written statements and video link had been enough to ensure she didn’t once have to appear in public or face Spinks in person.

Then the jury had delivered its verdict, and she’d thought it would finally be over. But it hadn’t been. England wouldn’t let her forget, the media hungry for stories. It was Steven who’d given her an envelope with the keys to the house in Châteauroux. He’d pointed out she needed to be somewhere she could heal. Somewhere she could figure out how to live again.

Megan had begged her to stay in England, but she couldn’t. She’d had to hide.

Steven had managed to get her out of the country, across the English Channel, and into a new life without one single picture taken, or one single question asked. In France, she’d been largely left alone and finally forgotten about. Steven had been the only person to visit her—not even Megan had known where she was. And she’d been fine with that. With the anonymity. With living outside the media’s scope.

With hiding.

“Don’t think about the press for the moment,” Cam said. “Rest. I’m going to set up my base in one of the bedrooms. Make contact with my staff.”

“I’ll try.” She curled her feet up under her, picked up an ivory silk cushion, and hugged it to herself. She could let go now. Spinks couldn’t get to her here—not with Cameron just yards away. She was safe. In hiding, but safe.

For now.

…

Brooke woke to the sound of raised voices. She must have fallen asleep. Mellow light from the table lamps dotting the room bathed the space, so she had no idea how long she had been asleep. But the nap hadn’t been long enough for the reaction to being back in Spinks’s territory to have completely left her body. Her legs still felt heavy as she swung them to the floor, as though she had too much emotion running through her, weighing her down.

“Go take a meeting or something,” she heard Cam say. “She’s resting right now. Come back later.”

She looked around the lounge but didn’t see him. He must be at the door, which was blocked by the walls of the hallway.

Steven’s forceful, clipped monotone came from the entry. “Look, I simply want to see for myself that she has everything she needs.”

Brooke smiled. She wanted to see Steven, wanted to thank him for all he’d done. She got up from the couch, stretched, and made her way across the room, pausing to check her appearance in the gilt-edged mirror hanging above an antique console table. Her makeup still looked fresh and professionally applied. A skill she’d learned to mask other parts of her body as well.

Although in truth, no amount of cover-up foundation ever fully concealed the scars.

So she’d learned another skill—that of using mirrors as tools to look at specific, isolated areas of her body. Checking to see whether scars were healing was something she could do. Assessing her general appearance was much harder. It forced her to acknowledge all she was hiding under clothes and makeup.

“What she needs is rest. What she doesn’t need is a bunch of management feedback on what was essentially a walk from point A to B at the airport.” Cam’s voice came out tight, tense.

“I’m here as a friend, not her manager.”

“Is that right? You’re not even slightly curious about whether she’s capable of reestablishing her place in the spotlight?”

“Has she mentioned having more of a public presence?” Steven asked.

“Regardless of what she mentions, she isn’t ready.”

“Interesting. Suddenly know a lot about managing artists, do you?”

“I know about managing victims, and I’m telling you, she’s not ready.”

Brooke blanched as she faced herself in the mirror. She pulled down the soft cashmere of her sweater and peered at the scar on her shoulder. She watched in the mirror as she traced the ridged skin.

Victim? Was that all Cam saw her as? All she would ever be? No matter how well she hid the scars…?

His words, said with firm conviction, chipped away at her composure. If she’d harbored any doubt he was here out of anything other than duty or guilt, his words certainly banished the notion. She felt stupid. After their kiss in the meadow in France, no matter what she’d initially told herself, she’d thought there was another, more complicated reason he was here with her.

Such an idiot, to have pulled the wool over her own eyes and seen only what she’d secretly wanted to see.

As the anger at her own foolishness churned inside, she knew one thing with absolute certainty. She did not want to be seen as a victim. She wanted to be seen as a survivor.

It was time to suit up and take control. Show the world she was through with cowering in the corner. She yanked her sleeve back into place, relegating the scars back to a place where they couldn’t be used as a visible symbol of her fear. It was time to reassert her determination.

A sense of calm eased over her. Turning away from the mirror, she pushed open the door into the inner hallway and stared at the two men facing off on the threshold.

“Are those for me?” she asked, looking pointedly at the large floral arrangement Steven held in his arms. She motioned to Steven to enter and saw Cam go stiff. Despite the effect his words had had on her, she bit back a smile when Steven tried unsuccessfully to palm the bouquet off onto him in order to squeeze through the door.

She looked at Cam, careful to keep her expression neutral. After briefly tightening his jaw, he stepped aside so her former manager could enter the suite, then stationed himself by the door.

“You look good, Brooke,” Steven said, dropping the bouquet on the glass coffee table in front of them before sitting down. “It’s a shame it’s taken something like this to get you back in the country again.” He ran his gaze over her as if to make sure it was really her. “Living abroad has been treating you well. But we’ll treat you even better now you’re back.”

She reclaimed her seat on the sofa, tucking her legs back under her, somewhat perplexed. Steven seemed to have the wrong idea. “I’m not back, back. And yes, France is treating me well. I like it there,” she added. “And the house—Steven, I can’t ever thank you enough.”

“Please.” Steven held up his hand as he crossed his legs again, straightened his suit trousers, and leaned back in the chair, his once youthful swagger and confidence now carrying an edge of weariness. “It was the least I could do. Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to lecture you about how rarely you call.”

That soft and gentle rebuke triggered a rush of guilt in her. God, she’d put her friends through so much by running away. She’d missed them. “I’m here now, thanks to you. I wanted to thank you for sending Megan and the plane.”

“I was glad to do it. The two of you made a powerful team once. There was nothing your voices couldn’t do. I know she’s missed you just as much as you’ve missed her.”

He’d hit the truth straight on. She leaned forward. “Seeing her again was a lovely surprise.” She flashed a glance at Cam. He stood stiff and rigid but refrained from interrupting the conversation.

“Now, how about we discuss the best way to run the media?” Steven asked.

Cam shook his head. “We’re not adding more media into the mix unless I think the situation warrants it,” he said, his expression neutral, but she could see the granite set to his jaw. “And if we need the media, I’ll have control.”

Steven frowned. “You obviously have no idea of the skill required in handling them.” He turned to her. “I realize coming back to the kind of press coverage I organized might have been a little overwhelming. Did you manage not to give out any specifics to the reporters?”

“I didn’t tell them anything.” Although truthfully, her silence had been mainly due to fear, rather than Steven’s media training. Or Cam’s instructions.

“Good girl. One of the celebrity magazines I notified was going to hold the issue until their photographer sent through the artwork, so I’m pretty sure they’ll want to do a follow-up.” He glanced at Cameron. “I guess you want to be in charge of that as well?”

When Cameron snorted, Brooke saw Steven bristle. His words became more brittle as he determinedly went on. “I ordered copies of the main papers and magazines to come to your room while you’re here. I thought you’d want to see any articles—”

“Thanks, Steven,” she quickly interjected, aware of Cam’s growing tension and wanting to stop him from exploding at Steven. “I’m not sure yet what I want to do about the media, but I knew you’d provide a good sounding board. I feel awkward taking time away from your actual clients, though.”

There was a brief, loud knock at the door. She jumped, then grew irritated at her own reaction. Cam sent her a reassuring glance and headed to the door to answer it.

“You let me worry about my work schedule,” Steven continued, bringing her attention back to him. “You and I, we’re going to sort this out. Okay?”

Distracted, she nodded.

Cam came back into the room, and she was shocked to see his face had gone gray.

“I need to head out for a while,” he said, his voice strained. “You’ll be safe here with Steven and Dawson, the bodyguard posted outside the door. He’s one of mine.”

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

He avoided looking at her. Or answering. “I won’t be long.”

Worried, she rose from the sofa and closed the distance between them. She placed her hand on his forearm and felt the corded sinew flex under her fingertips. What was he hiding from her? “Tell me,” she insisted.

For a moment, she actually thought he might explain why he’d gone stiff and distant. Instead, he gently but purposefully pulled his arm away.

“Stay here. And don’t let him,” he added, jerking his head to indicate Steven, “talk you into anything stupid with the media while I’m gone.”

Chapter Five

A fine drizzle had settled in, taking the heat out of the spring day, dispensing with what would have been the last hour of weak sunshine and replacing it with gloomy gray skies that would soon darken to night. Standing beneath a bleak railway arch, Cameron felt his stomach churn. He hunched into his jacket and stared at the body of the man he’d had following Spinks. The man’s name had been Jenkins. He’d been working for Cameron at Dexter Security Consultants for eight months. Solid. Steady.

Smart.

As members of a private company, Cameron and the DSC staff couldn’t interfere with the police investigation, but the investigating officer on the murder scene had allowed them limited access. Now the unrelenting flash of blue lights from the police units and ambulance bounced off the black brickwork of the archway and pressed in on him as he tried to assimilate what had happened.

“How long do we think the body’s been down here?” he asked Alex, who was standing beside him. He noted the pause, and then heard Alex’s subtle clearing of throat. The combination sent his gut into a sharp, burning spasm. He wasn’t going to like Alex’s answer.

“The cop who called me said maybe as long as forty-five minutes before someone noticed and reported it.”

Forty-five minutes.

Slowly dying.

Jenkins had been a fully fit adult, and yet somehow Spinks had managed to stab him in the stomach, take away his communication device, and leave him to bleed out into the gutter.

White-hot anger threatened to knock Cameron off his feet. Instinctively, he widened his stance to anchor himself against the rage.

Spinks had knowingly ended the life of a member of his team.

He needed a moment. To process. To deal. To bring himself under control.

When Alex spoke again, his voice was unsettled and grave. “I screwed up.”

No one, inside or outside of his organization, ever got to assume responsibility for Cameron’s own decisions. “You followed protocol. So did Jenkins. This was my mistake.”

Logically, he’d expected Spinks to up the ante after prison. There was a rule of thumb that prison put you in intimate connection with people who could teach you new skills. But he’d expected Spinks to focus any escalating violence directly on Brooke. Spinks had never so much as lifted a finger to anyone else before. His obsession had always been Brooke. Every move Cameron had made, he’d had that in the back of his mind. Now his narrowed focus had left his employee dead.

He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “This one’s on me. I screwed up, not you.”

In the ensuing silence, he was relieved his friend knew when to keep quiet. He didn’t need anyone trying to make him feel better. What he needed to do now was widen his thinking and minimize any threat to others.

As if aware of the direction of his thoughts, Alex said, “The team is putting together a package of your arrival at the airport. Our aim is to establish when and where Spinks got into a car, and if getting into a specific car was premeditated. We have to believe his intention was to get to the airport to see Brooke, but he must have spotted his tail.”

“Agreed. But if Jenkins had realized he’d been made,” Cameron said, running through the options verbally to see if one took hold, “he’d have called it in. He wouldn’t have taken direct action unless provoked to defend himself. So why would Spinks kill him?”

“Because he could?” Alex said, saying the words Cameron hadn’t fully allowed himself to form.

It was the only thing that made sense.

The knot in his belly intensified. Something had happened to Spinks while he was in prison. Something that changed the game. “Yeah,” he said, finally, his words coming out flat. “Because he could.”

“So he’s sending us a message.”

“It’s what a narcissist would do, isn’t it? Kill someone who meant nothing to him, but someone who does mean something to the authority he ridicules.”

“Maybe we should send him a message back.”

“Agreed.” Cameron shoved his hands into his trousers pockets. Next to Jenkins’s body, the investigating officer nodded at the forensics tech to zip up the body bag.

When the zipper reached the top of the bag, Cameron looked at Alex and registered the fatigue on the man’s face. “You should take a couple of hours. Get some sleep, or go do a workout.”

“That’s a negative, sir.”

“I need you sharp; that was an order,” he said quickly, before Alex could come back at him. “Go. The team will cope without you for a while. I’ll be there soon.”

“You’re coming in? What about Brooke?”

Yeah. Something else he had to figure out. Damn it, he wished to hell he’d kept her hiding in France. There was a fine line between shutting down physically and mentally when faced with a threat and being able to harness that fear and still use your brain. Giving her this news was going to stretch that already fine line. “Go take a break,” he repeated to Alex, then moved his head from side to side to release some of the tension.

Alex turned sharply and walked away.

Having already liaised with the police and given them a statement, Cameron could head back to the hotel. But he wasn’t leaving Jenkins alone on the ground. He’d stay until the man was taken to the morgue. He owed him at least that much.

He thought he’d trained his staff well. But now one of them was dead.

He needed to rethink Spinks.

So he could shut him down without mercy.

…

Fifteen minutes later, standing in the salon of Brooke’s hotel suite listening to Steven’s diatribe about how she should position herself in front of the media, Cameron found himself searching for a reason not to haul the man to his feet and throw him out. Cameron had just witnessed one of his own being zipped up in a body bag, and Steven was giving every indication he had no clue how to prioritize Brooke’s safety.

“Please tell me you’re not even remotely serious about putting her on live TV,” he barked.

“The sooner we put her out there, the better,” Steven argued, ignoring Cameron’s death glare. “I have several television shows wanting to pay exceptional rates for an exclusive interview—”

“What the hell? You’re thinking about money while you dangle her in front of a madman as bait? Didn’t I already make it clear the welcoming committee was a one-off?” Searching for patience, Cameron focused on Brooke, sitting posture perfect on the sofa. She was why he was here. So he would deal with Steven at every turn, regardless of the fact that within an hour of being in the man’s company, he was itching to rip the guy’s throat out.

Poised beside Brooke, Steven held a tablet in his hand, presumably studying a list of all the interviews he wanted her to do. Christ. He didn’t know what was worse, Steven taking everything down to the lowest common denominator—money—or the kernel of excitement evident in the man’s delivery.

The music manager hadn’t changed a bit—still programmed to spot every opportunity to improve the bottom line. What about Brooke’s safety? Her sanity? Was it really so easy for the man to brush those two things aside?

Cameron was reminded of all the times Steven had been in his office, ignoring his firm and unambiguous explanations of why security had to be run by the book. Why the girls wouldn’t be making impromptu appearances. Why everyone within Cameron’s area of control had to be checked. Why Steven should be showing more accountability, especially during the threat.

One hour in, and he was already having to deal with Steven’s same old scatter-gun approach to music management. See an opening and slide right in.

He thought of Jenkins lying on the ground. He didn’t have time for Steven and his crazy ideas. “The man I had following Spinks is dead,” he said starkly.

“Dead?” Brooke froze and stared in horror. “Oh, my God. Was—”

“Was Spinks responsible?” he finished. “Almost certainly.”

Steven sank to the sofa next to her, a dazed expression replacing the glib one he’d worn a moment ago. “But how?” he asked.

Cameron hated having to be so blunt, but maybe now Steven would take her safety seriously. He turned to Brooke. “This is different than last time. This time, he isn’t afraid to show anger or disdain.” At her quick frown, he tried to explain. “Maybe he’s angry that he was physically displaced from you. And that while he was locked up, you were free.”

“Free?” She spat the word out. “That is the very last thing I’ve been.”

He knew it. Felt the guilt of it deep in his soul. But he had to make her understand Spinks would never care about that, much less think of it. Every psychiatric report he’d read on Spinks had noted how he refused to comment on being separated from her. “To Spinks, that’s exactly what you’ve been. Free. For Spinks, a physical incarceration is the ultimate insult. Sure, his mind has been free, but his body hasn’t been able to take him where his mind wanted him to go. To you.”

“And the disdain? Is that for me also?”

“No. He killed my agent to prove something to me.” He paused as the truth and logic of Spinks’s actions coursed through him. The bastard was even more dangerous now. “You must see how this changes things. Anger alone is a powerful motivator. It pushes people to do the ugliest of things. Let’s face it, Spinks has already proved himself in that area.”

Her shoulders slumped as the truth of his words sank in. “Did the man he killed have any family?” she asked.

Cameron had to breathe past the need to pull her into his arms and simply hold her until the world around them disappeared for a while. “No. Just friends and coworkers. I need to go into the office now and debrief the staff.”

He ran his hand over the back of his neck, trying to ease the tight muscles there. He had to work out what to do, and fast. He noticed Steven reach out to pat Brooke’s arm, and then it wasn’t only duty making him question leaving her here with Steven and just a guard outside her door. He didn’t trust the man not to try and put his own crazy plans for media attention into action.

“Of course you need to go in,” she said. “Cam, I’m so sorry. This—”

“This is not your fault,” Steven interrupted. “You can’t lay this on her,” he accused Cameron.

He stared at Steven. Of course this wasn’t Brooke’s fault. This was his fault. For arrogantly thinking he knew Spinks inside out. He turned to look at her. If the cushion she was hugging had been made out of something hard, it would have shattered under the force.

He walked over to her and kneeled down to get eye contact. “All of my staff understand the inherent dangers in this line of work. That’s not to say what happened doesn’t matter. It does. But this is not due to you.”

“How can you say that? If it wasn’t for me—”

“No,” he quietly asserted, shaking his head. He couldn’t afford for her to become paralyzed with guilt. “This is because of Spinks. He doesn’t have emotions like you and I. He doesn’t feel sorrow, or empathy, or guilt. You want to help?” With that, he caught her attention. “Don’t think about his fixation. Start thinking about what you know about him that could help us find him.”

She drew a breath and held it, as if considering her options, then breathed out slowly. “Okay,” she said. “In that case, I want to come in with you. To your office. If I stay here, I’m going to dwell on what happened and what could happen. Besides, as you say, I need to help, not hinder. I want to be part of the decisions you and your team make in protecting me.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Steven cut in. “How do you leave the hotel unseen? The group of paparazzi stationed at the hotel may be small at the moment, but they have a tendency to multiply when they smell a story. We don’t have a strategy yet. I’m sure Cameron doesn’t want them following him around.”

Oh, for God’s sake. About ready to blast into Steven, Cameron paused, an idea forming. He was willing to use the media a fraction more if it meant finding answers to how to get Spinks back behind bars. This could work—he could use Steven and the man’s quest for money and attention.

As long as he did so carefully.

He calculated the repercussions as he spoke. “I could get her out of here without anyone knowing, if you provided a little misdirection,” he said to Steven. “Go out front and make a public statement. Tell the press how she’s happy to be back on home soil. She will be in town, taking some meetings over the next few days, etc.”

“Or I could stay here with her,” Steven said, smoothing the lapel of his jacket, looking mulish. “Protect her.”

Cameron stared Steven down. “We’ve just put her within touching distance of a man who killed someone earlier today. Do you really think I’m going to let you be the one standing between her and the door?”

…

The headquarters of DSC was discreet, almost nondescript. Brooke had insisted on coming here with Cameron, had insisted on taking part in formulating the plans for her protection. Instead of arguing, he had agreed. When they arrived, he asked her to wait in the reception area with two guards while he had a few words with his staff about the murder of their colleague. He promised to bring her into the conference room afterward and would involve her in the security details.

From behind, she heard footsteps, and turned to see the security guard at the door let in a tall, dark-haired man, who wore an expression of grief on his unlined face. Clearly, he was there for Cameron’s debrief. And she was the reason for the meeting.

She swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat and tracked his approach to the closed door at the end of the corridor. She saw the moment when he sensed her presence, paused, and walked back to her.

“Ms. Bennet?” he asked.

She managed a nod.

“I’m Alex Bond. I work with Cameron.”

She knew that name. Cam had spoken with him over the phone.

He quietly assessed her, making her feel like a bug under a microscope, then surprised her when he politely asked, “Is there anything I can get you to make the wait more comfortable?”

“Um, no. I’m fine. Thank you.”

He waited for a second, then nodded and walked to the closed door.

“Mr. Bond—Alex?” she asked, the words rushing out of her. He paused but didn’t turn to face her. She cleared her throat. “I’m very sorry for your loss.”

For a moment, she worried she’d said the wrong thing. Then he looked up, his expression softening. “Thank you for that,” he murmured before disappearing through the same doorway Cam had gone through.

Would he, too, risk his life for her? Because she’d chosen to take the fight to Spinks, rather than wait him out?

The door opened, the motion startling her. From the doorway, Cam beckoned. She calmed herself and entered the room to see a large, polished oval conference table surrounded by seated men and women. Across the room, she noticed Ellie Turner, the agent who’d escorted Megan from the plane. The perimeter walls were filled with large-scale screens, with what she could only assume was a command center for the technology at the far end. Clearly this room was out of bounds to ordinary members of the public. She nodded to the people assembled, unsure what to say to them all. Ellie smiled back and tipped her head in acknowledgment, and Brooke remembered that in the car on the way over, she had made a bargain with herself. Out of respect for their colleague, she would do her best to unlock the space inside of her where she kept her memories of Spinks. She must know something that could help.

Otherwise…

She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

Otherwise they’d have no peace.

She’d have no peace.

Cam looked at the group and said, “Okay. What have you got for me?”

Alex stood. “We recovered security footage from cameras dotted around the area.” He moved to pick up a remote from the table. “We’ve mapped out the probable route Spinks took from the point where we lost communication. The largest problem we have is the thirty-two-minute gap between when Spinks and Jenkins were last spotted on foot. After that, we think we’ve picked up a very different-looking Spinks getting into a car and heading to the airport. If it was him, he looked as if he’d gained a good seventy pounds.”

The wall of screens behind her flickered to life, and her gaze was automatically drawn to a grainy image of a large man getting into a blue car.

“You got him arriving at the airport?” Cam asked.

“We have one image of him parking and leaving the car.”

“I want the download from the airport next.”

Brooke stared transfixed as the airport corridor popped up on another screen, showing the double doors she and Cam had stepped through and the gaggle of reporters and paparazzi gathered outside. “You recorded our arrival?” she asked, startled.

“Yes. It’s standard procedure. We got sound on this?” Cam asked.

“Yes, sir.”

There was a pause, and Brooke could hear muffled bits of speech, a last call for two passengers on a loudspeaker system, everyday background noise, making it hard to pick out any one conversation. A chill crept up her spine as she visually searched the screen.

Cam shifted. “How long was this before Brooke and I emerged from the doors?”

She heard a different team member say, “Twenty-two minutes and sixteen seconds, sir.”

“All right, fast-forward until then, and pan the crowd for reactions when we come out.”

Brooke closed her eyes to combat the speedy movement on the screen, only to open them when she heard the first questions being fired at her by the media. She couldn’t search the crowd. Her gaze was glued to the image of Cam and her as they walked toward the car under a barrage of questions and camera flashes. She winced as she saw herself stumble on screen. And then heat suffused her when she saw the moment where Cam leaned down to whisper in her ear before putting her in the car. She looked across to him, but his face gave absolutely nothing away.

“Okay, let’s rewind to the beginning and go again,” he muttered, concentrating. “I don’t see our fat guy in the crowd, so either we’ve got Spinks changing again, or he really wasn’t there. How long between the last image of him on the car park camera and this recording?”

“Less than ten minutes. We’ve searched all the internal cameras and can’t come up with an entry point for the overweight man. We’ve run facial recognition software—zilch.”

The images the team had recorded earlier that day burst into motion once more, along with the sound of the crowd, and all of a sudden every nerve ending inside her body sprang to life. Her heart started racing. Her palms started sweating.

Flight or fight. Flight or fight.

She leaned forward in her seat, eyes desperately searching.

It couldn’t be.

“Brooke?”

“The whistling.” She swallowed dry air. “Oh, God. He’s there. He’s got to be. I can hear him.” She got up from the table to walk over to the screen. “Can’t you hear that?” She whirled around to look around the table for confirmation that it wasn’t just in her head. That someone was really whistling a tune she knew far too well. She whirled back to the screen just in time to see a man turn around as someone bumped into him. As her mind scrambled and her throat closed over, she pointed to the screen. The whistling stopped abruptly. But as she looked at the man she knew it wasn’t Spinks, even in disguise. Was she going mad?

“That’s not him. No one can alter their height that drastically.”

But she wasn’t listening. In her mind she could hear Spinks whistling that same tune. Always that same damn tune. Behind eyes closed tight with terror, she could feel blood trickling down her wrists as she fought the leather bonds that bound her to the gurney. She could see the stains on the ceiling shaped like clown faces, laughing at her as she fought and fought, tears of frustration and fear blurring the images. And she could hear muffled footsteps along with the whistling.

Oh, God. Oh, God. He was coming. He was coming.

“I’m going to be sick,” she managed to say before doubling over.

Chapter Six

In her hotel suite’s bedroom, Brooke lay curled up in a fetal position on the very edge of the king-size bed, covers pulled up to her chin, staring wide-eyed at the clock on the bedside table. She’d been watching the minutes tick over for the past two hours.

She couldn’t quiet her mind. Television, music, reading—there was no point. Even yoga wasn’t going to cut it tonight.

What she really wanted, needed, were two big, strong arms to wrap around her and hold her tight. For inquisitive and capable hands to seek out and soothe and stroke her muscles to liquid. For a mouth to brush against the shell of her ear and murmur she was safe. That nothing and no one would get to her tonight.

One hundred, ninety-three, eighty-six, seventy-nine…

Oh, God. Not the counting again.

Her gaze moved to the strip of light showing under the bedroom door. Cam’s solicitous treatment of her since leaving the office hadn’t helped. It was way too easy to respond to his carefulness. Too easy to draw her strength from him instead of herself.

And the last thing she needed was to mistake his dutiful compassion for something else.

Again.

And yet she desperately wanted his company. Craved a distraction from the fear that she’d so bravely chased away only a day before.

A sudden decision made, she heaved herself upright and threw aside the heavily embroidered silk bedcovers. Barefoot, she made her way over to the bedroom door, then paused. What the hell was she doing? She ran a hand distractedly through her hair, uncertain about going forward, unwilling to go back.

One peek, she told herself. She’d peek in on Cam, see if he was awake.

Slowly, she opened the door and stepped into the open archway.

He sat on the sofa, forearms resting on his knees, a tumbler of amber liquid clasped loosely between his hands. He appeared so lost in thought that she wondered if he had seen her. But he looked up at the sound she’d made, his lips tightening as his gaze drifted, lingered, over her.

She hovered, staring right back at him, wondering if she should simply close the door and curl up on the window seat in her room. Wait for daylight.

Except she’d go mad if she was left on her own to think about Spinks.

Something of her indecision must have shown on her face, because Cam grimaced before he lifted the tumbler to his lips and swallowed down the entire contents in one smooth movement.

Lowering the glass, he stared into it. “Can’t sleep?” he asked.

“Apparently not. You, either?” She remained where she was.

“Me, either. Want a drink?”

“Maybe.”

She watched from the doorway as he stood with the grace of a panther. He was still dressed in black trousers and white shirt from that morning. He’d rolled the sleeves up and undone the collar, and she watched the material pull tight across the breadth of his shoulders as he walked over to the sideboard, replenished his own glass, and poured a generous measure of single malt whisky into a fresh glass.

Turning, he held it out for her, forcing her from the doorway into the room.

She walked slowly to meet him, her bare toes sinking into the thick, creamy pile of the carpet. Her fingers brushed against his as she took the glass from him. Nerve endings already shot to pieces from the exhaustion buzzed and flickered to life.

Focusing all her attention on the drink in her hands, she took a large gulp.

“Wow,” she whispered as liquid tongues of fire spread down her throat.

A smile touched his lips. “Promise me something?”

“Mmm.”

“If you feel nauseated, put the drink down and calmly proceed to the bathroom.”

“Funny.” And then, because she couldn’t help herself, she found herself on the brink of apologizing again and opened her mouth to let the words out.

“This is beginning to be a habit—you trying to apologize and me telling you not to. Don’t you dare say you’re sorry. There’s not a person in that room who thought less of you because of how you reacted. I should never have taken you in there in the first place.”

Holding the glass against her side, she digested his words as she wandered around the room, poking at paintings, magazines, the flowers Steven had brought her.

A troubling restlessness pulled and twisted her insides…

“Between my apologizing and your continued feelings of guilt, we make a right pair, don’t we?” She looked over her shoulder at him. Her heart skipped a beat when she caught him eyeing the long line of her legs exposed by the mid-thigh satin nightshirt she wore. “I can stop apologizing,” she said quietly. “Can you stop feeling guilty?”

The way his eyes snapped to hers suggested that might have been one request too far. Was the guilt so much a part of him that it could never be excised?

All at once she felt very sad. Sipping her drink, she resumed pacing. “What if this thing doesn’t resolve itself in the way you need it to?” she ventured.

“It will. You have my word.”

“But what if it doesn’t? What are you going to do? Walk around cocooned in a permanent blanket of guilt? It will permeate everything you do, Cam. It will take over who you are, how you live your life. Maybe it already has.”

His face remained impassive.

“Has it?” she prodded.

“I get by.”

“Do you? From my perspective, it looks like you push and punish yourself twenty-four/seven. Who stands for you, Cam? Who tells you when you’ve lost perspective? When is it time to let something go?”

“You want me to let this go now? You think I’ll be able to live with myself if Spinks finishes what he started? Knowing that if I’d worked harder, smarter, I could have prevented your torture?”

“You are not responsible—”

“But I am. I had one duty. To protect you. Instead, I lost my focus.”

Because his mind had been on her. Because she hadn’t let up with the flirting. She’d pushed and pushed and pushed to get what she wanted. Him. And when she hadn’t got what she wanted…

She swallowed. “So you’re not perfect. Newsflash—no one is.”

“Believe me when I tell you that means absolutely nothing when the person whose safety you’re responsible for gets hurt. Or worse.”

She had no answer for that. “Is that why you stayed away after, even though you knew where I was?”

He ran his hand over the back of his head in frustration, then swallowed half his drink. “I stayed away because you couldn’t bear for me to be near you. You didn’t want to see me.”

“I didn’t want anyone to see me,” she flung at him, angry that he had adhered to that one request when it had been as untrue as much as it had been true. And the reason why she’d hid from him burned into her like a flame. “I was ashamed,” she cried, as humiliation coursed through her. “Ashamed.”

…

In the deafening silence following Brooke’s admission, Cameron felt his heart kick wildly and painfully against his chest. The salon suddenly seemed too small, his clothes too tight, the air too thin.

She’d been ashamed?

He stared at her. He’d thought she didn’t want him—didn’t need him. The thought of her deliberately shutting herself off…of feeling so humiliated at what had been done to her that she thought herself unworthy of human compassion, it broke his heart.

He turned from her to face the window.

Why hadn’t he pushed? Why had he so readily accepted her requests to be left alone?

His jaw tightened. His ego had gotten in the way, that was why. His own guilt over his failures had overridden what she had needed from him.

One more way he’d let her down.

“I know what you’re thinking,” she said, her voice more calm. “I can hardly lecture you when I’ve allowed what happened to affect who I am and how I’ve lived my life. But I am trying. I am striving to live a more engaged life.”

He winced at the tentatively offered words. After all she’d endured at the hands of a madman, she still was making an attempt to rise above what she had been through for the sake of a better life. She really was so incredibly brave. Then and now.

“Brooke,” he said, turning back to her, “your strength amazes me.”

“If I’d actually displayed the strength you seem to think I possess, I would have kept my stomach’s contents inside instead of leaving them on your office floor. And I’d be able to sleep now.” She stared into her drink. “I certainly wouldn’t be standing here, trying to work out ways to feel less alone in that huge bed.”

Lust hammered through him, triggered by her implication, making him clench his toes tight inside his shoes to stop himself from stepping forward and reaching for her. “Not a good idea.”

“I know. Because of the guilt.”

“Because of a lot of things,” he countered, forbidding himself to think about being in that bed with her, his only task to make her feel as un-alone as she could be. “Nothing is resolved. Thanks to you, we can now place Spinks at the airport, but we haven’t addressed what that really means.”

“I know what it means. It’s why I came back. You were right. Spinks will never be finished with me. It’s not as if I ever really believed he would,” she added. “Even when he was in prison, I’d find myself absolutely fine one day and then on edge the next. Waiting.”

She looked at him briefly and admitted, “It always feels as if I’m waiting for him to come get me again.” She held the glass to her cheek as if to cool her skin. “When one of the reporters asked me at the airport whether I thought Spinks would go after someone else, I felt sick to my stomach. I hadn’t considered that. But I know why I’d never considered the possibility.”

When she put the glass down on the edge of the table, he realized she was focusing her attention on her drink to bide time and collect herself. He steeled himself to hear her words.

“No matter how I try and explain it away to myself,” she continued, “to try and separate the randomness from the fixation, the truth is that once he fixated on me, there was no one else for him. It’s always going to be me.”

“You said he wanted you alive. That he wanted you to…what? Suffer with the memories? Is that what you meant?”

“I can’t.” She held her hand up as if to stop the conversation. “I don’t—”

“If you want this to end, you have to take charge and give us something to go on. Anything. Everything.” He willed her to be able to go further. To be even braver than she already was, to rip away the invisible gag she wore and let the words out. “The statements you made back then, after you were rescued, they’re not the sum total of your experience. We’d already captured him at that point. It was just a matter of proving the case in court. Now we need more. Now we need you to mine the fallout for clues. The private stuff. Like the whistling. That was never in any of your statements.”

Part of him hated having to push her every time she gave him the slightest bit of information. He might have told Megan on the plane that chipping away at the walls Brooke had erected wasn’t his job. But if he could help her get clear of that bastard enough to breathe a spark of life into her, he’d do it. She deserved so much more.

So he would push her out of hiding and help her stop running away from what had happened. Help her when he hadn’t before. “You must have been told by the doctors that if you talk about what happened, it reduces the power he has over you. Maybe then you could find more joy in life.”

She eased out a breath. “That’s not why he wanted me to stay alive.”

A chill crept up his spine, sliding into his arms and legs. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, he didn’t tell me he wanted me to stay alive so that I would suffer the horror of it every day. That was just a satisfying side benefit for him.”

“Then why?”

She shook her head, screwed her lips up as if fighting to keep them from spewing out the truth.

“I know you think if you keep it all locked inside—”

“He told me I was his muse,” she spat out. “That I had always been his muse. And that I had to stay alive. That he would keep me alive so the connection between us was always maintained. He wanted the marks he put on me to be living art. Living art. For all the world to see. I was to be a living, breathing, walking, talking ambassador of his art.”

“Jesus.” Unchecked, unguarded, Cameron took an automatic step toward her, but she shook her head and stepped back.

“The day he told me that…it was the first time I truly wanted to die.”

When her voice failed on the last word, he felt one truth speak to him—for Spinks, prison would be too easy. He deserved to suffer.

“I hate him for making me feel that way. For stripping away the love I had for life. For making me feel I would rather die than be tied to him. For knowing my friends would be hurt beyond belief if they knew how far he’d reduced me.” She came to an abrupt stop.

He watched, his heart bleeding for her, as she stared down at her feet.

“He’s right,” she added softly. “I am forever connected to him. The only control I have is ensuring the people I love don’t become connected to him, too.” She raised her gaze, and he felt her words hit him like a body blow. “So I figure the less I talk about him, the less they are connected. The more they are disconnected. Untainted.”

What could he say to that?

How could she think this way?

She picked up her glass, then gulped the contents down. “You’re right. Talking a little has helped. I think I’ll try sleeping now.” She padded softly across to the bedroom. At the doorway, she turned and gave him a watery smile, then said in a hollow voice, “Thanks for the drink.”

When she was gone, he picked up his glass, walked to the sideboard, and lifted the bottle. Halfway to pouring, he stopped. He didn’t deserve alcohol to take the edge off what he’d just heard. She had lived through it. Lived every day with the memory of it seared into her soul. He braced his hands on the cool, polished surface and stared at the wood beneath his hands. Was it any wonder that what she’d once held so dear—her joy of living, her music—now seemed inconsequential to her? Maybe the effort of putting one foot in front of the other made everything else disappear in comparison.

He turned to stare at her bedroom door, torn between leaving her alone and wanting her to know she hadn’t exposed her torment for nothing.

He couldn’t handle thinking of her huddled under the bedclothes, alone and praying for daylight.

Damn Spinks.

He pushed away from the table and crossed the distance in three strides. Inside her bedroom, he quietly undressed down to his boxer briefs.

Into the too-loud silence, knowing she wasn’t asleep, he said, “Just for tonight, okay?” Then he slipped into bed and tucked himself in behind her. Wrapping his arm across her chest, he secured his hand under her pillow. And as he felt her shudder—of relief, he hoped—he gathered her in tight and whispered into her ear, “Shh. You’re safe. I promise.”

Chapter Seven

Brooke awoke to what she figured had to be the hum of Cam’s shaver coming from the bathroom. Rolling over onto her side, she faced the beam of sunlight filtering through the gap in the curtains, blinked, and caught herself thinking it was amazing what a shield of warm, supple muscle could do for a person. She rose from the bed and stretched before walking to the window to let in more light.

On her way back, she noticed Cam’s watch resting on the bedside table. She picked it up and sat down on the bed. It looked solid, tough, and complicated.

Like its owner.

Her fingers smoothed over the hard metal. A dent ran along the third and fourth links, and she wondered what kind of incident he had been involved in that such a mark could appear in something so strong.

Shoving up the sleeve of her nightshirt, she draped the watch around her wrist and thought about the fact that he had taken it off before wrapping his arms around her and holding her tight.

A considerate act.

One that fit him perfectly.

He’d let her spill her guts out to him last night. Let her tell him about how she’d wanted to die rather than to live as what Spinks had turned her into.

A deep, familiar shame rattled against the door of her psyche, and when it tried to escape and invade the rest of her, she drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms tight around them. She was surprised when the shame stayed put. Maybe talking really was the key.

Outside of the doctors and therapists, Cam was the first person she’d said the words aloud to. Her chin came down to rest on her arms. Of all the people, she’d finally opened up to the one most important to her. She turned her head toward the bathroom and sent out a silent plea that he wouldn’t punish himself any more than he already had for letting Spinks get to her.

At the end of it all, last night he’d put aside his own reaction to hold her and help her feel as if she wasn’t some outcast from a freak show.

He’d done that for her.

The least she could do was not let the shame suck away what little fight she had left. She needed to show him she wasn’t a head case. He’d made her feel sane. She’d show him she really was. He’d made her feel safe. She’d believe him. Or at least, she’d try.

It was hard admitting she was beginning to feel safe. An alien feeling since the moment Spinks had taken her captive. Even knowing he was locked up and that hundreds of miles and the English Channel separated them hadn’t alleviated her worry. In France, she’d behaved as if independence compensated for her pervasive sense of fear. But it hadn’t. And at heart, she was tired of feeling alone and afraid.

Last night, with Cam’s arms wrapped around her, she’d been given respite to sleep, to breathe—to glimpse a different life. One where his arms could be wrapped around her every night.

The hum of the shaver shut off, and he emerged from the bathroom wearing only the trousers he’d had on the night before. She refused to let her eyes drift lower than his freshly shaven jaw and was just complimenting herself on her iron will when she realized his eyes were fixated somewhere around her chest level.

“Your top button is undone.”

She looked down. “Oh!” To counterbalance the heat wending its way up her neck to her cheeks, she tipped her head forward, hoping her hair would hide the blush, and set about rebuttoning her nightshirt. “Thanks. Sleep well?”

She thought she heard him mutter, “Too well,” but couldn’t be sure. Looking up, she caught his deep frown. His eyes were fixed on his watch, still attached to her wrist. Slowly, he walked over to stand in front of her, filling her view with the toned torso that had been pressed up against her back last night. The memory scattered her thoughts, and the visual in front of her dried her mouth.

“I’m going to need that back,” he said, his hands slipping casually into his trouser pockets as if to ensure he didn’t touch her as she removed the watch.

He’d touched her last night. He’d held her, she corrected. What was so different this morning? She heard the scuttle of shame trying to escape that door she’d locked. The whole cold-light-of-day thing, she supposed.

But as soon as she had the thought, it was replaced with a flood of want and need so strong she could have cried, because she’d thought the feeling lost to her forever. As she stared up at him, she knew—absolutely knew he wanted to touch her. Suddenly, she understood if she wanted to turn that glimpse of a new life she’d had last night into a possibility, it had to all come from her. Apart from the time at the yurt, when he had been testing her and lost control with that kiss, he was far too dutiful and responsible ever to forget his self-imposed rules again.

If she wanted more from him, she had to grab hold of her courage the way she had last night, and ask for it.

Without questioning her sanity, she leaned slowly and defiantly back on the bed. Her elbows sank into the mattress, taking her weight. The muscle in his jaw ticked, secretly thrilling her as she drummed her fingers against the sheets and waited to see if he would take the watch off her wrist.

“Do you know I could flip you in a second and have my watch back in another?”

“Are you bragging?”

Blatant need blazed in his eyes and she waited, holding her breath, wanting so much for her first foray back into this world with him not to fail. But after a brief hesitation, he stepped away. “No. We’re not doing this.”

“What aren’t we doing?”

“Teasing. Flirting.”

Disappointment filled her.

He dragged his gaze down her legs and up again to where the silk nightshirt had ridden high. “You should get dressed.”

Confidence evaporated, and with as much dignity as she could muster, she rose from the bed, tugging the hem of her nightshirt down to ensure her scars were covered.

She slipped off his watch and walked over to where he’d positioned himself at the closed bedroom door, stopping only when she was close enough to feel the heat emanating from him. Close enough to hear him suck in his breath, and close enough to witness muscles lock rigid.

I’m a coward, she thought, grimacing when she found the word forming on her lips as he slipped the watch from her fingers and snapped it on. He scrutinized her face, then said forcefully, “Don’t even think of saying that out loud.”

Startled he could read her so easily, she reached instead for the bedroom door and pulled it open.

“Brooke, no—”

Too late.

Her mouth dropped open as she took in the scene before her. Five people sat around the cherry wood dining table, quietly working. Two were dressed in the hotel’s housekeeping uniforms, the other three in nondescript suits. The man she’d spoken to in the office foyer, Alex, gave her a warm smile. The others looked at her and then at Cam, and she knew they were putting two and two together and coming up with ten. Flushing to the roots of her hair, she took a step back—and came up hard against his chest.

She searched for a way of explaining both of them coming out of the same room in fewer clothes than morning usually dictated. And then she felt the rumble of Cam clearing his throat.

“I think you all met Brooke last night at HQ.” His hand came up to rest upon her shoulder, and he caught her gaze as she looked up at him. “I asked the team to come here.” He looked back at his team members. “I take it Dawson’s outside on door duty?”

Alex nodded, still grinning.

Cam said, focusing on her, “This team is going to be on-site, working on Spinks’s whereabouts, organizing secure transportation routes for whenever you leave the hotel, and generally looking like the entourage people would expect to see around you.” He focused his attention back on the men and women before him. “Thank you. You can all get back to what you were doing.”

In a flurry of movement, the room came to life. Cam quietly and efficiently pulled her back into the bedroom, shutting them off from the crowd.

Leaning his back against the door, he closed his eyes and sighed.

She swallowed, knowing her face still flamed hot. “They think we—”

“They don’t,” Cam murmured, opening his eyes to gaze down at her. “I don’t sleep with clients. Ever.”

She thought about him curled around her last night. She thought about how he’d just labeled her a client. But then she thought about how much his staff respected him. About what he’d built and how he led from the front. And about how much he would hate thinking he’d let his guard down. “I apologize for embarrassing you in front of your staff,” she managed to get out.

“Forget it. They’ve seen me in worse situations.”

“All the same, I’m sorry.”

She’d become too wrapped up in him. So wrapped up, she’d forgotten why she was here, why he was here. The realization appalled her. Scared her. She needed to keep her heart intact and her head on straight.

She needed to remember that for Cameron Dexter, she was just a job.

…

Brooke emerged from the bedroom twenty minutes later, dressed in black skinny jeans with a khaki-colored tunic dress belted at the hips. Casual clothes. An outfit that said she was in control of her environment. Strong. Determined. Nervously, her hand went to her hair. Maybe she should have taken the time to dry it so the ends didn’t kick out quite so much. She needed to look cool, calm, and in control. Not carefree or careless. She didn’t want Cam’s staff thinking she was some airhead publicity junkie who didn’t take what was happening seriously. But it was too late to fix the hair—she’d have to rely on the image her clothing and her attitude conveyed.

“Here,” Cam said, getting up to pass her a steaming mug. “I ordered you a latte from room service.”

“Thanks.” She took it from him and looked around the now-cluttered room. Two men paced the length of the room, talking into their phones. Another tapped away on a laptop, head nodding in time to the drum and bass audible through his headphones. A woman dressed in the housekeeping uniform was clicking a pen on, off, on, off, as she read through a sheaf of papers, and another had the TV remote and was channel surfing. All members of Cam’s staff, she supposed.

“Okay?” Cam asked.

“Of course.” She breathed in and tried to shake off the claustrophobia. She wasn’t used to so much noise, so many people. That was all. She’d gotten too used to it being just her and Cam. This all reminded her of what it used to be like on tour. Strangers in and out of her space. Chaos.

She’d loved it then.

Now it just made her feel as if she had no control.

She took a sip of her coffee, hoping the caffeine would kick in soon. Choosing to sit down on one of the sofas, she put her coffee on the low table and reached for a stack of tabloids. “These the ones Steven ordered?”

Cam glanced at them and nodded, but didn’t look at her. She felt a tinge of longing, then pushed it aside. He’s here to do his job.

“Hey, Cam,” the woman with the remote called out. “The entertainment portion of the news should be coming up.”

He focused on the huge widescreen. “I want to see if Steven’s impromptu press conference made it onto the news.”

Brooke turned her attention from the newspaper to the screen, where Steven’s face appeared. “Oh, quick, turn it up.”

As Steven spoke, calmly, assuredly, pleasantly, she glanced at Cam. From the way he frowned, she could tell his thoughts mirrored hers. The entertainment anchor’s voiceover suggested it was surely only a matter of days before an announcement would be made by Nocturne’s former manager about the reformation of the musical duo.

“Okay,” she said, “so Steven may have gone a little over the top—”

“You think?” he snapped. “I said to tell them you were in town taking a couple of meetings, not one step away from relaunching your singing career.”

“You know what Steven’s like. I’ll have a word with him.”

“You’re going to have to rein him in. I can’t sanction the type of large-scale, all-in, tiger baiting you two were talking about yesterday. If you have trouble remembering that when Steven starts pontificating about the benefits of using the press, think about the state you were in last night. Until we find Spinks, life is going to be grim, and you don’t want the press to catch you in a moment of fear. You want the press displaying your efforts to rise above the grimness. If they put a photo of you falling apart in their papers for Spinks to see, he’ll get off on your fear.”

There were things she wanted to say in response. Opinions she wanted to refute. But she didn’t. Because she could remember exactly what state she had found herself in last night. In the space of a few hours she’d gone from being fed up with being seen as a victim to thinking she wanted to be seen as a survivor, only to end up acting and feeling like a victim again. The last thing she needed now was to act like she wanted to be seen as a warrior, but fall flat on her face at the first attempt.

“I’ll speak to him,” she reiterated as Cam turned off the television.

She sifted through the papers and magazines, attempting to ignore the background noise and activity. To center herself. Turning her attention to a celebrity lifestyle magazine, she checked the date. It had come out that morning. Had Steven made good on his promise to get her arrival in print?

A knock sounded at the door, and instinctively, she jumped. Hunching down into the sofa, she knew Cam had seen her reaction, and she was thankful he didn’t say anything as he rose to answer the door. She looked down at the magazine, working to focus her attention on the glossy pages.

“It looks as if you might be able to have a word with Steven now,” Cam announced.

She looked up to see her ex-manager entering the room. She braced herself. Now was as good a time as any, she supposed. Although she would rather not have Cam’s staff as an audience.

“I thought I’d drop by to see if you caught the entertainment news.” Steven’s gaze dropped down to the magazine she was reading. “I see you’re checking for column inches already.”

She bit her lip. “I need to talk to you about last night’s press interview.”

“Go ahead,” Steven said, and she had to marvel at his ability to appear so perfectly at ease among all the noise and activity. Like he thrived on the busy atmosphere.

Which he did, she remembered. Music management was all about creating a buzz and working within it.

She looked around her. This buzz was different, though, wasn’t it? Sighing, she wished she could recapture some of her old enthusiasm for noise and chaos. And be as relaxed in any environment as she used to be. Steven didn’t know how lucky he was to have the freedom to feel so relaxed.

“So about what you told the press,” she said, plucking up the courage to forge ahead with her necessary lecture. “You went a little overboard. And I—”

His phone rang, and he held up his hand apologetically. “I’d better get this.” He answered the phone, then rolled his eyes at her as he listened at length to whoever was on the other end. After several minutes, he mouthed the word sorry and moved away from her to speak to the caller.

In an effort to appear as laidback as Steven, she reopened the magazine. Wrapping a hand around the latte, she turned over the page and found the media attention she’d been looking for—pictures of her. She read the headline: Is this Brooke Bennet’s current muse? We let the eyes tell the story.

She stared back at a color image of herself gazing up at Cam. There were several photos of him from the airport. In them, he looked like some Hollywood movie actor rather than a security consultant acting as her personal bodyguard. She could feel the heat of a blush working its way over her flesh. Dragging her gaze from the photos, she scanned over the actual article, frowning as she tried to make sense of the jumble of words. Then her eyes moved to another photo, smaller and in black and white.

And as she stared at the image of herself, so out of place in these glamour shots, she could think of only one time a photo like that could have been taken of her.

Oh, God.

The cup she was holding slipped out of her hand, smashed on the edge of the table, spilling hot liquid on her leg and sending shards of fine china to the floor below. Bile rose in her stomach as her gaze stayed transfixed on the image of her—the image of her face frozen in fear.

Chapter Eight

Lightning quick, Cameron swept the magazine away, pushed Brooke clear of the mess, and used the linen napkins delivered with breakfast to clean up the hotel suite floor. What the hell had happened to cause such a strong reaction in her? He cast a quick glance to Brooke. One look at her wide eyes and at the way her fingertips pressed against her lips, and he knew she’d received a shock.

His heart thumped against his ribs. “What happened?”

“It’s the magazine,” she whispered, dazedly. “It has photos of us in it. Only…the story doesn’t make sense. The title has the word muse in it. And God!” She shuddered. “There’s a picture, and in it I look—Cameron, I swear it could only have been taken at that place. The place where Spinks was holding me.”

Denial pulsed through Cameron’s veins. He grabbed the magazine and turned to the double-page spread to skim the contents.

Unacceptable.

Rage that she’d been exposed to imagery of her own torture mixed in his veins with revulsion that Spinks could get to her like this…on Cameron’s watch, surrounded by some of his best people. “Alex,” he bellowed, “get Dawson the hell in here.”

Alex was out the door in a second, then back in two, Dawson by his side.

Cameron faced the bodyguard who’d been stationed at the door. “When were these papers and magazines delivered?”

“At 5:45 am,” Dawson replied nervously.

“You checked them yourself?”

“Yes, sir. I looked through them briefly to make sure there was nothing hidden inside the pile. One of the regular maids delivered them.”

“Locate her and ask what her specific instructions regarding delivery were for this suite.”

“Sir?”

“Someone has doctored one of the magazines with a story—a story that most definitely isn’t published in any of the other copies with the same title. Go find out what the maid knows and then repeat your questions to the night shift receptionists and bellhops.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cameron turned around to find Steven had ended his call, gone over to Brooke, and placed an arm around her. The visual set his teeth on edge. But he could hardly take her in his arms himself when his staff was awaiting instruction.

Frustration warred with anger, slowing his reactions, but still he noticed how pale Brooke looked. How her eyes were bruised with emotion. It was only last night that she’d been able to tell him of some of the psychological damage Spinks had inflicted. That she now had to face pictures of the horror had his blood boiling. She deserved peace, safety. Sanctuary.

He had to reverse direction. Go back to his original plan. Assess before taking action.

Turning to Alex, he asked, “Is Ellie Turner free?”

“I’ll pull her off whatever job she’s on.”

“Do that.” He walked back over to Brooke. “We’re moving you. ASAP.”

“Why? She just got here,” Steven said.

Oh, for God’s sake, would the guy ever stop questioning him?

“Steven, you’re not her manager anymore. This decision is not open for discussion. Brooke, I need you to pack again, okay?”

“Brooke,” Steven protested, “are you just going to let him move you from pillar to post?” He turned back to Cameron. “How are you going to do this, anyway?”

Cameron forced some patience into his tone. The last thing Brooke needed was open animosity between him and Steven. “Don’t worry. As far as the media, the hotel staff, Spinks, and anyone else is concerned, Brooke will remain in this suite for the next few days. In actuality, an agent similar to her size and coloring will be staying here.”

“But what will that achieve?”

“Not alerting the media, and in turn, Spinks, is precisely how we get to lay low for a while. You don’t seem to understand. That article is a direct response to your words last night.”

“I thought you wanted to end this thing quickly,” Steven said, turning to Brooke.

“What about ending it safely?” Cameron bit out.

“Of course, Brooke’s safety comes first, but—”

“Well, I’m glad we agree on something.”

“But,” Steven pressed, “at least give the media something. You take her out of here without anyone knowing and plant someone else as her double—I still say that gives you nothing. You take her out of here under a flurry of activity, they’re going to start asking questions. Getting the press to ask questions will surely work to our advantage, correct? All we have to do is sow a few seeds, and we won’t need to do anything else. The press will hunt Spinks down.”

Cameron raised fiery eyes to Steven. “You think you can drip-feed the press like you’re in charge of them? Get over yourself. We do it your way and the press, the public, everyone, will hunt Spinks down. Then what? Disgustingly, he’s got rights, too. What will happen if he decides to exercise them by complaining to the police that he’s trying to live his life as a law-abiding citizen, but Brooke has sicced the press onto him? It won’t take much for him to assert that his civil liberties are being abused.” He watched as the penny dropped. “Bingo. We’re then stuck in a game that plays out on his terms.”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“We play this smart. We play this safe.”

There was a lengthy silence. Steven looked at Brooke, then slowly back at Cameron. “You can guarantee her safety?”

“As long as she’s with me, yes.”

“Where are you going to be staying?”

“No way am I telling anyone. That’s how I guarantee her safety.”

“That’s ridiculous. If I don’t even know where you’ll be, how can I do my job?”

“And what job is that?” Cameron challenged.

Steven’s expression was pinched. “She’s trying to reclaim a life for herself. Get back some of what she lost. And all you want to do is hide her away.”

In the ensuing silence, Cameron was forced to admit Steven was partially right, but damn it, every instinct he had, every known strand of logic he could come up with was telling him that to protect Brooke meant he had to get her away from the spotlight. Not to mention the stress the media attention added. Steven didn’t understand how close to the edge she was. Cameron could understand her not wanting to show him that.

He watched as she stared down at the floor, obviously hating the attention and escalating tension in the room. He found himself relenting as he thought about all she’d been forced to sacrifice. Spinks had stolen so much of her life already. He didn’t want her losing her friends as well. “She can contact you when we arrive.”

…

Squinting against Devon’s low afternoon sun from his position on his bedroom balcony in Megan McGuinness’s south coast mansion, Cameron watched Brooke stoop to pick up something from the private beach below. He put his hand up to shield his eyes, then smiled as she, with a throaty laugh, scooted out the way of a lapping wave. It was the first purely joyful reaction he’d seen since before Spinks had got to her. The laugh helped confirm he’d made the right decision bringing her to Megan.

Brooke had slept on the long drive down from London to Devon, leaving him plenty of time to debate with himself whether or not he was making the right move. He’d wanted to bring her someplace where she’d feel safe enough to recharge. Somewhere, he admitted to himself, where it wasn’t just the two of them. Because after holding her all night, and after her little testing of the boundaries this morning, he was finding it difficult to stay on point.

And he’d damn well better stay on point.

The situation was starting to play out too dangerously for him to lose his concentration now.

He dropped his hand and rolled his shoulders against a knot of tension that had taken up residence at the top of his spine. He would control this situation. Brooke would get her freedom back. Spinks would not win.

“She’s perfectly safe, you know,” came a soft voice from behind. “Your guards are patrolling the perimeter, and the beach is only accessible from the house. Boats can’t get close enough even for someone to swim to shore—the rocks make it impossible.”

Cameron turned as Megan joined him on the balcony.

“I know. Thanks for letting us stay.” He looked briefly back at the house. “It’s—” he paused, searching for appropriate words “—an interesting setup.” Had he known half the house was currently undergoing renovations, he might have gone with a spa or hotel.

Megan laughed, not offended. “It’s a bit of a project, I know. But it turned out I needed a project after…” She sighed, and the sound was carried away on the breeze. “Well, you know.”

“I forget it’s tough for you, too, Megan.” He looked down to the beach below where Brooke was now drawing circles in the sand with a stick. Megan had been forced to deal with her friend being kidnapped and returning too broken to continue Nocturne. Too broken even to continue their friendship.

“It’s fine,” she said, brushing his comment away. “Steven, me, you—we’ve all been affected, but it’s hardly the same as what Brooke’s experienced. Although speaking specifically of you,” she added, her elbow nudging him in his side, “maybe instead of blaming yourself for what happened, you could take some time out while you’re here. Reassess.”

Did he carry the guilt so obviously? Megan was as bad as Alex. Before Spinks’s trial, Alex had served up many an “it wasn’t your fault” lecture. But Cameron knew differently. That day, when he’d come back to the hotel and found her gone…

“There’s nothing to reassess,” he replied, his voice tight with the memory. “It was my fault that Spinks got to her.” He was glad of the reminder. The reminder would sharpen his focus.

“Do you know how much it hurts her to see you keep blaming yourself?”

He tightened his grip on the railing. “She tell you that?”

Megan sighed. “She doesn’t tell me anything, as well you know. But I’ve got eyes in my head.”

He stared at the horizon. Light caught the white of a seagull’s wing tip as it dipped and circled over the water. The aim was to secure Brooke the same freedom as that bird. No matter that she might leave him for good. If she did, it would be no less than he deserved.

“Take the time out,” Megan urged. “The guards can protect her. I can look after her.”

He breathed out to ease the tightness in his chest. And then he smiled. “She may even let you a little.”

“Progress,” Megan remarked. “You have been chipping away.”

He nearly laughed, but one brief check on Brooke below them sobered him. “Don’t push her too hard, okay? I need her to rest. She’s strong, but she has limits.”

“Sounds as if she’s been chipping away at you, too,” Megan appraised. “Good for her. Hey, Brooke,” she shouted, “Feel like taking a dip in the sea? I can lend you a bikini.”

Despite the twenty yards from the balcony to the beach, Cameron couldn’t fail to notice the sudden horror dull the joy in Brooke’s eyes. Or the way she went deathly pale. The way her knees wobbled.

“Oh, God,” Megan whispered. “I didn’t think about the scars.”

Chapter Nine

“It was stupid of me to suggest swimming,” Cameron heard Megan tell Brooke from where he stood in the unfinished cavern of Megan’s formal great room. He looked up from where he’d been rummaging in the assorted decorating paraphernalia and observed the women. After Megan’s statement about the bikini, Brooke had recovered quickly. She’d come up from the beach, claiming she wanted to keep busy by helping with Megan’s renovations. Neither Megan nor Cameron had been fooled, but both had gone along with her suggestion.

Now the two women were covering a bookcase with a dust sheet, but Megan’s guilt obviously still clung to her.

“Stop. It’s fine. Really,” Brooke emphasized. “I overreacted.”

The hell she did, Cameron thought proudly. In the time it had taken for her to join them in the house, she’d managed to achieve the same look in her eyes as she’d had right before she used to go onstage. As if she was summoning all her positive internal energy to feed back out into the world. True, her hands had been rubbing against her breastbone as if trying to massage the turmoil out, but still.

He watched from the corner of his eye as she walked over to the large pile of dust sheets and grabbed one. She looked happy and relaxed as she encouraged Megan to talk about her plans for the house. The tension in his shoulders eased a little.

He started separating cans of matte paint from gloss, but his gaze kept straying to Brooke. And when it did, he found her looking right back. With each glance, each gentle smile of hers, he found it more difficult to concentrate.

Watching her laughing and joking with Megan, he realized she had the potential to be this happy all the time if she ever got free of Spinks.

He took out the last can of matching color and started restacking the others.

“Good timing,” Brooke said, dropping the cloth she’d been using to wipe down a wall. “We’re about ready for some paint.”

He frowned. “Have you worked out which of you is painting which area yet?”

“Not everything has to be planned to the nth degree, you know. Unlike you, some people go for the free-form approach to life,” she said. “Megan, how did you go about painting the other rooms?”

Megan grinned. “I cleaned the walls, draped everything I could reach, opened a can of paint, and started.”

Cameron groaned. Brooke laughed.

And the sound of her laughter hit him in the gut. God, but it was good to hear her do that. Using a large flat-head screwdriver, he opened one of the cans and poured some of the contents into a paint tray. Collecting two rollers, he picked up the tray and walked to Brooke. Leaning over her shoulder, he passed everything to her. The heat of her penetrated his skin, distracting him.

As he made to move away, she turned to him and mouthed a silent thank you.

He held her gaze, letting her know he understood that she was thanking him for more than fetching paint. She was thanking him for bringing her here.

This time he hoped she didn’t feel as though she was running. This time he hoped it felt right. That she would find a new way of being with Megan that wasn’t solely about Spinks or Nocturne. That this was the place to gather her strength for what was to unfold.

“Brooke?” Megan called out.

“Huh?” Her gaze shot from Cameron’s to Megan’s, and pretty color tinged her neck.

He suddenly found it difficult to swallow.

“I was asking how Steven seemed,” Megan said, taking the paint and one of the rollers, and choosing the nearest wall.

“Oh.” Brooke slid a knowing smile at him. “Cam, how would you say Steven is?”

A royal pain in the proverbial ass was what he wanted to say, but he went with a diplomatic, “I guess Steven is Steven,” then frowned, because these days, Steven’s managerial slickness held a whiff of desperation that increased his exhaustion with the man.

“He phoned me yesterday, actually,” Megan said.

“He did?” he asked.

“Yes.” Megan looked at Brooke. “Could you become conveniently vague if he asks where I am? He’ll only come down and pressure me about going back into music, and I have way too much to do without having to put up with being schmoozed within an inch of my life.”

“Oh, come on. He’s not that bad,” Brooke said.

“Don’t encourage him. Otherwise, he’ll be following you all the way to France, trying to launch your career again. And taking his cut of it.”

“But I want to help him out. You know how hard he’s worked, what he’s done for me. In his own way, he does still care about us,” Brooke countered loyally.

Cameron paused from filling up his own tray to watch her closely. He didn’t like her blind faith in the man, but he couldn’t exactly contest the statement. Although he did wonder how often Steven managed to separate ambition from a genuine wish to look after the talent signed to him. Megan’s words about how they’d all been affected by Spinks came back to him. Was Brooke the only one generous enough to make allowances for Steven?

“His latest act only peaked at number thirty in the charts,” Megan said.

He winced on Steven’s behalf. He wouldn’t have expected Steven’s clout within the industry to have diminished to that extent.

“I didn’t realize,” Brooke murmured.

“Well you can’t turn everyone into the type of success story Nocturne was,” Megan said with a laugh to lift the mood.

Cameron noted Brooke’s roller had stopped moving against the wall. He took the opportunity to ask the question most on his mind. “You think you’ll ever go back to music?”

And then Brooke stopped breathing.

Damn. Why the hell had he said that?

…

Brooke felt as if she might faint. Was that what happened when the walls you’d spent so long putting up were bulldozed by one well-intentioned question?

Her hands had gone clammy, and the more she tightened her grip on the roller handle, the more she experienced the deep tremble spreading throughout her body.

Vitally aware that as she stood frozen, she was making it harder to brush the question off. It was more difficult not to appear the victim she feared she would always be. But if she explained she hadn’t sung since Spinks, hadn’t written a complete piece of music since before that fateful day, wouldn’t she look like a victim?

It was one thing to know where she was with her music, but quite another to talk about the absence of it out loud. Emotion thundered through her. She didn’t want Spinks to win. He’d already stripped her soul. Taken too much.

Sometimes being able to go only so far with music…just wasn’t enough.

The admission pulsed to life, shocking her to her core.

The pretty, caramel-colored paint she’d been rolling on the wall became harder to see, and she was embarrassed to realize it was because tears were forming.

She didn’t want to cry. Didn’t want him to win, even that much.

But she was here, wasn’t she? She was fighting, right? Talking to Cam had helped last night. She could let a few more words out now. So Spinks wouldn’t win.

Clearing her throat, she said, “I haven’t sung since the last show we did.” Lifting her paint roller to the wall, she resumed painting.

“You haven’t sung…at all?” Megan asked.

Brooke focused on rolling in long, even strokes, hoping the evenness of her strokes would make her words come out without shaking. “At first I’d get this horrible sensation against my throat, like it was closing up. Initially, I assumed it was some weird vocal cord damage from—” She stopped, bent to load the paint roller and gritted her teeth.

Don’t let him take your voice now.

She cleared her throat and forced herself to continue. “I realized he hadn’t even marked me there, so I assumed it was psychological.” The paint roller slipped against the wall. “I suppose I shouldn’t have given up so easily.”

The silence in the room was deafening. She slid a quick look at Megan, knowing her confession would have shaken her friend. She took the guilt over upsetting her friend deep inside. Tasted it.

“Brooke,” Megan eventually said, “if you ever want to try singing—I mean, it can be just you, me, and the piano over there.” She tipped her head at the canvas-draped baby grand in the corner. “No one ever has to know. And there would be absolutely no pressure.”

But she couldn’t. Couldn’t even look at the piano. Feeling absurdly awkward, she put the roller down. Her throat tightened up on her. “I’m sorry, but I really have to get some sleep now,” she managed to get out, then turned and headed to the staircase.

Immediately, Cam did the same, joining her as she walked up the stairs.

Tingling warmth came from his body heat, reminding her she was still alive. She hadn’t been ready to receive Megan’s kind offer, but maybe she could in time. Maybe she’d show Megan her lyric book.

But as soon as she had the thought, she discounted it. Even if by some miracle Spinks was put back where he belonged, she would return to France. No matter if five minutes of decorating at Megan’s had shown so clearly that her place in Châteauroux was nothing more than an empty canvas.

Somewhere she’d been hiding. Not living.

But it was a place where she was safe and knew what to expect. Where her limitations weren’t tested, so she couldn’t fail.

Cam stopped in front of the first door on the left, opened it, and gestured her inside.

Her eyes skimmed over the beautiful wrought-iron bed and moved to the ten-foot windows braced by long, billowing white muslin panels that pooled on the floor, brushing over the polished oak floorboards. Along the opposite wall was a chaise longue, and in the corner of the room was a vintage armoire and matching dressing table with bags beside it. Now her eyes widened as she took in the fact that next to her bag was Cam’s.

Anticipation slammed into her. And dread.

Her eyes flew to the bed once more before colliding with his steady, watchful cerulean gaze.

Her heart tripped over itself, and suddenly she was sick of limitations and sick of keeping to the shallow waters.

She didn’t want to let go of the night before, when he’d wrapped his hard body around hers and made her unequivocally believe that she was safe. That she was precious but not fragile.

She studied him, wondering if he was finding it as difficult to breathe in the charged particles of air as she was. She took a step toward him and saw his eyes darken, deepen. She liked that. It made her embrace the electricity in the atmosphere. Made her want to release some emotion. Made her want to test herself as she had this morning. Test him. Test them.

Would that be going too far?

She deserved one chance, one real chance to bask in his savoring of her, didn’t she?

Slowly, with a growing confidence, she walked toward him, thinking that of all the places he could have brought her, he’d chosen Megan’s home. He’d given back to her something she’d refused to allow herself to have. Friendship.

Another of his considerate acts. He’d cut through obstacles and shown her she had more to offer than the horror of what had been done to her. He’d shown her she could relax. That she could gather herself.

In order to take action.

Action of her own choosing.

Stopping right in front of him, she reached out and trailed a hand up and over his shoulder.

His chest puffed out and he shook his head slightly. “Brooke,” he said with warning. “I’m only in here because Megan hasn’t any more rooms. The guards will take turns sleeping in the only other guest room she has that’s livable. I’ll be sleeping on that,” he finished, pointing to the chaise longue.

She absorbed his guttural tone with delight, and the warning went unheeded. She didn’t want to back away and hide from him. She wanted to explore the song she had in her heart. See if the melody of them would turn out sweet or sultry.

Reaching up on tiptoes, she brushed her lips softly over his. Next, she sent a feather-light sweep of her tongue against his bottom lip. He responded immediately. Crushing her along the length of him, his hands shooting out to steady them both—one driving into her hair, the other sliding down to the small of her back. Just as when they’d kissed in France. She remembered the beat the two of them created was strong, the rhythm intoxicating.

Wanting more, she opened her mouth and took him in, desperate to imprint the taste of him on her soul. His hands moved down to cup her bottom. He squeezed, and she moaned.

And then there was no thought.

Only feeling.

Blessed, unrestrained feeling.

When he bent at the knees to hoist her up, she wrapped both legs around his waist and moved sinuously, fluidly, against the hard length of him, her body, mind, and soul bursting with joyous inner music.

He took a couple of steps forward and bumped her up against the iron bed frame at the foot of the bed, but she didn’t care. She put one hand out behind her to hold on for purchase as she leaned the top half of her body away from him. With both hands, he unbuttoned her tunic top.

Each inch of flesh his hands exposed wanted the warmth of his mouth.

This was living. This was feeling alive.

Leaning back in surrender, she tightened her legs around his hips.

He bent to place his lips in the hollow of her throat, and she gasped as his tongue stroked over the pulse point there. The flush of molten fire spread over her flesh as he dragged her clothes down over her shoulders, his hands following the material as he pushed the top down her arms. Over and over, his thumb brushed backward and forward across the scar where she’d had her treble clef tattoo removed.

But suddenly, he pulled back. All sensation ceased, and she was left bereft. Alone.

Dazed, confused, and wondering why he’d put a stop to the magic they were creating together, she clung to the bed frame and levered herself up.

Glancing down to the hands still clinging to her shoulders and then up to eyes that were staring fixedly at her scar, she realized what had stopped him. Cold fury whipped through her, eliminating the last remnants of heat from her eyes.

“Why did you stop?” she demanded, dropping her legs shakily to the floor.

He grimaced, but she wanted him to say it. So she’d never again forget. Never again put herself in this position. Never again let her emotions rule.

“Go on. I want to hear you say it, Cam.”

“Brooke.” He took a step back, his gaze dragging up to her face before tearing away. She shuddered in reaction because she knew he was seeing eyes that were huge and glistening as they stared up at him. Knew he was seeing lips that were parted and still aching for his kisses. Knew her unbuttoned dress was halfway down her arms, making her look like a half-unwrapped present.

A present he no longer wanted.

Because of the scars. The multitude of scars he knew covered her skin.

Fury turned to embarrassment, which worked its way quickly to devastation. She fought against the demons that would have her covering herself up and shrinking back into her shell, never to come out again. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat and gathered what little pride she had. “It’s just a scar. I have others. Do you want to see them, too? Will they help you decide?”

Hardly aware of her shaking hands, she peeled off her tunic and flung it to the side. Turning sideways, she displayed the two wide, long scars that ran parallel below her rib cage. When his eyes followed her movements, the devil inside her had her unzipping her jeans to show him more.

“Stop. You don’t have to do this.” He picked up her top and stilled her hands on her jeans.

She looked into his bleak eyes, and the words were torn from her. “You know what he did. You know that’s the disgusting reality. Notes. Quavers. Chords. All over me. He tattooed music into my skin. He made me his living work of art.”

Chapter Ten

Guilt punched a gaping hole through Cameron’s midsection. Words deserted him. That Spinks had tattooed Brooke while he held her in captivity was unforgivable. That Cameron had allowed her to be captured by that maniac in the first place was equally unforgivable. But how could an apology for failing to do your job ever be enough?

It couldn’t.

He had tried. Fractured, useless words of apology had poured from him as he’d carried her in his arms from Spinks’s lair to safety. But those words, spoken five years ago, still meant nothing.

“My treble clef was like the letter s, he said. He tattooed the rest of his name beside it,” she continued.

Forcing himself not to put a hand to her lips to stop the tirade, he held still. He wouldn’t silence her. Let it be part of his punishment to listen. Because compared with the crimes committed against her, he was already getting off too lightly.

“But you already know this, don’t you? You saw me. You know damn well what he did to my body.”

He’d been a man possessed upon her disappearance. Constantly battling the demons telling him he wouldn’t get to her in time. And when he found her strapped to that gurney, his only thought was to make sure she was still alive. She was naked but breathing, and when he realized her wounds weren’t life-threatening, he’d just wanted to get her out of there.

Only as he’d started untying her, the sight of what that monster had done to her skin had momentarily stopped him in his tracks. He hadn’t been able to mask his horror when he looked down into her glassy eyes. But as soon as his gaze had met hers and she turned her head away, his first instinct had been to shield her.

From his own eyes.

So she wouldn’t have to suffer any more than she already had.

He’d covered her with his jacket and held her in his arms until the sirens sounded. Until the medics took her away from him.

“I saw a little of what he’d done,” he said, steadying his voice when it went off-course.

She bowed her head. “But now you’ve seen the reality,” she said. “I had the tattoos removed, but my skin reacted badly to the laser treatments. Then there were skin grafts…there’s nothing I can do about those. I’m permanently marred.”

He took a step toward her, unsure he’d heard her correctly.

She wouldn’t look at him, and her hands shook as she tried to shrug back into her tunic. “It’s all right that you don’t want me like this.” She raised her head, resigned acceptance in her eyes. “Why would you? Why would anyone?”

His heart thudded in rejection of the concept. How could she think he didn’t want her? “What? No!”

He closed the distance between them. Forced his voice to remain unbroken. “Look at me. I’ve wanted you from about five seconds after meeting you. I will always want you. It’s what clouds my judgment. It’s what had me speaking to you so harshly, so undeservedly that day. And it’s what had you running off to be anywhere but near me. It’s what gave him the opportunity to hurt you.”

She looked up at him then, confusion clouding her eyes.

He sucked in a harsh breath. The truth had to be spoken. “Seeing your shoulder reminded me of how I failed you. I can’t have a repeat of that. I can’t get confused, or caught up, or so damn happy in lust that I get complacent. I can’t. I won’t.”

Not until he’d put things right.

…

Brooke stared into the empty space Cam had left behind. She’d barely noticed him pick up his bag and mutter something about changing in the bathroom down the hall. She’d been too busy repeating his words about wanting her. Always wanting her.

There’d been such conviction in his tone, she didn’t know whether to be frustrated or relieved.

For every occasion she steeled herself and slid open the door to her prison—put herself out there for him—he’d found a way to carefully walk her back a crucial couple of paces and slide the door shut between them again.

But he did want her.

She felt a bemused smile forming as she held the truth tightly to her heart.

Scars or not. Spinks or not. If nothing was going to change that, all she had to do was push a little more. She strode to the bedroom door, but then paused. If she went to him—maybe slipped into his shower—he’d only find another way to halt her actions. Whether with gentle recrimination or flat-out rejection, he’d stop her. Stop himself. He felt too accountable and was too responsible not to.

Sighing, she rested her head against the door. She’d sleep in the bed, and Cam would sleep yards away from her, on the chaise longue. Apart once again. For tonight. In the morning, though, she’d don her battle armour and try again. She couldn’t let guilt and Spinks be the ruin of them.

…

At the crack of dawn, Cameron left a sleeping Brooke with two agents at Megan’s home in Devon and drove back to London. He was going to search Spinks’s property from top to bottom. Get in somehow. Dig around, see what he could come up with. The man wasn’t a ghost—there had to be a trail to his latest den. Somewhere.

Within five hours, Cameron was standing outside the grubby front door of Spinks’s apartment. With his weight strategically placed, and with a subtle twist and shift of the handle, he let himself into the apartment and quietly closed the door behind him. He’d kept surveillance up on the apartment, as had the police—judging from the uniform he’d seen striding around the block—and knew Spinks hadn’t been back since the day he’d murdered Jenkins and turned up at the airport. Cameron was pretty sure he wasn’t coming back, ever. The question was, where the hell was Spinks now? The sooner Cameron worked that out, the sooner he could shut the man down.

Permanently.

It was the waiting that was beginning to itch at his skin.

Waiting had him operating under an increasing sense of unease. Forcing him into wanting to make a preemptive strike, rather than take evasive action.

A dangerous mood to be in.

The frank conversation with Brooke had shown him they needed to deal with the reality of the past, with what it had made of both of them. Both her honesty and the courage and strength she possessed showed him she was probably more capable of facing what had come before than he was. Last night she’d made everything seem so simple. He’d wanted nothing more than to ensure she got her freedom back from the specter of Spinks.

So that she was free to live life.

Free to choose him?

The thought stopped him in his tracks.

No. Didn’t she deserve to choose someone unconnected to the very worst that had been thrown at her? Someone whose presence wouldn’t constantly remind her of a steel gurney and a tattoo gun?

There was a light tap at the front door, and Cameron froze. Technically, he may have “forgotten” to alert the police he was coming here. He never went against protocol, but today the decision had been a small risk he’d been willing to take to protect Brooke. He doubled back on himself, positioned himself behind the door, and waited. Another tap.

His phone vibrated.

He removed it from his pocket, and, with one eye on the door, accessed the text from Alex.

Let me in.

Swearing softly under his breath, he put his phone away and opened the front door.

“You owe me a beer for distracting the uniform at the front entrance when I saw your approach on the surveillance cameras,” Alex said as he stepped over the threshold.

“The place isn’t a crime scene.” Cameron looked up and caught Alex’s raised eyebrow.

“You use a key to get in?”

“Not exactly.”

“Thought not. You owe me another beer for putting a call in and squaring your little ‘visit’ with the chief inspector.”

Cameron smiled his thanks. “What were you doing on-site, anyway?”

“It’s my shift. I’ve been rotating the patrols ever since Jenkins, the way you asked. Don’t want anyone getting too comfortable. Or looking too familiar.”

“Good. Stick with the protocol.” Cameron moved to what he presumed were the two back bedrooms, saying, “From the looks of things, Spinks is never coming back here.” The place had a distinctly unlived-in feel.

At the end of the hall, he pushed open the door on the left to find a bedroom with a single wardrobe and an old dressing room table and stool. The only thing to distinguish it as once being used by a woman was the pink bedspread over a sagging mattress. There were no personal items whatsoever. He opened the single wardrobe. Nothing.

“Creepy,” Alex remarked, looking around the empty room from the doorway. “Spinks’s mother died while he was in prison, didn’t she?”

“Cancer,” Cameron said distractedly. He retreated to the hallway, headed for the other bedroom.

“I wouldn’t have thought the police would remove all her possessions the minute Spinks became a murder suspect, so who did?”

“This was how the place was found. If Spinks did this, I’m guessing he didn’t have much love for the woman—there’s absolutely nothing of hers left.”

“There’s nothing of anything left,” Alex commented.

Cameron agreed. He entered the second bedroom. Like the first, the space was nearly bare save for a bed, a single chair, an empty wardrobe, and—he bent down to get a closer look—a large indentation in the carpet pile that suggested a piece of furniture or something else equally substantial had recently been moved. He stood back. Faint tracks in the carpet indicated something had been dragged across the room.

Retracing his steps, he followed the tracks to a door in the hallway. Opening it, he peered inside and found a light pull. One tug and the cupboard filled with a dull yellow glow from the single light bulb.

An empty cupboard. He frowned. Had Spinks taken the contents and stored them in the piece of furniture or container?

He put his hands out to feel along the tops of the shelves and bent down to peer into the corners of the space. Nothing. No concealed openings. No items left behind.

Tension twisted his insides. Spinks would enjoy knowing they’d been in his space and come away with nothing. Damn him. Cameron went to tug off the light, then stopped. A piece of the wallpaper pattern covering the interior of the closet caught his eye. Squinting in the useless light, he bent closer to try and make out the print.

“Found something?” Alex asked from behind him.

Cameron tasted the bile in the back of his throat, and sudden understanding had him jerking back.

God, no. The wallpaper was made up of tiny fractured images of different parts of Brooke’s body. He’d seen the same terror-stricken eyes staring out from the false photo story in the paper.

Hell. He’d seen a similar pattern—just moments before.

He stormed past Alex, back to the room Spinks had been using as a bedroom, then grabbed hold of the drapes. Disgusted, he yanked them down and stared at the print.

Brooke’s terror stared back.

A decorative catalogue of what Spinks had subjected her to, made into wallpaper and curtains. Cameron swore. Brooke had told him Spinks had called her his muse. Had he literally used her image on everything to be close to her? To construct his warped works of art? Cameron cast his gaze across the room. There was no bedspread on this bed—had he taken it with him?

“Sick bastard.”

He looked up to find Alex staring at the curtains.

It took two attempts to clear his throat. “I’m not sure if this is a violation of his license for release, but call this in for me, would you? Suggest strongly to the chief inspector he should get forensics out here to catalogue these curtains and the wallpaper in the cupboard.” Cameron took out his camera phone and systematically began photographing the images from the drapes.

“Why don’t you let me do that for you?” Alex asked.

“My responsibility.” He moved back out into the corridor to open the cupboard door.

Spinks had captured Brooke’s terror on film. He would capture Spinks’s crimes the same way.

…

Alex wouldn’t let Cameron decline the offer of a drink after they left Spinks’s apartment, taking him instead to the nearest pub. Cameron wanted to get back to Devon, to Brooke, but not like this. Not shaking with fury. Obsessing over what he’d do to Spinks if he so much as smelled the bastard.

“Here,” Alex said, passing him one of the pints of beer he’d collected from the bar before sitting down on the stool opposite him. “I’ve seen some tough things—you think you’re prepared.” He shook his head, rearranged a couple of coasters before continuing. “It’s hard when it’s someone you’ve met.”

Cameron stared into his beer. Harder still when you were the one responsible for her having to endure what Alex was referring to. Harder still when you—

Strip out the emotion. That was what he needed to do, he thought as the rage swirled within him.

“You should have killed the bastard when you had the chance.”

At Alex’s words, Cameron whipped his head up.

“It’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it, sir?”

“Don’t call me sir,” he said, reflexively, his attention drawn to Alex’s statement.

The closer he grew to Brooke, the more difficult it was to juggle the gathering tension and the waiting. Being in Spinks’s apartment, he’d found it too easy to draw a direct comparison to Brooke’s house in France, which was equally empty.

As long as Spinks had a hold over her, she was a ghost in her own life.

More and more, he wanted to shut Spinks down for good. He picked up his beer and drank.

“You have to offer him something he wants.”

He shook his head. “I won’t do that to her.”

“You’re going to have to. You know it. I know it. Hell, even Brooke knows it.”

He couldn’t risk her safety like that. What if he made a mistake?

“Cameron.” Alex hunched over the table and lowered his voice. “The guy spent five years in prison thinking about her every waking minute. Now we find he still has the pictures of what he did to her. He gets to see them every waking minute. He’ll wait as long as it takes. He’s in a win-win situation. And you, mate, are most definitely not.”

Cameron inhaled sharply. “Careful, Alex,” he warned quietly.

“How long are you prepared to wait? How long before you’re out of options, and he still hasn’t resurfaced?”

“Worried the agency might go under with all those man-hours? Worried you’ll lose your job?” he threw out, only to meet Alex’s unrelenting gaze.

“What about Brooke?” his friend countered. “How can you justify keeping her in limbo like that?”

Damn it. He couldn’t.

“Putting her out there is the logical thing to do, Cameron.”

He knew it. Logically. But he wasn’t used to emotion warring with logic. There had to be a way of mitigating the risk to Brooke. Hell, he’d absorb all of the risk himself if it meant keeping her safe.

Gray cells suddenly fired to life. If he could divert Spinks’s attention onto him…

An idea formed. “Spinks is a narcissist, right?”

“That’s his official diagnosis,” Alex confirmed.

“So Brooke is his muse, his possession—the only sure way of satisfying his artistic urges. And who took Brooke away from him and stopped him from completing his artwork?”

“You.”

“Exactly. Me.” Mitigate the risk to Brooke. Take more of it on myself. Made sense.

“You think putting yourself in the frame will rile him enough to get him above ground?”

“It’s worth a shot. If he sees me out and about with Brooke, seemingly enjoying life, it will appear he’s the very last thing on either of our minds.”

Alex nodded slowly. “That might just work. The one person who took her from him last time now getting to keep her for himself.”

“Exactly. His pride wouldn’t stand for that. Might make him rush. Might make him sloppy.”

“I can see the headlines now! Music Sensation Falls for Bodyguard.”

Cameron suspected flipping the headline around would be more accurate. But he had to keep his head in the game. “No headlines. No personal stories. We do this with photos. He likes those.”

Chapter Eleven

Spinks whistled loudly as he dragged a heavy, old-fashioned traveling trunk to a cleverly concealed entrance at one end of a damp, dark, man-made tunnel. He reached the roughly constructed door frame and heaved the trunk over the entrance into the room in front of him. The room was pitch black. But he had plans for that. He’d brought along a small generator the day before. Soon he’d have light.

Soon he’d have Brooke.

Leaving the trunk where it was, he felt his way along the edge of the room to the base of the stairs leading up from the cellar to the ground floor of the condemned Georgian house. He fumbled his way up the stairs until he reached the door at the top. There, he turned the knob and stepped out into a hallway. He wandered into one of the large, square rooms to survey his surroundings. And smiled.

A sliver of bright spring light poured through the two boarded-up windows. He crossed over to the nearest one, where he moved the rotting wood that covered it. Staring out through the heat haze, he studied the work going on at the construction site directly opposite. Excellent. No one would hear anything over the drilling and hammering at the work site.

Not that he intended allowing her to make any noise this time. He didn’t need her mouth to finish his masterpiece.

He headed back down to the cellar to retrieve his laptop. Bringing it back out into the semi-light, he opened it and logged on. Once more he read the brief e-mail he’d received.

Angel Eyes Nightclub. Opening Friday 10 pm. Good money for good shots.

People could be so helpful. Especially people who wanted something. He deleted the e-mail and shut down the computer. He needed to think.

He took the laptop back down to the cellar. Switching on a battery-operated spotlight, he stowed the laptop in the trunk, on top of a patterned duvet cover and under all the sealed plastic bags containing his facial disguise pieces.

Youth rehabilitation could be so fun. After he’d been caught tagging, he’d mucked out ditches, cleaned the backstage of a local theater, sterilized medical equipment at a local hospital, and handled deliveries at a tattoo parlor. As he’d been giving something back to the community, the community had been giving something back to him, too. His muse. His means of capturing Brooke. His artistic tools.

The police had confiscated his tattoo gun and inks when they rescued Brooke. But that was fine—he had other means of creating his art. There was one last piece he needed to retrieve from the upper floors of the house, and then his studio would be complete.

His heart thudded painfully, as it always did when he thought about venturing into the room at the other end of the house. But it had to be done. He needed the single iron-sprung bed frame still in there. After retracing his steps, he turned right at the top of the stairs. As he turned the door knob at the end of the passageway, he told himself that he’d be in and out.

In and out.

In this room he’d found his father slumped in the corner, a needle still in his arm, dull eyes showing death—the drugs more of a temptation than being with his son. At least once the man was dead, he couldn’t beat that son any more. No more straps to the back, no more boiling water poured over the boy for failing to bring money for drugs when he visited.

Spinks tried not to look at the fading mural on the main wall as he came into the room. But it was inevitable.

Looking at the homage he’d created should have given him a sense of peace. But all it left was a hollow feeling and a sense of failure that the mural looked so amateur. The magic of that moment he’d felt when he first heard Brooke Bennet sing her pretty little song hadn’t translated onto the wall. If his mother had been any kind of mother at all, she’d have worked her fingers to the bone to provide him with the art materials he’d needed. Instead, all she’d done was complain of feeling sick all the time, draining his creative spirit and affecting his work.

He dragged his gaze away from the wall in disgust.

The same day his father was being cremated, he’d been on his first day of court-appointed community service on the canal behind the Bennet estate. Brooke Bennet and her father had delivered coffee to where he and the other youth offenders were clearing an area of canal. Brooke had smiled at him as though he was some regular person. And then she’d sung a song. A sweet, haunting song that had stayed with him. He’d watched her sing, and the light in her eyes had inspired him. He’d started the mural that night.

Then sightings of Brooke had grown sparse, and for a long time he hadn’t been able to finish the mural. But then he’d found her again. On television. In concerts. She’d become a musician.

Music was a form of art. Brooke was an artist.

“Just like me,” he said.

But in the end, she hadn’t been willing to combine their art.

That was when the hate had started.

…

Back in Devon, Cameron found Brooke seated in the chaise longue in Megan’s guest bedroom, staring out the window at the ocean below, bathed in the fading evening light that sifted through the tall window. She quietly fingered the leather-bound notebook, serene. At peace. Until she caught sight of him. Then she closed off her expression and set the notebook aside before standing to face him.

“We’re going back to London tonight?” she asked, her eyes searching his. “Where have you been, anyway?” she accused, not allowing him the chance to answer her first question. “I woke up, and you were gone. You didn’t return my calls all day. All I could get out of the guards you left me with was that you were in London. Not exactly illuminating.”

All he could think was that when he finally told her what he’d seen, the spark she’d recaptured since arriving at Megan’s would disappear. “You were sleeping.”

Button eyes flashed. “You could have woken me.”

He hadn’t had the heart. She needed sleep to function.

He handed her a blond wig and a caterer uniform with an embroidered hotel crest. Alex had given Cameron the outfit before he took off for Devon to collect her. He was exhausted, but he needed her back in London in order to implement this new plan. And he needed her in disguise—a technique he’d lifted from that bastard, Spinks.

“Before we leave, I need you to put those on.”

She gave him a look, and he blew out a breath in exasperation. “You don’t have to put on the uniform until we’re closer, but I want you to put the wig on now. I can’t afford for anyone to spot you arriving back at the hotel when we’ve already got Ellie Turner inside pretending to be you.”

“First tell me where you went.”

After how vulnerable she’d grown when she’d shown him her scars, the return of her feisty spirit was a welcome change. He could at least hand her a bit of truth for her bravery. He grabbed their luggage, tossed it onto the bed, and motioned for her to pack. “I went to Spinks’s apartment to see if he left any clues to his whereabouts.”

“And?” she prompted, still standing, clutching the wig and uniform tightly to her.

He blew out a breath. He liked the spunk she showed, he just didn’t need so much of it when he was trying to put a plan in motion. “Brooke, I don’t want a Q and A about everything we do. Just do as I ask and put on the wig.”

He’d driven back to Devon, replaying his conversation with Alex, examining the plan from every conceivable angle. Double-checking his logic. He closed his eyes, opening them when those pictures of her on the drapes and wallpaper floated behind eyelids. “There wasn’t a damn thing there that would tell us where he is or what he’s planning,” he added.

“So why are we going back tonight?”

He dropped the luggage and ran a hand over the back of his neck. “You want this over with, don’t you?”

“You know I do.” She stared up at him, and must have seen something of his day in his face, because after a few tense moments she murmured, “You feel like time is running out.”

He stayed silent as she stared down at the floor for a few moments. Letting her come to her own realization. Her own conclusion. Letting her make the decision to take action herself.

“All right,” she finally said, raising her head to look him dead in the eye. “You can tell me your plan in the car. But one question and one answer first,” she insisted. “What, exactly, did you find in that apartment?”

He stared above her head as he searched for the most gentle way of telling her.

“I have a right to know.”

Her soft assertion only made it harder. But, then, all those jumble-tumble feelings that were working their way to the surface between them, the feelings he could no longer entirely back away from, caught at him, and he knew he couldn’t lie to her.

“There were some…images of you there,” he managed to get out.

“Images?”

He forced himself to hold her gaze, praying she didn’t see just how shocked he’d been. “Photographs. Of when he had you. Like the ones in the false magazine story. They were printed onto wallpaper and fabric.”

“I see,” she whispered.

Christ. From her hollowed-out expression, he could tell she didn’t fully understand but that she was trying to be brave. He watched, tight-jawed, helpless, as she fought for composure. When she hugged her arms around her and her hand went to where the tattoo on her shoulder used to be, he knew she was about to apologize. His heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach.

“I’m—”

“Don’t.” Cameron stepped forward, his fists clenched at his sides. “How many times do I have to say it? You have nothing to be sorry about.”

…

Brooke sat in the front passenger seat of the car, staring out the window as Cam drove them through pretty coastal villages, following the sea wall on the way to the motorway. There was a fine mist of rain falling, and it was getting more difficult to differentiate the ocean from the gray horizon. All through packing, right up to getting into the car, she’d shut down her reaction to learning Andre Spinks had printed images of her onto objects. But now, with Cam silent and on edge beside her, she sat reeling as she remembered the hated flash of Spinks’s camera. Motion sickness had nothing on the churning in her stomach.

Cam’s face had been tortured when he confessed to what he’d seen. She’d wanted to rip into him for leaving that morning without telling her where he was going. For leaving her before they had a chance to talk about what had happened the night before. How she’d bared herself to him. But his words had hit her hard—she’d talk to him later about what she’d said. What she’d done.

She eased her hand under where the seatbelt pressed against her stomach, trying in vain to stem the churning.

She felt so unbearably guilty.

As if because it was her image being used, she were somehow complicit. And she was embarrassed—humiliated that Cam had seen photos of her that upset him. It was as if he now knew something about her that she didn’t. One more thing he could use to distance himself.

“Did you show what you found to anyone else?” she managed to ask, startled by the shrill pitch of her voice in the quiet car.

“Alex was there.”

Her hand fisted against her stomach, and she felt the tight pull of the seat belt drag over her bone-white knuckles.

“I had him call the inspector to get forensics over there, but I swear no one else will see them unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“I want to see them.” She shocked herself with the statement.

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Why not? They’re of me, aren’t they? It’s not like I wasn’t present at the time. You can’t protect me from something that’s already happened, Cam.”

“No,” he acknowledged quietly. “But I can try.”

Now she did turn to look at him. Her gaze drifted over the shadows of his face as he focused on the road. She lingered on that square jaw of his. He would do more than try, she thought. He always had.

She wanted to prove to him that his protection wasn’t what she wanted most from him. But to do that, she had to no longer need his protection—and for that to happen, this thing with Spinks had to end.

With a deep breath to fortify her, she asked, “You want to tell me about this plan?”

He took a few moments, and she waited as patiently as she could.

“All the time Spinks is missing, we’re a step behind,” Cam eventually said. “Makes me think he’s preparing something big. There’s no way he’d stay under the radar if he weren’t. His personality type isn’t going to get complacent because he hasn’t been found. Instead, he’s going to be feeding off it.”

“You think he’s preparing? Gathering himself?” That made sense to her.

“It would fit his pattern. Steven and I kept a lot of his stalking activity from you last time. Back then, the photos arrived first. With each envelope, the photos showed him getting closer to you, achieving more intimate shots. Then, he simply bided his time until—”

“Until I gave him the perfect opportunity,” she stated, staring at his competent hands as they clenched the steering wheel.

“That’s not going to happen again,” he said roughly, joining the steady stream of motorway traffic and switching on the windscreen wipers as what had been a fine sea mist turned to heavy rain.

“So what do we do?” she asked, fascinated by the way the overhead motorway lights caused the raindrops on her passenger window to reflect onto her forearm like mottled scars. She moved her arm, and when the pattern disappeared, her heart dipped to meet the thump, thump, thump rhythm of the motorway surface.

“We redress the balance. Change things up. Draw him out.”

“How?” she asked, forcing her mind back to the subject, away from the scars that would never disappear. “By attacking his ego?”

“Exactly. We give Spinks the impression that I have even more power over you than he does—the power to make you forget all about him. We make him worry he won’t be able to get to you on his terms.”

“But won’t that be directing all his anger on you?” She didn’t like the sound of that.

“I’m talking about one controlled public appearance, some pictures of you and me together. The emphasis being on you and me living our lives, not waiting anymore. When he sees that—and trust me, with Steven’s help, Spinks will see plenty—it might just be enough to trigger him into action. Into making a mistake. Then we get him. And this is all over.”

She let out a breath. If this could be over… “It would give Jenkins justice, too,” she mused. She’d never be able to forget one of Cam’s team had died because of her. “Thank you for trusting me enough to know I will do everything you tell me to. This time.”

For a while, she used the repetitive drone of the motorway surface to lull her. Then noticed Cam glance at her, wearing a hooded expression.

He focused his gaze back on the road and asked, “So you really love it in France?”

“I guess.” She clasped her hands lightly in her lap, tracking the right and left hypnotic movement of the windscreen wipers. “To be honest, at first I could have lived anywhere as long as it wasn’t England. No one bothered me. No one cared who I used to be. I could be whoever I wanted.” Except she hadn’t been able to manage that. Not really. “It’s hard to look at it objectively. I suppose I did start a life there.”

“One that doesn’t transfer somewhere else?”

She cast him a quick glance as some of last night rushed through her head. A sudden yearning had her tentatively answering, “I guess I’d have to be convinced somewhere else had something to offer.”

“And what would you need that to be?”

“I don’t know. Possibility? A new beginning?” She breathed in and embraced the woodsy scent that was purely Cameron, the scent that mingled with the car’s leather interior. “What about you?” she asked, swallowing. “Does London have everything for you?”

There was a long pause.

“It has everything I thought I could have.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “But not everything you want?”

He didn’t respond, but that sexy grin she loved flashed over his face for a brief second, and her heart went crazy. She fixed her gaze back on the road.

It seemed such a long time since she’d found herself thinking about possibility in life, about starting something with intent, instead of wandering through the quagmire on autopilot.

“Megan seems happy. Like she doesn’t miss being in Nocturne,” she said into the silence.

“You were worried she would?”

“It feels like I’ve been worrying about it forever.”

“The music business evolves constantly. Who’s to say you wouldn’t have stopped singing together the following week, or the month after that?”

“Ah, the mercurial element.”

“You know Megan would help if you did want to sing again.”

Her quiet response was automatic. “Too soon. Means too much.” But was that really how she felt? Did she still want to engage with music? It couldn’t ever be the same.

“Maybe there’s another way to get music back into your life. A way you can still work within the industry but not feel so exposed, not feel like everything rests on your voice or endless promotion. The songs you’ve written, perhaps?”

She knew what he was getting at, and her feet automatically pressed against the bag resting in the car’s foot well—as if to reassure her the leather notebook was tucked safely inside. “They’re not good enough.”

“Have you actually asked anyone who knows about song writing to look?”

“Too soon,” she repeated quietly.

“What about possibility?” He gently nudged her with his question. “What about new beginnings?”

“What about you being too smart for your own good?” she countered quickly, then softened and added, “I’ll think about it.” For the first time in a long time, hope fluttered deep in her chest. She refused to try to shut it down out of fear it would come to nothing, or fear she wouldn’t be able to handle it because of the victim Spinks had forced her to become.

The sound of her phone startled her. She slipped it out of her bag and looked at the screen. Steven.

After greeting him, she regretted the decision to take his call. Then his taciturn reminder she was supposed to call him when she got to her destination a day ago caused an automatic stab of guilt. She glanced to Cam, who rolled his eyes, leaving her in no doubt he’d understood the tenor of the conversation.

“If it’s any consolation,” she offered, “Cameron and I are on our way back to London. We should get in within a couple of hours.”

“Where on earth were you?” Steven asked, then lowered his voice and sounded genuinely upset. “I was worried.”

The guilt tripled, and she rushed to apologize. “I really am sorry, Steven. But I was fine. We stayed at Megan’s new place in Devon.”

“She never told me she bought a house there.”

Steven sounded disappointed. Disappointed and…lonely.

Next to her, Cam made a motion for her to hang up. She waved him off. What Spinks had done hadn’t just affected her life—his actions had ramifications everywhere she turned. Steven had lost his biggest client in Nocturne—and his friends.

The long silence had her wanting to reach out to Steven and soothe over the pockets of loneliness she picked up on. She couldn’t erase what Spinks had done to her—to all of them—but she could take a step forward in healing some of the wounds the evil man had inflicted. She said to Steven, “How about I come over to your place tomorrow for lunch? We’ll make cocktails, watch the Thames river boats, and stare up at the skyscrapers. I always loved the view from your apartment.” She didn’t mention she’d bring along Cam, but assumed Steven would figure she would.

There was another long silence.

“Steven? Lunch tomorrow?”

“Definitely lunch, but let’s do it at your hotel. My place is undergoing renovations. By the way, I dropped off a couple of invites I managed to wrangle.” Steven’s voice was all business once more. “One’s for a film premiere and the other is for Dominic Angel’s nightclub opening. Go through them before you see me and work out which you consider will raise your profile the most.”

“It’s not really my profile I want to raise,” she murmured. She sensed Cam’s renewed interest in her conversation and felt caught in the middle.

“It’s time to do something. The media will either dig their heels in and make life difficult or let the story fizzle to nothing, and you won’t get anywhere. These are the top two upcoming social events in London. Have Cameron provide security.”

“Fine. I’ll offer him the opportunity,” she said.

“The interview with Breakfast Today is still on the table.”

“Steven, I’m really not sure—”

“Think about it, would you? For me? The money’s fantastic. I know you aren’t earning anything in the back of beyond.”

“Royalties from Nocturne’s sales give me enough to get by,” she said. “And I still have the entirety of my savings.”

“Still?” Steven whistled.

And everything in Brooke went on hyper alert. She forced herself to breathe past her frozen lungs because Steven wasn’t Spinks. Steven wasn’t Spinks. She repeated the statement in her mind like a mantra, until her breathing resumed and she realized Steven was still speaking.

“…waive my fee for the Breakfast Today show. It’s a good deal, Brooke. Besides, it may help you lay some ghosts to rest. Get you ready for a new start when all this is over.”

She was about to insist there was nothing wrong with the life she had created for herself in France, and yet hadn’t she just been discussing new possibilities with Cameron? For a moment, she imagined the sanctuary she’d created and compared it with living. Really living.

Châteauroux had offered respite, but if she was absolutely honest, she was still searching for peace. Peace would be living her life every day without first thinking about hiding, or running, or waiting.

“Brooke?”

“Uh-huh?” Baby steps, she thought as she tuned back in to her conversation with Steven. Baby steps.

“It was quite a ride, wasn’t it?” he said.

She didn’t know whether agreeing would reinforce the wistful note in his voice, but the truth was, it had been. A wonderful, wild ride. Until it had ended in disaster.

Chapter Twelve

Brooke stood a couple feet back from the window of her hotel bedroom so no one could see her. From this angle, she could see the London Eye observation wheel illuminated against the night sky as it rose above the surrounding buildings. Crazily, she longed for the freedom to be standing at the bottom of it, in line to step into one of its capsules so she could enjoy gazing out at the city’s skyline as the wheel gently rotated.

Perhaps after tonight, she’d be one step closer to having that freedom.

“You look incredible,” Cam said from behind.

She breathed in sharply at the compliment. As she ran her hands over the long-sleeved contour dress in matte silver she’d borrowed from Megan, confidence rose in her. She had a gossamer wrap she could use if she wanted, but she’d managed to cover up the scars on her shoulders with a little makeup. She turned to face him as he sauntered slowly toward her. He looked pretty damned incredible himself in an impressively cut black suit with fitted slate gray shirt.

If only he were taking her to a nightclub opening because he wanted to. Because they were any other regular couple.

But they weren’t any other regular couple. And tonight wasn’t a date.

Tonight was a controlled experiment.

Cam had kept her busy the last few days—although she’d stayed secluded in her hotel room, he’d included her in all the plans for their public outing, making sure she understood the finer points that went into ensuring the evening ran as smoothly and as safely as possible. So she’d feel safe. Secure. He’d visited the club, taken a look at the plans of the building, and worked out exit routes. Then he’d verbally walked her through the plan over and over to where she’d grown convinced that even if Spinks didn’t show, claustrophobia would overwhelm her to the point where she’d beg to use the escape at the first available opportunity.

What if tonight didn’t work? What if they came back from the nightclub opening and still had to wait for Spinks to make a move? How long should they give him to react? Could Cam effectively put his own life on hold to wait—to follow this through to the bitter end? She swallowed. She couldn’t very well back out now.

Cam stopped in front of her. The scent of his cologne made her desperately want to take the last step that would bring their bodies into alignment. Sinking into all that hard, strong muscle would surely banish every kind of fear.

But she wouldn’t ask to borrow his strength. She had to play her part with confidence. She might not be afforded another opportunity, and this waiting game could spin out to eternity.

“Promise me something?”

Her gaze flew to his. She would probably promise anything he asked of her in that gruff, cajoling way of his.

“Promise me that when all this is over, you’ll get dressed up like this again and let me take you somewhere special?”

Her mouth dropped open. She hadn’t expected—hadn’t believed he would feel comfortable continuing to talk about what the future might hold for the two of them after they put Spinks back where he belonged. Or was he just saying what she needed to hear to get her through the evening?

“It’s a date,” she stated, the fear melting into a thrumming anticipation.

“A date,” he echoed, his blue eyes filled with hot promise. He gestured for her to stay where she was. “I have something I need you to wear.” He turned and walked over to the console table.

She took the opportunity to try and pull herself together, to leave their little moment behind and concentrate on the purpose of the evening in front of them. She didn’t want to let him down.

“It’s your panic button,” he said as he returned to stand in front of her. “Remember?” He reached out and started to pin something on her dress.

She looked down at the jet beaded black pearl broach.

Emotion clogged her throat, and suddenly it was five years ago and she was back in his office and he was lecturing her with overflowing sarcasm. “I can’t spare the staff for a shopping trip. The hotel lobby has a couple of boutiques. That should satisfy your urge,” he’d said.

She’d known he wouldn’t agree to her proposed shopping trip, but arguing with him took the edge off the stifling claustrophobia. Pouting, hips swaying, she’d walked farther into the room. “Maybe you could help me satisfy a different urge?”

He’d studied her, his eyes narrowing. “What Brooke wants, Brooke gets. Is that how it goes around here? I’m sure Steven could arrange someone to stop by your room and satisfy any of your urges.”

She’d felt sick—hated that he could suggest her wanting him was akin to scratching an itch. She should have turned around and left. Instead, fueled by frustration and an inability to believe he meant to be so cruel, she didn’t stop until she inserted herself between him and the desk. Leaning forward, she laid her hand against his chest and whispered, “I think what I want is also what you want.”

Jaw tightening, he lifted her hand away. “You’re wrong.”

“Prove it,” she goaded.

“Every day I don’t touch you, I prove it.” He rose and stepped around her. “You need to get over it.”

She didn’t think she could.

Sure, thinking about Cam distracted her from the mounting fear her stalker would progress beyond delivering photographs of her to making acting physical contact. But it was more than that.

She was attracted to the fact Cam wouldn’t give in. His very integrity made her feel safe. Honored. And she pushed because it was exciting. Attention, any kind of attention from him was invigorating. Life was for living, and he made her feel like she did when she gave herself completely over to music. Alive.

“You really want to know what I want? I want to stop whoever is doing this to you, finish this tour, and then get the hell out of here and onto my next assignment. One that will actually earn me a bump in pay.”

Losing confidence, she sucked in air. “I’m a stepping stone in your career?”

“Yes. Can your ego handle that? Can you fathom the kind of responsibility I have here? Or are you too selfish?” he bit out.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me!”

“Why would I want to be with someone who seems to get a kick out of ignoring everything I say? Who thinks only of herself, not the extra staff I have to find every time she wants to do a little shopping? What you’re seeing is distaste.”

She tried to filter out his contempt, but it was impossible. She would not cry in front of him, but the urge to make him understand was too strong. “Please, Cameron. I just need to get out for a while. I’ll be back in time for tonight’s performance.”

“I can’t guarantee your safety, so the answer is no.”

“You can’t hold me here like a prisoner.” She was back to pouting.

Slamming his hands down on the desk, he shouted, “I am not the bad guy here. Don’t even try to accuse me of that. I’m the only one who’s taking this threat seriously. The only one who is using their head to work out how best to keep you safe.” He snatched up a file from his desk, then strode to the door.

“Wait. We haven’t finished discussing this.”

“We have. I’ve got a meeting. And Brooke, while I’m gone, you will not leave this hotel. You hear me? I take my job seriously.”

The door slammed shut behind him. She couldn’t seem to take in enough oxygen. She should have tried harder to explain, but she’d been embarrassed. She should have been able to handle the clawing, suffocating, unendurable wait to go onstage that night. But now the one person around whom she’d always been able to think freely, breathe freely, had made her feel vulnerable. Exposed.

And damn Cameron for making her feel like a petulant child. For making her more aware than ever that she was just a job.

The hell with him. Defiantly, she removed her panic button and placed it on his desk. Then she left his office, told her pervasive bodyguard she was going to her room to rest, walked out of the hotel, and got in a taxi.

Freedom.

Freedom. But that wasn’t what she’d ended up with.

Far from it.

Only afterward, when she’d finished shopping in a local boutique and was headed back to the hotel, having made her point, had her first-class trip to hell commenced.

She should have listened to Cameron.

A sudden shiver went up her spine as he now brushed the top of her breast to pin on the brooch, catapulting her back to the present. She blinked back the memories and glanced uncertainly up at him. His eyes were hooded, his jaw clenched. With her inhalation, her skin brushed the back of his fingers, and his eyes shot to hers. Desire mixed with anger. Was he remembering what it had felt like to return to his office and find the brooch? To discover she wasn’t in her room?

She brought her hand up to place it gently over his. “You don’t have to worry. Tonight, I promise to play by the rules.” She drew her thumb reassuringly over his knuckles, and his eyes darkened with an emotion she couldn’t define. Slowly, he withdrew his hand, his forefinger stroking one last time over the slope of her breast.

He tipped his head to the side in consideration, his eyes still hooded, his jaw still granite. “I want to kiss you right now,” he said.

Her heart tripped. “I want you to.” She held his gaze.

His eyes closed momentarily before opening once more, his professional mask slipping quietly and solidly back into place. “You know why I won’t, don’t you?”

She did. He’d made it abundantly clear he wouldn’t let himself get sidetracked until they had Spinks where they wanted him. “Like I said,” she answered, wanting him to know he could count on her, “I’m going to play by the rules tonight.”

His expression changed. Lightened. His deep laugh rumbled out. “Lucky me,” he said. “I guess it’s time we got this show on the road, then.” Speaking into the communicator at his wrist, he checked that the agents stationed outside the suite and the rear entrance of the hotel were in place and that the drivers of both cars were standing by.

Only once they were on their way did the fear start to unfurl itself again. If the plan worked, she knew, she was on a collision course with Andre Spinks.

If the plan worked.

Lately, it felt as if every process she put herself through took her further away from closure rather than bringing her closer. She wanted the hunt and chase to be over, but she also didn’t. Because to have it be over would mean she’d have been in contact with him. With Spinks. Control then would be tenuous, at best. In her little haven in Châteauroux, she’d encouraged herself not to think about what Spinks would physically do if he got at her again.

Now she was deliberately putting herself in his way. With Cam at her side, she was finding the strength to forge ahead, but she was terrified her feelings, her wounds, were still too close to the surface. Terrified that when faced with Spinks, she would become unstable. Unpredictable.

As if her inner turmoil was glowing like a beacon for Cam to see, he reached over to squeeze her hand. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. I wouldn’t let you do this if I thought the risk was too high. He may not even show. This is mostly about us being seen together, but we cover all the angles, okay?”

“Okay,” she said. “What about the conditions of his release?”

“I have a feeling Spinks doesn’t even acknowledge the paper the limitations were written on. But the fact that there are legal limitations to how close he can get to you does give us an advantage. It means he wouldn’t make an attempt to take you in front of anyone. Not when he can’t control those people.”

“Why are you letting me do this? You never did give me a proper explanation.”

He spoke slowly, as if careful to keep his voice neutral. “Perhaps because recently someone taught me that at some point the waiting just becomes waiting—not living. Perhaps I find myself wanting that possibility, that new beginning that was mentioned.”

“Cam—” Warmth expanded in her chest, but words failed to form in her throat.

“You trust me, right?”

“You know I do.”

“Then learn to trust yourself.”

Warmth suffused her. He’d known what she needed to hear. He hadn’t said those words for her cooperation, nor out of artifice, but because he truly believed in her. His faith in her spread like wildfire, coating her nerves with a shield of invincibility.

The car pulled up outside the entrance to the club. She peered out of the black-tinted window and saw a red carpet with photographers and TV crews grappling for clear shots behind a roped-off area. Spotlights lit up the sky, arcing and dipping to bounce off the black brickwork of the building. The Angel Eyes nightclub motif—a pair of blue, female, long-lashed eyes with wings on either side—was projected in bright white light over the otherwise discreet entrance.

“We allow a couple of photos, then walk right through,” Cam instructed.

“When you say photos…”

“Those pictures of you on my arm in tomorrow’s gossip rags are what we’re using to rile him.”

She nibbled her lip. “Yes, but there’s a vast difference being photographed as a bodyguard and photographed as something more. Are you absolutely certain you want to play this part?”

“Honey, with you in that dress, I’ll look like I can’t wait to peel it off you without having to act at all.”

She inhaled and allowed a spill of pleasure to rush over her. “Are you flirting with me, Mr. Dexter?”

“Absolutely not. That would be thoroughly unprofessional.” His sexy, lopsided grin made an appearance.

“It certainly would be. Especially as we’re playing by the rules tonight.”

“That was your line, not mine.”

The driver opened the car door and Cam smoothly slid out, leaning in to offer her his arm.

Frowning, she looked up at him. “But you said, ‘You know why I’m not going to kiss you.’”

“Yes. Because I wouldn’t be able to stop. Now smile for the camera, darling.”

In one fluid movement, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, pulled her into his side, rested his chin briefly on top of her head, quickly scanned the crowd, then began walking her to the entrance.

She hardly noticed stopping to pose for the paparazzi before she and Cam entered the club. But once inside, the high she had felt from his sudden flirtation quickly dissipated as she adjusted her eyesight to the darkness. She hadn’t stepped foot in a place like this since before Spinks. The ambiance was guaranteed to have all her senses ratcheting up, and she was glad she had known what to expect as she walked through the narrow, dark corridor that led to the dance floor and bar, lit only by bright white LED lights. She cast her gaze over the room, realizing that five years ago she’d been one of the young elite who crowded every inch of space. Before her life had ended.

“Let’s head to the VIP lounge,” Cam said in her ear.

She nodded, happy to let him take the lead and guide her safely through the growing crowd. The VIP area was heavily guarded, both with Angel Eyes security and Cam’s men. From the blueprints he had shown her, she knew the cordoned-off area could only be accessed by the club or by a private passage, which meant patrons could enter and exit without the paparazzi bothering them.

Coming to a halt, she looked around. The bar was black marble, the Angel Eyes logo engraved intricately into the hard material and lit by recessed lighting. But the piece that stole her breath was an entire wall comprised of a floor-to-ceiling fish tank, its purple-blue lighting eerie, its large tropical angelfish swaying as if in time to the deep beat of music. She knew that behind the wall lay the hidden passageway that led out to a London side street.

She had her “out” if she needed it.

“Ever miss being asked to sing at the opening of one of these things?” Cam asked into her ear as he situated them in front of the bar.

At the stark reminder of what she could no longer do, she expected to feel the dragging sensation in her throat that would make it difficult for her to breathe, but it didn’t materialize. She looked up to find him looking at her expectantly, but she didn’t know what to say. Odd, how she hadn’t been fazed by the reminder of what her life had once been about—the music.

Movement over his shoulder caught her eye, and she was thankful she was saved from answering. “Alex just entered the room,” she advised.

Cam checked his watch. “Right on schedule.”

“Sir,” Alex acknowledged before turning to Brooke. “Ms. Bennet. You look lovely.”

“Thank you. And call me Brooke, please.”

She watched Alex’s lips twitch as Cam drilled him with his blue eyes, and then instantly he went back to professional mode. “Security is all set up at both entrances. No sign of our target. Everyone on the press line had legitimate credentials. He’s not out there.”

“Okay. I want everyone checking in on the fifteen.”

“No problem. I’ll be stationed outside if you need me.”

“Brooke?” A man’s voice came from behind her.

Automatically turning as she heard her name, she saw the owner of the club making his way over to her. She smiled at his familiar face.

“Dominic Angel.” She leaned in to kiss the man’s leathery cheek, then stood straight and gestured around the room. “Still the party animal, I see.”

“You like?”

“It’s certainly an experience.”

“So is life, darling.”

She relaxed, and Cam stepped forward as to shake Dom’s hand, casually blocking the approach of two women and a man who had obviously recognized her.

Dominic grinned at Cameron. “Wow. Check out fiercely protective you.”

Brooke looked at Cam. His face was inscrutable, but she could feel the quiet tension like a thread of fine silk weaving around them both. The breath trapped in her lungs came out in a rush, and she looked around the room to see it had filled, that the music had quietly picked up tempo, and that everyone now spoke a little louder to be heard.

“Brooke?”

“Huh?” She turned back to find an expectant expression on Dom’s face. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“One dance, for old times?”

She watched as Cam carefully took in every detail of the room before giving both her and Dom a brief nod. Smiling, Dom grabbed her hand, and she allowed herself to be dragged away. She hadn’t thought how much louder the music would feel or how much darker it would be once on the dance floor. She looked over to Cam, who kept vigil at the bar and tipped his glass to her in salute. A gyrating body bumped her, and she automatically turned to find Dominic’s twinkling eyes as he encouraged her to move. By the time she spun around to search for Cam again, it was to find a stunningly beautiful redhead talking to him. His eyes never left hers, and the redhead, looking a bit bemused at being unable to get his attention, gave her a death glare.

Brooke glared back, her heart giving an odd jump in her chest. Abruptly, she turned around, determined to ignore the effect that seeing Cam and the woman together had on her. She let the music fill her and moved more loosely to the beat. There was freedom in dance, something she hadn’t done since— She put a stop to that train of thought.

A young man with the Angel Eyes logo stitched discreetly onto his black shirt came up to speak with Dominic, and with a quick smile for her, Dom left the dance floor. Conscious she was now on her own, she looked over her shoulder for Cam.

Who was now in conversation with the redhead.

Her heart gave another quick, betraying kick. She was tempted to press her panic button. She was tempted to put on a dance show he wouldn’t forget. But she’d said she was going to play by the rules this evening. Besides, that was the old Brooke. The young Brooke. The unmarred Brooke.

But she still was the jealous Brooke.

She could feel Cam’s eyes on her as she strode off the dance floor. In the reflection of the fish tank wall, she watched as the redhead shifted closer to him. Maybe she should go on over there and stake her claim. But then that was hardly playing by the rules, either.

Undecided, she let her gaze go soft, ignoring the mirrored image and focusing on the slowly undulating angelfish. A movement the other side of the tank caught her attention, and she looked through the iridescent water to the man standing on the other side.

Watching her.

In a nanosecond, the breath was sucked from her body. Struck immobile with terror, she could only watch as the man smiled. Then his smile changed and his expression grew menacing. She knew that man. Knew that smile. Knew this terror.

She felt a hand manacle her wrist. Instinctively, she jerked her arm, twisting it to break free of the hold.

“Brooke, what is it? What did you see?”

She blinked. She recognized the voice…the hand around her wrist…Cameron. She turned back to the tank.

There was no one there.

She shook her head. Pressed her free hand against the glass, following the path of a fish. Tried to get her heart rate to slow down. “I’m sorry. I’m truly sorry. I thought I saw—” She broke off and put her head against the cool wall of the fish tank. “But I was wrong.”

“Are you sure? You pressed your panic button.”

“I did?” She thought she’d turned to stone. To think, moments earlier on the dance floor she’d thought about pressing that button for entirely different reasons. Was her subconscious playing tricks on her—was that why she had pressed the button?

She turned away from the tank. Cam reached out and brushed a finger over her cheek. “Tell me exactly what you saw.”

“You mean, what I thought I saw.”

“Trust your instincts. I want thoughts, impressions, visual, audible, smell, everything.”

“It was so fleeting.”

“From where I was standing, it looked like you saw him. You visibly stiffened. Then you brought your hand up to hit the panic button by the time I was halfway across the dance floor.”

She rewound the memory and tried to express what she’d seen, felt, thought. “I was looking at the reflection of you in the fish tank glass. Then I saw a man looking at me through it. Smiling. Well, I saw his nose and mouth. His upper face was in shadow.”

“And were you looking directly through the glass at the man, or were you looking at the reflection? Meaning, could the man have been standing by me—a reflection, too?”

She frowned, closed her eyes, and fought the images burned onto the back of her eyelids. “He was in front of me—the other side of the glass. His movement made me blink and refocus. He stepped forward and his hands were held in front of him, one hand crossed over the other, feet braced apart, like he was standing patiently in a queue.”

“Or like he was a member of security, standing at his post?”

Her mouth dropped open. Could the man she saw have been a member of security? She tipped her head to the side. “It seemed as though he waited until I responded, and then he smiled. He was—he was laughing at me.” She shuddered. Was that right? Now, standing here, going through the experience in her mind, she felt stupid. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to concentrate. Security staff frequently stood exactly as Cam had said. As she had seen. A wave of embarrassment crashed through her.

“I’m going to check in with everyone,” Cam said patiently.

As she heard him speak into his receiver, calling out different names every few seconds, their replies lost to her, she began to feel more and more certain she hadn’t seen Spinks—that she’d just made a colossal spectacle of herself on the night she was supposed to be proving to Cam she could handle herself. She replayed the scene in her mind. The man had watched her press her button and then had immediately stepped backward into darkness. But that didn’t mean it was Spinks.

“No one saw or found anything,” Cam said, his voice jerking her out of her thoughts. “Besides, there’s nowhere to hide in the alleyway behind the fish tank wall. It’s designed to take you out of the area as quickly as possible.”

“I’m so sorry. It couldn’t have been him. Someone would have seen him outside.”

“Hey, none of that,” he said, cutting her off. “We’ve done what we came here to do. It’s fine to leave now. The paparazzi have their pictures, and the public have seen us out together. And Brooke, you did exactly what you were supposed to do. When faced with a threat, you pressed your panic button.”

She nodded. Her knees threatened to buckle, but she would not let Cam see just how affected she was by the incident. They had deliberately baited Spinks. So why was she the one feeling like she was dangling on a hook?

She shivered again. This was exactly what Spinks wanted. To shake her up. To toy with her. To make her do the one thing she had managed to refrain from the last time he held her captive.

He wanted her to beg. He wanted her to beg to live. He wanted her to beg to end the pain.

For the sake of art.

“Hey.” Cam ran a reassuring hand down her arm, pulling her back to him. “We’ll be at the hotel soon, and then you—what?” He spoke the last word into his communicator. His hand moved up to his ear.

Her stomach corded as she took in his changing expression.

“Jesus. Stay with him. Call an ambulance. Move the decoy car, now.” He pushed Brooke, not toward the fish tank wall and the hidden exit, but toward the room leading back into the main body of the club. He scanned the crowd as he led her away from the VIP lounge. Ellie appeared before him and took hold of Brooke.

“Put her in the car, exit A,” Cam shouted. “Repeat the instruction to me.”

“Got it. Put her in the car. Exit A.”

“No. Wait.” Brooke didn’t understand what was happening. Why wasn’t he coming with her? They’d never discussed being separated. She wanted him with her.

“I have to go. Alex is down. Stabbed. You’ll be safe with Ellie, I promise. She’ll take you out the main exit. He won’t even try snatching you, surrounded by so many people. That’s not his agenda, remember? Understand?”

In that split second, she saw the pain of a duty divided on his face as it tore him apart. Alex was his second-in-command. Of course he would feel responsible. He couldn’t lose another man. She knew he didn’t want to leave her. He had to.

“Go. Be safe,” she shouted back at him as the dancers on the main floor closed in around them, and the music boomed, and the lights strobed violently. Ellie grabbed her upper arm and tugged her forward, the pace fast. But Brooke lost her footing, and stumbled sideways into a man, who reached out to steady her.

Her mouth stretched wide in a scream. But no sound came out.

Spinks.

Chapter Thirteen

Oh, God. Brooke swayed, and the crowded, noisy nightclub dance floor disappeared as she stared in horror at the man who had hold of her arm.

Not her imagination. Not a stranger. He’d come back.

Spinks was standing in front of her. Touching her. Blood drained from her face, saliva flooded her mouth. Her skin itched.

Fight or flight. Flight or fight?

She wanted to be sick.

She wanted a weapon to kill him dead.

She wanted control.

She needed Cameron.

As she turned her head to Ellie, her vision snapped back in, and she caught sight of the dancers surrounding them on the floor. They all seemed to be moving in slow motion. The music sounded warped, as if set too slow.

She turned back to Spinks, who stood motionless in front of her, lighting streaking across his hideously smiling face. His hands were at his side. No longer on her. So why couldn’t she move? The world had stopped spinning, and she and he were stuck in a vortex of time.

Silent.

Motionless.

Empty.

Then he raised his hand, and her whole being flinched. Her mind raced out of the dark void, releasing a multitude of thoughts. Was he going to take her here among the crowd? Or kill her? Why wasn’t her body moving? Why didn’t she fight? The light caught the edge of something in his hand, and she realized he was taking a photograph of her. He lowered the tiny camera and stared at her, as if to taunt her into reacting. But she couldn’t move.

Suddenly, she was being propelled forward. The world had resumed turning and she was a living, breathing, moving part of it once more. Ellie’s hand bruised her arm as she was half tugged and half shoved through the crowd and up the steps.

The next instant, they were out of the noise and lights and taking their first steps outside. Within three paces she was in the car, and Ellie had slammed the door shut behind them.

“Brooke? I need you to pay attention, okay?”

“Why didn’t you get him? He touched me. God, he’s not even supposed to be in the same room as me. You could have let go of me and t-t-taken him. He just broke the conditions of his license for release.” Brooke spoke through chattering teeth, stress forcing her body to shake. The stimulus overload was too much for her—she wasn’t reacting in the right way.

Deep down she knew it wasn’t her place to berate Ellie, but she was so disgustingly, despairingly angry with herself. With the fact that she hadn’t done a thing when confronted with Spinks. How could she have been so naive as to think she could do this? Everything within her wanted to cower, to cover her face with her hands, to shut the reality of him out.

The car’s interior light came on. “My instructions were to put you in the car, not go after him. Look, I need to check you out, okay?” Ellie’s hands shot out, and in blind panic, Brooke lashed out and tried to push them away.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Ellie said, her voice stern. “I’m trying to make sure he didn’t cut you anywhere. That he hasn’t marked you or attached any kind of tracking device.”

The words slowly, slowly filtered through, and Brooke pulled frantically at her clothes, at her limbs, twisting and turning to check she was in one piece. Had he hurt her, and she was too numb to tell?

“Okay. It looks as if you’re all right,” Ellie said, “but you’re definitely in shock. Don’t worry about the trembling. The shakes will eventually work their way out of your system until you’re left feeling sleepy and cold.”

Brooke nodded, but she couldn’t think clearly. She wanted desperately to cry, but no tears would come. She fisted her hands to try and control the shaking, but the more she tensed her muscles, the more the trembles wracked her frame.

“I know it’s difficult, but try to put your head back, close your eyes, and don’t tense up. I promise you it will pass soon. You did really well. It’s over now.”

Over?

It had only just begun.

There was no way she was strong enough to see this through. She knew that now. She wanted to go back to her safe little house in France. Now. Tonight. She wanted…

Shameful hot liquid formed behind her lashes as a need she had absolutely no right to have answered rose up inside her.

She wanted Cameron, needed him, to come with her to Châteauroux.

But that was impossible. Even if he felt the same way about her, he would never let himself walk away before this was over. It seemed the three of them—she, Spinks, and Cameron—were trapped in the same pattern, each waiting for the other to play a different role and break the cycle. Brooke had thought she would be that person—thought that because she had been the victim, it was up to her to move on first. To show the players, show the world, that the outcome was going to be different this time.

But what if Spinks’s role was to continually take away her control—and her role was to let him? Would Cam continue to place himself in between? Offering protection while guilt ate away at him? What kind of life was that for him?

It was too much. The confidence that once had her talking about new beginnings ebbed away, taking with it the energy she would need to find it again.

A cell phone rang.

“Sir?” she heard Ellie say, and she sat straighter, concentrating on the conversation between Ellie and Cam.

“Yes, we made it to the car, but he was there. Andre Spinks. Brooke tripped, and he grabbed her to steady her. Then he let her go so he could take a photograph.”

Brooke felt Ellie look at her, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet the woman’s gaze.

“She’s unharmed. Suffering from mild shock, but otherwise fine.” Ellie listened for a few seconds, then turned to Brooke. “Pass me your bag. I need to check it.”

Brooke automatically pulled at the long, thin silver chain of her bag and handed it over. Ellie undid the clasp and withdrew lipstick, cash, and a folded piece of white shiny paper.

Brooke started. “That’s not mine. I didn’t put that in there.”

When she reached for the piece of paper, Ellie pulled it away, out of her reach, then checked the catch, hinges, and then the lining of the tiny bag. “There’s a piece of paper,” she said. “I’m unfolding it now.”

Brooke held her breath.

“It’s a message,” Ellie said to Cam. “It reads, Soon I will give you back your beautiful art. I bet you can’t wait. The word ‘wait’ is underlined three times. And there are several photos of Brooke printed underneath.” Ellie listened for a moment as Brooke’s stomach churned, then spoke to the driver. “Change of plan. We’re not going back to the hotel.” She repeated an address, and the driver nodded.

Brooke tried to concentrate as Ellie asked about Alex, but as Ellie had warned, she was feeling progressively more tired. A deep lethargy had stolen over her. She heard Ellie snap the phone shut.

“Can I see the piece of paper?” she whispered, trying to fight the heavy, drugged feeling as the adrenaline seeped from her body.

“Not yet. You need to rest.”

No. She needed to fight. But she had no energy left. No will. Spinks had emptied her of life.

…

Brooke stirred from where she had fallen into a near-comatose sleep on the large, overstuffed tan leather sofa in Cam’s living room. Ellie had brought her here, to Cam’s private home in London, under his orders. The safest place for her, Ellie had said. Now, the panicked, animal-like response to seeing Spinks had finished coursing through her body, and her brain felt like it was slowly firing back to life. She blinked a couple of times as she pushed herself upright to look across the room. Ellie still sat at a small round table, completing her report on the evening’s events.

She stretched and eased open her jaw. It felt tender where she had tucked her fisted hand against it. “Have you heard anything?” she asked.

Ellie looked up and shook her head.

“What time is it?”

“A little after three in the morning.”

Brooke lapsed into silence. She didn’t want to voice the obvious. For Cam not to be back meant Alex’s injury was very bad. Please don’t let him die. Please. She didn’t think she would be able to live with herself if another innocent man died because of Spinks. Because of her.

If Cam were here, he would tell her she wasn’t responsible. That Spinks’s choices were his own. But she could no longer allow herself to think that Jenkins’s death was some horrible mistake. With Alex hurt as well, as long as she was back in the UK, others were in danger. And that included Cam. Spinks had shown he had no compunction in hurting others to get to her. What if it had been Cam who Spinks stabbed?

Her heart raced uncontrollably. Blood pounded in her ears. She wouldn’t survive Cameron being hurt. Or worse.

She sat up straight as one clear thought held true. She should take herself out of the mix. Return to France, or go somewhere else. Someplace Spinks wouldn’t think to look. A place where she was truly safe. So that others could be truly safe, too.

She could do it—she could hide herself away, as she had before.

That life she knew. That life she understood.

She glanced down at what she was wearing. She’d have to find a way to get back to the hotel to collect her bag. Her passport.

“Running won’t solve anything, you know.”

She glanced up and gaped at Ellie, who was still bent over her report. For a moment, she assumed she’d imagined the words. That she was playing devil’s advocate with herself. But then Ellie raised her head, looked her straight on, and said, “Besides, how would you get past me? You think I’d let Cameron turn up here and find you gone?”

Brooke’s mouth felt as though it was stuffed with cotton wool, but she forced out the words in her head. “What makes you think I was thinking about running?”

Ellie studied her a moment. “Standard victim behavior after a threat.”

Victim.

That word again.

Brooke clutched at her knees with stiff fingers. She didn’t want to be a victim. The word sounded so final. A label she could never escape, no matter if she ran, or if she hid herself away, or if she fought back. The word was always there.

And she was always reacting.

On a sharp inhale, it occurred to her that all the time she was so busy reacting she was fooling herself into thinking she was being proactive.

Ellie’s words tumbled around inside her head.

She was a victim. Spinks had perpetrated heinous crimes against her, and she had suffered. Unbearably.

But she was also still here. A survivor. Not solely a victim.

Running was reacting. Expedient, but not problem-solving.

And if Cam returned to find her gone—like the first time—he’d never let himself be free of the guilt. She couldn’t do that to him. The least he deserved was to find her where he’d put her. To know she’d followed his rules.

“I won’t run,” she told Ellie softly.

“Didn’t really think you would.”

Brooke looked around the room. The walls were painted a soft sage green with natural wood trim. The floor, too, was natural wood. Deep polished oak that had stood the test of time. The windows had white venetian blinds. The coffee table held coasters with the DSC logo. An entire wall of books stood neatly shelved. The place exuded warmth and a deep sense of straightforwardness. It was the complete opposite of her place in France.

It was a home.

Another time she might have wandered over to the wall of books and picked through the titles. She might have popped her head inside his bedroom to see what kind of bed he slept in. She might have breathed deep to inhale that masculine, woody scent that was exclusive to Cam. To do so might have made her feel seductively safe.

But then, there were occasions where all one could do was endure the wait.

And so she sat motionless and did just that.

At some point the security panel by the front door bleeped. Ellie moved silently to the matching panel by the fireplace to check the screen. Satisfied it wasn’t a stranger entering the building, she went back to the table.

Cameron.

He was back.

Desperate to hear if Alex had made it, she rose unsteadily to her feet, her heart suddenly galloping.

Footsteps on the tiled hallway were slow—weary sounding—and then the door was pushed open. When she saw Cam, he looked so tired, so emotionally beaten up. He wouldn’t look at her. Had Alex not made it? Was he trying to hide the blame in his eyes? Her heart sank.

Acknowledging Ellie, he rasped out, “You’ll be driven back to your place. Thank you for staying so late.”

“Not a problem. I’ll leave a copy of my report and the note placed in Brooke’s bag on the table.” After gathering up her belongings, Ellie exited smoothly.

Finally alone in the room with Cam, Brooke held her breath and waited.

…

As soon as he heard the front door close and the security panel bleep into submission, Cameron turned what he knew were bloodshot eyes to Brooke. She was wearing one of his sweatshirts, which hung on her. The arms too big, the hem falling an inch past her dress—leaving her legs exposed all the way down to her pretty painted toenails. He registered the kicked-off strappy high heels by the sofa. They looked erotically feminine in such a masculine space. His gaze drew back to her, and he took in her smudged dark eye makeup. Her hair was choppy and wild from running her hands through it. Her expression was haunted as she stood in front of him—waiting. And even with everything that had gone down tonight, all he could think was that he wanted Brooke Bennet.

His heart kicked heavily against his chest.

She didn’t move when he pushed slowly away from the door and came toward her. Her focus never wavered, though he wished it would. Anything to halt his thoughts in their tracks and remind him of what she had been through tonight.

He stopped about half a foot in front of her. “Did he hurt you? Tell me the truth,” he ground out.

She shook her head.

Ellie had reassured him Brooke was fine, but he had been trapped in a living hell, wanting to be next to her instead of waiting at the hospital with Alex.

“He didn’t hurt me. I promise. How is Alex? You were gone so long.” She stumbled over her words, and his gaze focused on her lips as she licked them. “Is he—”

“He’s conscious. He called me ‘sir.’” Damn, but he was feeling punchy. His emotions bubbling far too close to the surface. Standing there, watching her, he could feel his grip on control disintegrating by the second.

“It seems like he’s escalating,” she said. “Spinks, that is. To be able to do that and then calmly walk right back into the club and—”

Cameron shook his head to silence her. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want to think. Wanted to block out the image of Alex’s blood beneath his hands as he’d tried to staunch the flow until the ambulance arrived. It had been worse than Jenkins. So much blood. Too much blood. He had been so afraid it was happening all over again. That Alex was going to end up like Jenkins. And it would all be his fault. It was his responsibility to ensure his staff remained safe.

Wanting a reprieve from the horror of the evening, he raked his eyes slowly over her. “My sweatshirt looks good on you.”

She darted an uncomprehending glance at him at the change of subject, but whatever she found in his expression had her smiling softly.

That smile broke something loose in him.

He found himself saying what he had wanted to say since he walked in the door and found her waiting so patiently for him. “I want to hold you.”

“So hold me.”

He reached out to grab a fistful of fabric. He hesitated, searching for any fragment of resistance on her part. But in her eyes he discovered only a mirroring need.

One swift tug of his hand, and he was wrapping his arms tightly around her, lifting her off her feet, resting his head against hers. He let his chest expand to its fullest as he inhaled the scent of her, felt the seductive oriental notes reach out and coat his senses.

“I can’t seem to let you go,” he murmured in her ear.

Her hands crept around his back, ran up and down his spine. Then she moved her head back to look into his eyes. She cradled his face. “So don’t.” She feathered kisses along his jaw, moved her mouth to press a gentle kiss on his lips. When he didn’t stop her, she kissed him again.

He knew she intended to show him he was absolved from any responsibility. She wanted to comfort him. But he didn’t want comfort. What he took from her was the white heat that swept over him and forced all thought from his head.

The next time her lips swept over his, he opened his mouth to draw her in. Wresting control, he kissed her over and over. Hot, open, and deep, transferring his pent-up emotion into a no-holds-barred message of physical need. He couldn’t put her down, couldn’t drag his mouth away. Wouldn’t. Not this time.

Consumed with her taste, intoxicated by her scent, he wasn’t aware of walking her backward until they came up hard against a wall and a picture fell to the floor. The noise crashed into his consciousness.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he forced himself to stop, then planted both hands on the wall to either side of her head to steady himself. Her labored breath mingled with his, and he looked down at how he’d mussed her up. She looked beautiful. But he shouldn’t have let go. “There you were, agreeing to play by the rules tonight, and I—”

“Screw the rules. Don’t you dare stop.” This time it was Brooke who reached out and grabbed his shirt. “I need to end tonight with a good memory.” Her hazel eyes bored into his with a burning intensity. “I mean it. Life is so short. What if he comes back before we’re ready? What if the next time he—”

Cameron winced. He wanted so damn badly to be able to tell her everything would be all right, but he didn’t know. Wasn’t sure anymore.

“I don’t think I can tangle with him again and keep my sanity,” she finished.

He swore softly. Tonight had been too real a taste of the danger.

She heaved in a breath and spoke, voice trembling. “If the worst happens, I want the memory of your touch in my head. Yours. Not his. Please, Cam. No more waiting.”

Her words wrapped around his heart and caressed it. Entranced it. She was asking him for this one thing, and how could he deny her when she had been through so much and he wanted—hell, needed her so badly? This incredible woman had the power to rip into his emotions and switch them up with the lightest of touches. Her courage, her ability to take the risk to look to the future, humbled him.

He wanted to start something with her that had the power to last. His new mission had become that focused. His need had become that simple.

As if knowing he was on the cusp of yielding, she tightened her hand and tugged, raised herself up onto tiptoes, and slanted her mouth over his in a kiss that took him all the way under.

“You are so damn beautiful,” he murmured against her lips before lifting his mouth to trail kisses down her neck, across her collarbone. He moved his hands to the hem of the sweatshirt, and in one smooth move, he bunched the material up and over her head. He reclaimed her mouth, settled his hands at her waist, his thumbs running rhythmically backward and forward over her hip bones.

“Help me take off my shirt?”

She nodded, her tongue peeking out in concentration while her delicate hands negotiated the buttons against his chest. But when he realized how much she was trembling, he stopped their progress. He thought he’d seen enough passion in her eyes to outweigh any fear, but maybe he was too far gone.

“You know we can stop whenever you want to.”

Her eyes went dark as they clouded over. “I know.” She looked up at him. “I trust you. I want to be with you. I just—I wanted to see your body. You already know mine is—” She broke off and bit her lip.

“Beautiful,” he completed, and some of the haze in her eyes evaporated.

He took her hands and brought them to her sides before returning to his own shirt to finish removing it. “You want me to take everything off?” he asked when he stood in front of her, shirtless. She had to feel vulnerable.

She nodded, her gaze moving over him. “I wish you had seen me before…”

“Oh, I saw you all right,” he said, removing his belt at her nod. “In those minuscule bikinis you would wear at the pool. I used to calculate which was more likely—you actually wearing the towels I threw at you or me being arrested for punching every guy who snuck a look. That was, when I could think at all.”

He removed his trousers, boxers, and socks, and stood utterly naked in front of her, letting her look her fill. “Look at what you do to me, Brooke.”

Her eyes moved over his body, stopping to focus on his arousal.

“Do I scare you?”

She shook her head and moved her gaze back up to meet his.

“Good. You’ve always had this effect on me. And your scars, your war wounds, they’re not going to be a problem because we’re not going to let them be.”

She looked at him with such honesty that some of the many feelings that had tumbled around inside of him the last few days slipped quietly into place. Bending slightly, he picked her up and carried her to his bedroom.

At the foot of his bed, he set her on down and turned her around to ease down the zipper on the back of her dress, then stopped his rushed movements.

Slow. He should try to slow everything down. Peeling away the sides of her dress, he hooked his thumbs under the shoulder straps and teased the material down. With his fingertips, he traced the length of her spine from nape to tailbone, luxuriating in the signals shooting through his skin. She shivered, and the hum against his fingertips increased. Leaning forward, he replaced fingertips with lips.

Tracing his hands smoothly over her waist, he moved them around and up. When he reached the scar under her breasts, she froze. He turned her slowly around to face him.

She stared at him with ghostly eyes, eyes that held apprehension. But behind the concern shone strength. She could do this. She was ready.

He reached for her. “Take my hands,” he said, firmly, waiting until she did so. “Now place them on your scars.”

Chapter Fourteen

Brooke’s fingers tightened against Cam’s. The walls of his bedroom seemed to close in around her, and she grew suddenly acutely aware of his nudity. And how nearly naked she was. Where moments ago she had been filled with delicious anticipation, carried along on a wave of longing, now nerves jangled in her belly. Explore her scars together?

No.

But as she searched his eyes and saw not pity, but rather a determined focus alongside the blazing heat, she knew she couldn’t hide from him. She’d waited so long to be with him. Knew she must take the risk. And so, carefully, she moved his hands up to the lines that crisscrossed under her breasts.

“No,” he said when she would have removed her own hands. “Feel them with me. Show me.”

Again she hesitated, but as he dragged his forefinger along the top line and looked up at her, she found herself moving her own fingers along the one running parallel. She closed her eyes as she felt both their hands move in unison across the two lines.

“Too much?” he asked quietly.

“Sensitive,” she answered, concentrating on the sensation.

Together, their hands glided over her hip to the top of her left thigh and traced the puckered scar there. “Some scars feel sensitive to the touch after they’ve healed,” he whispered. “I’ll be gentle.”

She tipped her head back in surrender that he could make her feel so beautiful. So accepting of her own body, seeing her in a way she hadn’t been able to.

His lips traced the scar on her shoulder as their hands moved together to the one running down the inside of her left arm. His tongue came out to trace the edge where her original treble clef tattoo had been, and her breath escaped on a tiny whimper.

“I have dreamed of tasting you,” he said simply.

As his lips moved down the slope of her breast, his hands removed her black lace bra and dropped it on the floor with her dress. He closed his lips over her nipple, and it tightened against his tongue. Need doubled, trebled within her, and she rejoiced against the erotic charge, bringing her hands up to fist in his hair.

He took a step nearer the bed as he unfolded his tall frame from her. She ran her hand over his chest, down his abs, and farther down to wrap her hand around his erection.

His breath came out in a rush, and a thrill shot through her.

“Well, when you put it like that,” he said, grinning that lopsided grin, and followed her down onto the bed. Reaching over to the nightstand, he pulled open a drawer, removed a condom, and sheathed himself.

Watching him gaze down at her with the kind of raw emotion he always kept in check was deliciously empowering. Her body bowed in pleasure as he trailed his knuckles lazily up the inside of her thigh and explored the sensitive folds at the top. Undulating, she lost herself in him. Lost herself in his touch. In the way he made her feel. She had dreamed it would be like this. Had known somehow that being with Cam would transcend all previous experiences.

He never took his eyes from her as he entered her in one smooth, long stroke.

Her breath caught, and she squeezed her eyes shut. She could feel his bunched biceps tremble slightly as he waited for her to adjust to the size and shape of him. Opening her eyes, she moved hesitantly under him and delighted as he fought for control. He reached out to brush her hair gently from her face and feathered light kisses over the bridge of her nose, down to her lips.

“Okay?” he murmured.

In answer she smiled and, wrapping her legs around him, moved again, so that within moments she was dragging in shuddering breaths as she pushed him to go faster, deeper. Entwining their fingers, he matched and then increased the pace, holding her gaze. She hadn’t expected him to be so open emotionally. Physically, yes, but the added emotion had her straining for more. For absolutely everything he was willing to give. She loved seeing what she did to him—loved showing him that what he did to her was all him. Only for him.

“It’s okay to let go,” he said when her breath started coming in short, sharp pants.

And for the first time, she trusted completely in those words and gave herself over to exactly that. Convulsing around him, she felt him groan and stroke once, twice, before he followed her into completion.

…

Brooke stood barefoot on the cobblestone patio of Cam’s town garden, draped in the sheet she had taken off the bed. She lifted her face, stared up at the clear blue morning sky. A smile gathered at the corners of her mouth.

I am in love with Cameron Dexter.

Her spirit was shining with renewal.

She reached out with her foot, brushed her toe over grass still wet with morning dew. Real. She was really standing in Cam’s garden, wrapped in nothing but a sheet. Admitting to herself that she was in love with him. Stepping back onto the stone, she thought back to the previous night, when he had been standing naked in front of her, calling her scars her war-wounds and saying something outrageous to take her nerves away. She had so very nearly blurted out the words then.

I am in love with you.

And that was before he had showed her such tenderness. Understanding. Passion.

The patio door opened behind her, and he stepped out wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and no shirt. He held a steaming mug of coffee.

“Hey, you,” she greeted shyly, moving over to the wrought-iron café table to pull out both of the heavy chairs. She firmly tucked the sheet under her arms and sat down on the chair nearest her. He passed her the coffee, and she took it gratefully, blowing across the top of the liquid before taking a sip.

“Brooke, I—” He hesitated.

Her smile froze. Oh, no. No, no, no. She didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to hear regrets, self-recriminations, guilt—anything that could spoil what he’d given her.

“We should talk about last night.”

Risking a glance up at him, she registered that alpha square jaw of his, set granite hard with resolve. Her palms grew damp.

If she told him she loved him, right now, this very second, would it make a difference?

Chewing on her bottom lip, she concluded possibly it wouldn’t be too bright of her to force that on a man who felt so guilty for failing to protect her the first time that he’d come back for another go. Not while he was so busy standing uncomfortably in front of her and looking one second away from vowing never to touch her again.

What could she do to stem the words he felt he must say? How did she fight for the right to rejoice in what they had shared? To prolong the joy for a little while longer?

She felt a familiar skein of panic twist under her breastbone and wished it away with all her might, because it turned out one memory of being in his arms wasn’t enough. It turned out she was greedy. It turned out she wanted more.

“Don’t you stand there and tell me you regret being with me, Cam.” She forced the words out, her voice low. She didn’t want to stay if he was going to reproach himself. But she didn’t want to run, either.

“I could never regret being with you. But I can’t escape the fact that I took advantage—”

“We took advantage of each other,” she cut in, determined to force him into granting both of them a reprieve. “We took an opportunity, and guess what—the sky didn’t fall. Take a good look at me, Cam. Do I look like I’m ready to blame you? Do I look like I regret last night?”

“What you look is beautiful. That’s not the point.”

“I don’t want to hear your point. Don’t you get it? Last night was—” She broke off to search for words that wouldn’t panic him. “It was fun.” Beautiful. “A release.” A gift. “Let’s honor what it was by enjoying today.”

She braced herself for the doubt she didn’t want to see in his face. Would he ever be lifted by her rather than weighed down by her baggage? She latched onto the betraying flicker of response in his eyes and pushed again. “One day, Cam. It’s not asking for a lot.”

His gaze moved to where the sheet pulled cross her breasts.

“Last night you gave me back a piece of myself I thought I’d lost forever.” She noted the faint tinge of red flash across his cheekbones, and her heart melted. “You did that for me, Cam, and now I’m ready to fight again.”

When that arresting, irresistible grin manifested itself, she felt a delicious shiver all the way to her toes.

…

Entering the kitchen from the bedroom an hour later, Brooke caught Cam’s gaze running down the length of her exposed thigh. “Sorry. I didn’t have anything fresh to wear, so I borrowed your clothes.” After showering, she’d reached into his wardrobe and pulled on one of his dress shirts. “Is that okay?”

“I’m not sure,” he answered, with heat in his eyes. “It looks a little long on you—you might want to hitch it up a couple more inches.”

She grinned, pulled out a chair, and motioned to the pile of papers and laptop in front of him. “What are you looking at, besides me?”

“I’ve been going through Ellie’s report from last night.”

“Oh.” His answer brought automatic tension. On the table sat a manila folder and a plastic evidence bag that held the note Spinks had slipped into her purse. She looked up to find him watching her.

“I need to take that in to the police,” he said, indicating the plastic evidence bag. “And at some point today, you’ll need to give them a statement. Their hands were tied since Spinks hadn’t broken the restrictions of his release. Now that he has, they can put manpower into locating him. And any evidence we register can go toward building a new case.”

Evidence. The security footage from Angel Eyes could probably prove he’d been there, but the footage didn’t tell them where he was now. They needed more. “You never did show me the stuff from Spinks’s apartment,” she said, then waited a moment. “Maybe you could show it to me now.”

No answer.

“I told you I was ready to fight again, Cam. I’m not going to give up on this, so you may as well let me look at everything you have. Tell me everything you know. I imagine you’ve already called the hospital to check on Alex. Was he conscious? Did he tell you anything?”

More silence. Then after a few seconds, he stood, walked over to the kitchen counter, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “He’s conscious,” he said, his tone solemn.

She looked at him for more information.

A shadow crossed his face as he poured a second cup of coffee, added cream and sugar, then came back to the table to hand it to her. “He’s saying he was outside the east side of the club, talking to some actor’s driver, when they both heard a scuffle coming from the corner of the building. He called it in. I asked him to wait for everyone to verify position.” He paused, his mouth tight, his expression grim. “Damn it, I’ve been over and over last night in my head. He didn’t wait. He must have assumed one of ours was in trouble and rushed to help.”

She knew it would do no good telling him that Alex getting stabbed wasn’t his fault. So instead, she said, “You did the right thing going to him. I think Spinks just wanted to see if he could really frighten me.” She skimmed the plastic sleeve containing the note. “He succeeded. He seems different. More determined—stronger. When he took me before, at first it was like I was some sort of project. He acted like he was experimenting on me. It was only later when I wouldn’t succumb the way he wanted me to that I think a little hate started creeping in around the edges.”

“You’re thinking the reality of carrying out his fantasy was more difficult than he had originally envisaged?”

“I think so, yes. Maybe in his fantasy I behaved a little more conveniently. When I—” She stopped, took a gulp of the burning hot coffee, then forced the words past her lips. “When I cried, he would try and shush me, or he would give me some food. But as the days went on and I cried more, he started feeding me less, until finally, he would just put a rag in my mouth and whistle loudly.”

“Brooke.” He had reached halfway across the table before he responded to the hand she held up.

“It’s all right. I think I’m trying to say that if he was like that then—wouldn’t it stand to reason that after prison, he’d be even more violent?”

“Only in as much as prison was what separated you from him. I’ve been reading through the psych reports. Looks like he sees you as a conduit for playing out his increasingly omnipotent fantasies.”

“That makes sense. Last night I was ready to beg you to take me back to France.”

He leaned forward, pinning her with his serious gaze. “We can pack up and go right now. You don’t even have to change out of that shirt.”

“But I think,” she said, reaching out to put her hand on his forearm, “now he would find a way to follow me. He wants this to be over as much as I do. He just sees a different ending than what I have in mind.”

“The more unstable he becomes, the more we won’t be able to read him. The risk is increasing.”

“I meant it when I said I’m not giving up, Cam. I’m going to look at those images and tell you everything I see. I’m going to tell you everything that never went into those reports—no matter how difficult it is for me to say, or”—she cleared her throat— “for you to hear. Because there must be some link, something no one has thought of. Something we know but don’t yet. This has to end my way. Our way.”

He was silent for a long while, his voice gruff when his next words came out. “Fine. Go ahead. Start with these.” He turned the screen around.

She set aside her mug and told herself she didn’t need to miss its soothing warmth. She needed to work. To show him she could take control. Tightening her stomach muscles against the knots forming there, she maximized each thumbnail on the screen and faced the images of what Spinks had done to her. The tattoos. The art.

Cameron simply waited. Silent. Patient.

She steeled herself to separate out the emotion, then spoke. “He took multiple photographs of every mark he put on me. I had fifty-seven markings, so that was a lot of camera flashes. After I was rescued, and even now, I sometimes automatically start counting in my head. I’ve tried to stop, but—” She shrugged at the appalling sense of inadequacy. The counting thing was really lame. She’d tried hard to accept that it was a coping method. But the fact she needed one at all made her feel like a weak-willed victim.

“Brooke.”

“It’s fine. Sorry, I’ll try to keep the irrelevant information to a minimum.”

“Don’t filter—just talk it out.”

She reached out to pick up the plastic sleeve containing the note from Spinks. It could have been printed on any computer, using any number of programs. The images had been merged into one another like a collage, making it difficult to identify where one photograph ended and another began. The backgrounds had all been smudged out. There was something very deliberate about that, but she couldn’t work out what it might be. She glanced back at the photo of the large scroll of music he’d tattooed onto her torso. Her hand automatically went to rub the scar.

“Do you see them and think of him?” he asked, his gaze resting on her hand.

She wanted to answer as truthfully as she could, not really sure what she thought was constant. “Not so much anymore. It’s better now they’re just scars. At first, when the tattoos were still there, I couldn’t stand it. People would see them and would never suspect they’d been put there against my will. I just looked like a woman with tattoos. And most of them could be covered up.” She looked down to where her hand was absentmindedly stroking her ribs. “But sometimes… Sometimes someone would comment, and I would want to howl at them that I had been branded. That the way I looked wasn’t through choice. I had nothing but anger, rage, and bitterness inside me—” She stopped, and blew out a breath. “It’s ironic, really.”

“Why?”

“Because since having the music removed from my skin, the scars draw more attention. Now people see scars and wonder. And even if they’re too polite to ask, they silently question. I can see it in their eyes.”

“It must have been so painful to have them removed.”

“My therapist encouraged me not to consider removing the marks until I had worked through some of the trauma. Finally, when I was ready, a surgeon helped me. I think it was the right decision.” Tears gathered in her eyes.

He reached over to brush his knuckles under her chin, then tipped her face up to meet his intense gaze. “The strength it must have taken, the courage you have shown, staggers me.”

Wanting him to continue seeing her as strong—not a victim—she blinked the tears away and forced a smile. “Cam, I’d like to read the psych evaluation. Maybe it would help me to understand what the trigger was. What made him come after me. It’s too easy to just say he’s crazy. He wasn’t. Isn’t.”

He searched through files on the laptop to bring up statements from the three different psychiatrists who’d evaluated Spinks for trial. “It looks as if he has classic narcissistic personality disorder. He sees people as less than him, or as being there to serve him. Pawns to help him on his path. He manipulates, controls, chooses people to feed his fantasies. He doesn’t relate to people as you or I do.”

“What makes a person into that?”

“The causes are unknown, but parenting issues can affect the disorder. Abuse. Neglect, maybe. Some sort of rejection. Not everyone’s parents are kind and loving.”

She caught the thread of ruefulness in his tone. “Did you parents neglect you?” she asked with a frown.

“My parents weren’t cruel. They were just rather bemused by their son. I didn’t fit in with their careers as well as they’d anticipated.”

“That must have been difficult.”

“It wasn’t that bad. A little lonely, perhaps. But nothing like what Spinks must have experienced with his parents.”

How true. She refocused on the reports in front of her. “So his mother brings him up—maybe badly, maybe neglecting him. I understand she died while Spinks was in prison.”

“Cancer.”

“Sad,” she murmured. “What about his father?”

“Dead. He couldn’t have had anything to do with your abduction. He died of a drug overdose when Spinks was a kid.”

“Yes, but he must have influenced Spinks. Had an effect on how his personality formed. There must be some reference to him in the files somewhere—”

He shot her a look. “You’ve hit on something. Maybe if we can find a reference to his father, we could find some clue as to where Spinks is now. To finish what he started, he needs a place to set up. No one picks random places to do that. They pick places they know. They pick places that make them feel safe. They pick places that empower them.”

Suddenly, they were both leaning closer to the screen, searching through all the electronic reports he’d collated.

Finding nothing, he reached for his phone. “I’m going to call the office and get someone started on this. They’ll do a little judicious questioning with some contacts we have—find out from the police if there’s any information we haven’t already got. And then we’re going to reinvestigate the hell out of Spinks, okay?”

Taking action made her feel as if they were gaining momentum. As if they really had a shot at shutting Spinks down once and for all. Ready to work, she said, “Cameron, if we find out where he is, we need to revisit using me as bait. We’re going to need to dangle me right in front of him. I’m through waiting.”

He lowered his phone to his side. “What if I think the risk is too high?”

“Then we negotiate. I won’t take unnecessary risks, but I’m through with letting him see the fear. I’m through with waiting. I’m focused on the future, Cam, and Spinks is not in it.”

You are. And I consider you worth fighting for.

His body language told her he would never be comfortable using her as bait, but feeling stronger than ever, she leaned over and said reassuringly, “We do what you know how to do best. We hope for the best and plan for the worst.”

…

Hours later, when Brooke found her hands going to her shoulders to ease the tight muscles there for the second time in as many minutes, she gave up, got to her feet, and stretched. By mid-morning they’d gravitated to the living room to continue searching Cam’s computer files. Now she noticed it was getting dark. Moving out from behind the coffee table, she walked to the window to close the blinds, then switched on the table lamp. In the warm light, her gaze went straight to Cam, still seated on the sofa, his laptop perched on the coffee table.

His hair was mussed, and the blue T-shirt he wore was hitched up a little at the side from where his hand had sneaked under to absently stroke his abs. As he sat there all rumpled, concentrating on the file in front of him, she couldn’t help admiring that ability of his to focus. Not only did her blood thicken in her veins at the memory of him turning all that focus on her last night, but his ability to stay so sharp-minded made her feel safe.

She’d told him everything. And somehow, the more freedom he gave her to talk, the easier the words had come. He’d held her when the words would not flow. He’d let her cry when she choked on them. He’d made her feel as if she wasn’t just reciting events from the past, but saying them so they could be put into some sort of context. Together they were trying to work out how Andre Spinks’s mind worked.

And at the end of it all, she felt steadier. More in control of her reactions.

“I was thinking I should call Steven,” she said. “Find out how the club opening went in terms of media coverage.”

“Call him from the landline. But don’t let him manipulate you into another invite. Not until we’ve done some more planning. If we do this, we do it without the media. We’ve used the media to our advantage, and we don’t need them to flush Spinks out anymore, no matter what Steven says.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t let him make you feel guilty for not contacting him first thing this morning. It’s like he can’t go one day without speaking to you.”

She wanted to smile at the hint of jealousy in his tone. “He just misses being the playmaker. He feels guilty for originally refusing to cancel the tour, and I know his checking up on me is his way of making it up to me.”

“I’m the one in control here, not Steven Sheldrake,” he grumbled, then sank back in the leather sofa.

She did smile then, tickled that he’d be so outright jealous. “You know, I could forget about calling Steven, and we could have an early night.”

Cam shot her a glance, heat flaring in his eyes.

Now. The moment was now.

She walked up to him, then , then climbed astride his lap and settled there.

“Brooke—”

She shushed him, delighted in his sharp intake of breath. Rejoiced in how his eyes, dark with need, empowered her. She took his hands and pushed them into the vee of the shirt she’d borrowed from him, parting the material. Slowly, she leaned forward so he could slide his lips down her throat, shuddering at the first touch of his tongue as it traced a fiery path over her heated skin. He groaned and slid his lips lower to fasten on her breast, shooting tingles up her spine.

His hands moved to snake up her thighs, up and under the shirt as he pulled her farther into the cradle of his hips so he could move against her, grinding pelvis to pelvis.

Giving herself completely over to the rich pleasure his touch drew from her, she held his head in her hands and peppered kisses along his jawline, eager to reach his lips. “You know you have this way of focusing in on me,” she said breathlessly, “that makes me feel incredible.” She slanted her lips over his and kissed him, sucked his bottom lip into her mouth. Rocked against him when she felt his hands tighten against her hips. She wanted to give him words, to tell him how much he had given her, to make him understand. “You make me feel as if the scars don’t matter.”

“They don’t.”

“It’s more than that, though,” she continued. “Last night you showed me I could fly again. Every time you touch me, I fly,” she whispered, her heart overflowing.

“Brooke—”

She didn’t hear the note of apprehension in the way he said her name. She didn’t register when his hands stopped moving. All she knew was that this man cherished her. This man honored her, and she wanted to give him something back.

“I love you, Cam,” she whispered as she bent to kiss him. “I am so in love with you.”

He jerked against her, and suddenly she was being lifted in his arms and set down on her feet. Away from him.

Chapter Fifteen

Brooke’s heart thundered in her chest as she stood before Cam. Only moments before, his beautiful mouth had been moving over hers. Now that same mouth was pulled into a tight, grim, determined line. The light she’d turned on in the living room now seemed to go dim around the edges.

“Cam?”

“Don’t tell me that. I can’t—” He broke off and started pacing. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You need to dial it back a bit.”

The edge of her shirt suddenly seemed fascinating. Dial it back? Was he serious? Her heart beat out a crazy rhythm that showed no signs of slowing down, perversely making her reactions feel sluggish. “I don’t understand.”

“I thought we were taking a day,” he said.

“Well then, pretend it’s tomorrow,” she flung back, the sudden and overwhelming clutch of fear making her sound flippant when she felt anything but. Was he testing her again?

“It’s the heat of the moment.”

Emotions started lining up to dive out of her mouth, and humiliation was at the head of the line. “What is?” she asked.

“The reason you said…what you just said.”

She blanched. Her arms came up to hug herself, as if in doing so she could prevent her heart from spilling out onto the floor. No. He was not doing this to her.

“It’s not just the heat of the moment, Cam.”

“It has to be. You’re not yet free to choose how you feel.”

“I don’t need to be free to know I love you,” she said, pride straightening her spine.

“I don’t want you to say something you might regret later. You need to wait.”

Regret? They were back to that? Already?

She should have known. All day she’d been trying to outrun the emotional fallout from the night before. She’d thought he understood. But nothing she said all day had made a bit of difference. What was left inside her started scrabbling around to make an argument—to make him see.

“What exactly is it you think I need to wait for?”

“Until this thing with Spinks is over. Wait until you’re living your life free from the threat. Free from danger.”

She couldn’t believe he was standing there telling her she had to wait. Like he didn’t know she was through waiting. Like he hadn’t heard a word she’d said since he’d come back into her life.

But surely, deep down, he knew the risk she’d just taken to put herself out there for him. Surely he wasn’t throwing that back in her face. “Are you telling me I only think I love you? That I’m clinging to something bigger in order to downgrade the danger I’m facing?” Why would he insult her like that? Why would he insult himself like that?

“It’s possible.”

All the hope she’d so carefully gathered and tended whimpered away, leaving anger to fill the aching chasm. “I see. How long after Spinks is captured do you think is an appropriate time to wait to tell you I love you?”

“Brooke.”

“I want to know. How long? How long do I wait, holding all these feelings inside of me?”

“Until it’s over.”

“Until it’s over. But not now,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her in place of the tears she refused to let fall. “Now I can’t know. I have to wait until I’m free.” She pulled at the scar on her arm. Saw the dull flush of anger chase away the pallor of his face and wanted only to make him understand. “I don’t need to be free to tell you I love you, Cam. I just did.”

“This”—he pointed to the space between them—“this doesn’t work if we’re not free. You’re not in a position to make promises you can’t keep. Neither of us are. So we wait. I’m asking you to wait.”

“You’re not asking me to wait, Cam. You’re telling me.” She saw only that he was putting her on hold, taking away control over going after what she wanted in life. “You know who you sound like—with your stupid demands to wait? You sound like Spinks.”

…

Cameron needed to pace. But in the claustrophobic, white-walled dressing room in the TV station, there wasn’t space. As it was, there were already two too many people in the room—a harried makeup artist and a very pleased-with-himself Steven Sheldrake.

He chanced a glance at Brooke and their eyes met in the mirror. She looked amazing. Beautiful. Poised.

But he knew a bruised soul lay beneath the makeup. Knew it because he’d been the one to deliver the blow.

Damn it. He’d panicked. Flat-out panicked.

He hadn’t known what to do with the weird feeling expanding in his heart. Hadn’t wanted to trust, to believe she was offering him words of love out of anything other than gratitude. He was the reason for her scars. The reason she’d gone into hiding. She couldn’t love him.

So he’d pushed her away. But he had pushed too hard. Too far. To a place from which she’d never be able to return.

He’d been so sure of his role. To make recompense and ensure she got her freedom back. And okay, so he might have been thinking a little more outside the parameters he’d worked so hard to stay inside of—might have been starting to hope that in the end she would choose him.

And then, then she’d accused him of being the bad guy.

Of being just like Spinks, when he’d done everything he could to protect her. To keep her safe.

He got it—some of it. He’d hurt her, so she’d wanted to hurt him. Part of him was proud she’d come out fighting. She was still in fighting mode now.

That was the reason they were all here, waiting for her to make her appearance on the Breakfast Today show. She’d promised him that if he thought the risks were too high, they’d negotiate. But she hadn’t. Instead, furious with him, she phoned Steven and informed him she’d decided to do the interview, after all. Cameron had no say in the matter. His punishment for throwing her words back in her face.

She wanted to curtail the waiting.

Force this thing with Spinks.

And the jumpy feeling in his gut told him it would. Didn’t matter he had men stationed outside this dressing room door, and men stationed on the studio floor. Spinks wouldn’t get to her here, but everything inside told him this was going to send the monster into a rage. A rage that would tear through them as it built and built until it was out of control.

But no way would Cameron repeat mistakes of the past. No way would he let her down. She’d get her chance to choose. No matter what.

…

Brooke turned her head to an angle that would make it more difficult to catch Cam’s eye in the dressing room mirror. The makeup girl was prattling on about something to Steven, her disposition overly sunny—as if she could sense the underlying atmosphere in the room.

Apprehension was making Brooke’s scars itch. She wondered what would happen if she just opened her mouth and screamed. Would Cam, Steven, the makeup girl, all get up and leave her in peace?

Struggling to breathe evenly, she tore her eyes away from where they had strayed back to a surly and brooding Cam, and began counting backward from one hundred in multiples of seven.

She needed this to work—needed to claw back some control.

Just one atom of control. That was all she needed. Something to build on. Something to take her mind off the heartache.

Why didn’t he understand? She couldn’t wait as he wanted her to. She didn’t have it within her. She’d waited so damn long already.

She knew her limitations.

Knew waiting would break her, and then she’d have nothing to offer him.

She looked at Steven. “Could I go over the list of questions one more time?”

“You’ve gone over them five times already. You don’t want your answers to sound too pat, or the interview will feel staged.”

“You’ve confirmed the list of questions with the station director?”

“Yes. Stop worrying.”

She closed her eyes for the makeup artist, tried to focus on the numbers in her head.

Then the girl dropped the brush. It clattered onto the metal trolley, and that was all it took for Brooke to be transported back to hell.

Nausea rolled up from her stomach. Her eyes slid open and instead of seeing the glue gun for hair extensions, she saw a tattoo gun.

And everything inside her was screaming.

Soon she was going to feel the burn of the needle. She knew it.

This time she was going to have to beg. This time she wouldn’t be able to cope one more second with the pain slicing into her nerve endings, shredding them so that her very soul was exposed.

She wrenched out of the chair in panic, her arms out in front of her as if to ward off what she was seeing, feeling. She came up hard against the wall and had nowhere else to go. The panic increased, the breath backed up into her lungs. She stared at the trolley. Desperately trying to stave off a full-blown panic attack, she jerked her head up to look around the room, wanting to latch onto something, anything that wasn’t that trolley.

“Brooke, what the…” Steven stared at her in fascination.

“I’m so sorry,” the makeup girl said. “I didn’t mean to startle you. Hey—” The girl looked worriedly at Cam and Steven. “She looks like she’s going to faint.”

“Leave her alone, both of you.”

Brooke heard Cam speak, but the words sounded as if they were coming from a great distance.

“Let her get some air. Wait outside. And for God’s sake, take that trolley out of here.”

Still foggy with panic, she struggled against his grip as he grasped her upper arms. “Brooke? Look at me. You’re safe. You’re free. Spinks isn’t here.”

Slowly, the metallic taste of fear receded. Her breathing evened out. She was in the dressing room at the television studio. Not in that horrible boarding house. She was safe. And Cam was here with her.

“For a moment, the trolley, all the brushes lined up like instruments, the glue gun—” She broke off, dragging in oxygen.

“You had a flashback. That’s all.” He held a bottle of water to her lips, and gradually the panic ebbed away, leaving room for sanity to flow in.

“So stupid,” she said helplessly. “I should apologize to Steven, to that makeup girl.”

“I’ll do it. Why don’t you take some time? They’ll be bringing you down to the studio in five minutes. That is, if you still want to go ahead?”

The question was loaded, and part of her wanted to tell him she’d changed her mind. But she couldn’t. Wouldn’t. “A few minutes would be great,” she told him, feeling empty as he disentangled his arms from around her and walked to the dressing room door.

“Cam? I—” She shouldn’t have arranged to do this interview without checking with him. She’d let her emotions rule her, and now the interview was serving as a wedge to drive the distance between them wider.

“Now is not the time. And damn it, Brooke, that’s due to you agreeing to do this interview live.”

She nodded against the anger she could see playing hide-and-seek in his eyes. She didn’t know what to say. How to make it better. She’d give anything to be back at the point where there was still hope for the two of them. Where her insides didn’t feel like they were collapsing in on themselves.

“I need to be alone,” she stated simply.

Cam hesitated, then said, “Fine.” He closed the door softly behind him.

She leaned on the countertop and stared into the mirror. Breathed in and out. She had to focus on the interview. There would be only one chance to make a good impression. The cameras didn’t lie. God knew she had learned that lesson the hardest way possible.

Again she searched the mirror, this time to ensure the dress’s gauzy sleeves really did hide her scars, then called on her every inner resource to help her get through this. She told herself she was strong. She was a fighter. The interview was going to be simple. Successful.

She had one chance to show whoever was watching that she was a survivor.

Spinks couldn’t get at her in a secure studio.

Cameron wouldn’t let him.

…

Spinks ignored the vibrations under his feet as the industrial drill from across the road started up again. In the dim and dusty room, the TV glowed bright, and pleasure spread over him as Brooke Bennet’s trademark smile slipped off her beautiful face. She hadn’t been expecting the interviewer to ask her about him, obviously.

He didn’t know why she wouldn’t anticipate having to talk about him. He was integral to her existence. What would she be, really, without him?

Nothing.

Another momentary sensation. Someone with fifteen seconds of fame and then oblivion in the eyes of the public.

She should be grateful.

She was going to have one last hurrah under his command.

The camera went in for a close-up, and he stepped closer to the television to study her face.

A sheen of fear coated her eyes, and in response, saliva flooded his mouth. His hands itched for his tools as his imagination flared to life. He could hardly wait for the coming moment. Could hardly wait to have at her, for the world to witness how beautiful she would look. Could hardly wait for his skills to be exhibited for everyone to see on the canvas that was Brooke Bennet.

A mouse scurried along the wall, forcing his attention away from the small television screen he’d set up next to the generator. He watched as the rodent ran along the chipped skirting boards under his latest mural.

He’d started it the minute he’d come back from the nightclub. Armed with the photo he’d taken of her, he’d painted into the early hours of the morning, then had stopped, unsatisfied when the results weren’t to his liking.

Years ago, he’d started with murals of her, surrounded by music notations, as his way of honoring her love of music. But that had never satisfied him the way working on her flesh had. He’d created tenor clefs, bass clefs, treble clefs on her skin. Key signatures on her shoulders and a beautiful glissando up her back. When she’d moved, he could almost hear the music travel along her skin.

Staring at the artwork, he felt the anger slowly start to pulse. Pigment on a flat form wasn’t the same as working on her flesh. But he wouldn’t have to wait long. Anticipation ran through him, overtaking the anger. Five years he’d spent thinking about how his new art would read on her body. And in those five years, she hadn’t even realized how she’d prepared herself for him. Like an artist using gesso to cover an old canvas for reuse—she’d had his original work removed. When he started again, it would be like working on a fresh canvas.

He would make sure the art came out deeper, stronger, brighter, slicker.

“Can you ever recover from the type of physical torture Andre Spinks subjected you to?” the interviewer asked, the question snapping his attention back to the screen.

Brooke cast her gaze downward as if lost in thought, and then flashed back up to stare straight down the camera lens. Fury poured forth from her eyes. Rage. Scorn. As if she was looking right into his soul, taunting him. Laughing at him.

The anger returned, pulsing quicker, and he fought for control. He wanted to hear her answer.

For the longest moment she didn’t speak. Then she smiled, a cold, hard smile, as she said, “Yes, of course it’s possible to recover. I’ve learned time is a great healer.”

Recover?

She didn’t get to recover from him. She didn’t get to separate herself from him. She was his muse. She was his canvas.

She was the vessel through which he shone.

He supposed her bodyguard could have fed her a few lines to deliver during her interview. She herself would never have come up with words deliberately designed to taunt him. She was too afraid of him. He’d seen it in her eyes at the nightclub. No, without her great protector shielding her every step—her every emotion—she remembered well enough.

His pacing disturbed the dust motes suspended in a beam of light coming through the boarded-up window. They spiraled and scattered, bowing down to his disgust, touching the unfinished mural. The mural that was incomparable to what he’d created on her skin.

Grabbing a blade off the stainless steel medical trolley, he sliced the top off a tube of vermilion pigment and squeezed the contents over his mural. His hands went into the wet paint to push and swirl it all over. As he worked, he imagined her skin, fresh and waiting for him. The perfect canvas…

Stepping back, he looked at the result of his efforts. Red, the color of her blood, splattered and dripped down the wall.

She had challenged him, and he’d heard her.

She was waiting for him.

He turned to the opposite wall. There he had pinned up his collection of artwork from before. He wouldn’t be crass enough to replicate his earlier work in its entirety. That would be lazy. He’d learned since then. He’d studied since then. But the photos would be picked up by the cameras, and his audience would be able to see how far he had progressed. See his entire body of work.

Satisfied, he started whistling.

…

Brooke walked back to the dressing room on legs that didn’t seem to belong to her. People—members of the crew, she supposed—were congratulating her on her appearance, and it was all she could do to focus on walking down the seamlessly endless maze of corridors to get back to her temporary haven, collect her things, and leave with her head held high.

She felt violated.

Vulnerable.

And she knew the one thing she wanted most, she couldn’t have.

There would be no Cameron waiting with open arms to tell her how brave she’d been, how well she’d done. Instead, there would be a silent Cameron, a condemning Cameron, pinning her with an I-told-you-so stare.

What had Steven been thinking? She’d asked him if he’d vetted the questions and he’d looked her right in the eye and given her his word. Had she really believed him, or had she fooled herself into hearing what she wanted to hear? She didn’t know. All her instincts were off.

The only thing that rang true was that she’d just looked into a camera and called Spinks out.

Was that madness on her part? Or the only option she had left?

She heard the raised voices before her hand closed around the waiting room door handle. Heart in her mouth, she pushed the door open to find Steven against the wall, Cam’s hand at his throat.

“You bastard. How could you have done that to her?”

“Brooke, get him off me, will you? Explain to him how it works.”

“Cam, let him go,” she said quietly.

“You’re going to let him get away with the damage he’s just done?” Cam snarled.

“No, I’m not.” There were some things she couldn’t make allowances for. No matter how much she felt she’d let Steven down in the past or how she worried his career had suffered because of her, what he’d done by allowing those interview questions to be asked had left her wide open. His decision had been selfish and thoughtless. And she’d have none of it.

She waited until Cam let Steven go. When he started to step away, she blocked his path, forcing him to face her. “Steven, you told me they would only ask the questions on the list. You promised.”

“I’m sorry, okay?” His hands came up in a placating gesture. “I had no idea the interviewer would push you so hard. I didn’t think the lawyers would okay that kind of content so early in the morning. Come on, I had to give them something.”

“No, you didn’t,” Cam threw at him. “Don’t try and tell her you were looking out for her best interests.”

“But I was. Brooke, somebody has to look out for what happens after this. You need a way back in—”

“What are you talking about?” Frustration ran alongside anger. Everybody wanted something from her. Spinks wanted another try at her. Steven wanted her to return to what was lost to her because of Spinks. Cam wanted her to wait. “I’m never going back into the business,” she blurted out.

All she wanted to do now was get this ordeal with Spinks over with and head back to her little sanctuary in France. Lick her wounds. Start over. Try and get used to that dull existence again. If she couldn’t have Cam, she wouldn’t be living.

“I guess you don’t have to worry about that now, anyway,” Steven responded. “We’ll probably not even get the fee because you refused to be drawn on the majority of the questions.”

Brooke stared at her friend, then forced her voice to go deadly soft when she spoke. “Steven, if the money means that much to you, I’ll give it to you myself. Is that what you want?”

The pregnant pause settled heavily in the small room until he gave a burst of short laughter. “Of course not. I apologize. I got carried away.”

“Steven?” Cam added, practically pushing him out the door. “Don’t ever put her in that position again, or it won’t be her you’ll be looking for forgiveness from. It’ll be me. And I won’t be anywhere near as forgiving.”

The door clicked shut, and she was left alone in the dressing room with a furious Cameron.

She closed her eyes briefly, took a breath, and then didn’t know what to say, how to begin the conversation that would start sifting through the anger and hurt that simmered between them.

She shouldn’t have gone to Steven behind Cam’s back. Once more she’d given him cause not to trust her to follow instructions. She’d told him they would work it out together, that if necessary, they’d negotiate terms. But she’d been too filled with the belief that if he really knew her, felt anything for her, he’d never have asked her to wait.

Life was too short.

That lesson was imprinted on her after her ordeal with Spinks.

A lesson Cam refused to understand.

He believed utterly, faithfully, that Spinks wasn’t going to get the chance to finish what he’d started.

Essentially, Cameron believed in an “after.”

But she’d experienced the “after” once she’d been rescued from Spinks. It wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Save for being in Cam’s arms, “after” had been purgatory.

And she was so very afraid that in the end it wouldn’t be up to Cam to rescue her. It would be up to her.

What if she couldn’t?

What if she failed? What if she was so tired that she just wanted it to be over? What if, when faced with him again, she didn’t run, she didn’t fight, she just…froze?

…

Back at Cam’s house, Brooke wandered into the kitchen, feeling like an unwanted guest. Needing something to do to kill time, she put the dress Steven had brought her for the television interview into the washer, turned the dial, and stood to listen to the water rushing in. All her clothes were still at the hotel, so she was back in one of Cam’s shirts.

“—you’re one hundred percent sure of this?” she heard him ask.

He came into the kitchen, phone glued to his ear. “Then I want you to take the series of mock-ups of how Spinks might look now and go to each of the areas and start seeing if anyone recognizes him. And double up. No one goes out alone, and you don’t leave each other’s side. Understood?” He raked his gaze down the length of her, and her heart fluttered, her smile automatic until she caught him clenching his jaw and deliberately turning away.

She wasn’t sure what her life meant without him in it. The life she was resigned to when this was all over was hardly living. She understood that now.

She tried to tell herself she could live out the beats of a quiet life and slowly, over time, risk making plans again. Risk adding some color back into her life. But the truth was that without Cam, all she could see ahead of her was gray. Sighing, she guessed she would have to wait to see what unfolded.

Again.

“That was the office,” he said, breaking into her reverie, helping himself to one of the cups. “At your suggestion, I’ve had one of my staff working on tracking down info about Spinks’s father. He definitely did die of a drug overdose.”

“Oh.” Another dead end. She moved away from the counter to face him.

“But guess when he died?”

He gave the date, but it meant nothing to her. She shook her head.

“That’s the same time Spinks started his community service for tagging. And he was cleaning a canal right behind your father’s estate.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” she repeated as realization dawned. Spinks had been one of the young offenders she and her father had taken coffee to on a bitterly cold day. That was the connection? She shuddered as if experiencing that same freezing day now. Only one of the teenagers had made a point of thanking her father. She’d been singing a song when he’d come over. Had that been Andre Spinks? Had he thanked them for the coffee or because he’d heard her singing?

Just think, there might have been a reason for Spinks finding her his perfect canvas.

“It could be coincidence, though. It might mean nothing,” she said, trying to calm down.

“It’s new, something we didn’t know before, at least. I’m going to check on Alex, and then I’m going to check out a few addresses where Spinks’s father was known to hang out. Flophouses. Known drug deal locations.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No way. If I find something, I don’t want you in the firing line.”

“But—”

“It’s not up for negotiation. I need to know you’re safe. I need to be able to focus. Ellie’s out front on guard duty. I’ll give you her number. Call her if you need anything. And this is the security code for the house.” He reached for a pad of paper and a pen.

“Fine,” she snapped, hating his ordering her about, then softened. He was only doing his job.

His job, she reminded herself. After their blowup the other night, that’s all she was. All she’d ever be.

She reached forward to take the note on which he’d scribbled Ellie’s number, then looked up at him when their fingertips grazed.

“Brooke—”

She held her breath, not sure what she wanted to hear him say. That he’d been wrong to order her to wait? That there was a chance for them?

“I don’t want you to get your hopes up,” he said, finishing his thought.

That was it, then. No hope. No hope they’d find Spinks. No hope for their future. And yet she heard her heart as it beat loudly and solidly, fighting to compete, fighting to let the hope back in. Hope that couldn’t survive.

He was nearly out the door before she called out to him, “Cam?” He turned to look at her. “Be careful, okay?”

He held her gaze for a second, then tipped his head in acknowledgement. And then let himself out the door.

Chapter Sixteen

Brooke remained in the kitchen after Cam left. Except for Ellie stationed at the front door, she was on her own for the first time in days. She supposed she should start getting used to the feeling again. She inhaled—and Cam’s lingering scent filled her lungs. Memories of being in his arms assailed her. Torturing herself, she wondered if his scent lingered back in her house in Châteauroux. What would she feel, walking back in there, if her home smelled like Cameron?

Her eyes lighted on the pad and pen that he’d used, and her heart fluttered. Blank paper stared back at her, and suddenly her hands were itching to have her leather notebook. Before she could stop herself, she sat down at the table and pulled the pad of paper toward her. She reached for the pen. Held it close to her chest, closed her eyes, and waited.

When she thought her heartbeat was steady enough, she put pen to paper and determinedly drew a music stave. She was scratching out notes, semi-quavers, and chords before she was really conscious of the action.

When she ran out of space, she stared in shock. Music filled the page.

All this time… All this time she’d been so afraid to write unfiltered. But this was beautiful. Haunting. So sad—but beautiful. Not due to Spinks. Due to Cameron.

She pushed away from the table, needing to pace. The action didn’t stop the song in her head, so she picked the pad off the table and wandered into the living room. She walked to the window, peered out through the blinds, and saw Ellie standing at attention, bathed in warm spring sunlight. Settling down on the sofa, Brooke began to write in earnest.

Two hours later, she was all written out and feeling peacefully numb.

She planned to call Ellie to see about getting some food sent up, but guilt over how she’d treated Steven at the TV studio had her dialing another number. Ready to apologize, she was surprised by his acidity when he responded to her casual greeting.

“Decided you’re speaking to me again, have you? Thanks for letting Cameron kick me out of the television studios,” he snapped out.

Tension filled her chest. “Wow. I was actually phoning to apologize, but you don’t make it easy, do you?”

Silence filled the air, then he spoke. “That depends,” he said, his voice softening. “What are you trying to apologize for?”

She blew out a puff of air, relieved his tension had abated. “For how I spoke to you at the television studios. I know you were just trying to help. I sometimes forget to give people the benefit of the doubt.” Spinks had ruined her ability to trust people, and she needed to be reminded every now and then that sometimes people were trying to help her—Megan, Cam, even Steven.

“It’s just that I’m sick of not being in the loop,” he said. “You never told me what Spinks did to you in the club the other night. I had to hear it from Cameron while I was cooped up in that dressing room. Jesus, Brooke. It sounds like Spinks is getting serious, and you never even told me.”

“Let me make it up to you. I’ll bring over lunch. Treats from Harrods.” Too late she recalled her house arrest. Or what felt like house arrest. She’d be going nowhere.

“No, my—my place is being fumigated,” Steven said, before she could redact her offer. “Why don’t I come to you instead? Where are you, anyway?”

A faint rustling forced her attention away from Steven. She closed her eyes to concentrate on what Steven was saying, but the noise came again, louder this time. Startling her. She stood statue still, trying to work out whether the sound came from inside or outside the house. “Sorry, Steven, can you hang on a minute?” she said, then held the phone away from her ear.

A soft thud made her whirl around. Her heart beat madly in her chest. Where had the noise originated? She walked to the window and looked through the blind. Ellie still stood in the same place, looking aware but not disturbed. False alarm.

Bringing the phone back up to her ear, she muttered, “Sorry about that.”

When her heart refused to settle back down, she walked over to the security panel and looked at the screen. On it, she could see the front of Cam’s house and most of the street. Everything was completely as it should be. She shivered again and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Brooke? Where are you?”

“I’m at Cameron’s,” she answered on autopilot, staring hard at the screen when the rustling sound came again.

“What’s the address?”

Something flickered on the top edge of the screen, and she let out a gasp. She clamped a hand over her mouth and then realized the movement was too small to be a person. Her heart still beat erratically, adrenaline filling her system. She moved to the window to pull the blind aside and get a better view. A single magpie was foraging in the gutter of the front door’s gable. Automatically, she heard the rhyme, “One for sorrow, two for joy” in her head.

She had good reason not to trust her instincts. They’d been off for so long now she didn’t know which way was up. But as she stared at the magpie’s tail, bobbing up and down, and thought of the silly rhyme, she shivered again.

“Brooke?”

Cam wouldn’t like Steven having his address. This was his home, his place away from work. His sanctuary. The way France had been for her. “Look, Steven, don’t worry about meeting up. I’ll call you later, okay?” Refusing to feel guilty, she hung up. For all that had gone wrong between her and Cam, she at least owned him that respect.

…

In the remaining shell of the house next to the building site, Spinks put binoculars to his eyes and observed the scene unfolding opposite.

They had arrived.

Soon they would no doubt enter the building. Not through the front door. Too obvious. No, they would go in through the side. Find his tunnel. He watched Cameron Dexter pace up and down. In moments the man would be in his place.

Searching through all his stuff.

He grinned. He hoped Dexter liked what he found. Hoped it helped him understand he wasn’t going to win this time. That Dexter wasn’t going to get to keep Brooke Bennet—Brooke Bennet belonged to him.

In some ways it was a shame the man wouldn’t get to watch him steal Brooke back. How good it would feel like to see Dexter so impotent.

But Spinks wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to take the risk.

No, Dexter had to be busy dealing with something else when he took Brooke. So did the police.

He glanced down to the spare set of clothes and the plastic bag he had taken from the trunk in the basement before he left.

It was time for Plan B.

He took out his phone and punched in a number.

“It’s time to earn yourself some easy money,” he said when the man answered. “Meet me at the place we talked about in ten minutes.”

…

Cameron stood on the sidewalk, staring at the dilapidated facade of the last address on his list. Could this be the place Spinks was using as his lair?

Everything inside him said it was. The boarded-up house bore such a striking resemblance to where he’d found Brooke five years ago that the hair on the back of his neck was standing up. All the other places he’d checked out had been well populated, with a sense of community. On those streets, the neighbors his staff had spoken to hadn’t recognized Spinks or had any memory of his father.

This street, on the other hand, had a reputation for housing drug addicts. Over the years, residents had fled in the face of drugs and violence, and now the houses were slowly being knocked down so the entire area could be modernized. Revitalized. This house was one of the few left standing. Most likely its only inhabitants were rats and the odd vagrant.

Cameron looked opposite to the building site and wondered if the workmen paid much attention to this place.

“Sir?”

He turned as a member of his team came from the side of the building.

“There’s a rather crude makeshift tunnel at the side entrance. Do you want us to take a look?”

“Show me.” He followed the agent around the side of the house, stepping over and under unrestrained vines while he radioed in to check the status of his staff canvassing the area. He’d ordered a full background check on each of the workmen at the building site. Although he doubted Spinks would have joined a work crew so soon after being released, this time he’d leave no avenue unexplored. He couldn’t afford to overlook anything that might be a clue to finding Spinks.

He stepped into the pitch-black tunnel, the scent of the dank earth underfoot heavy in the air. Invisible ants crawled over his skin, and with every step he became convinced they’d found the right place. Spinks’s rat’s nest. But would they find the man inside? He hoped so. Then the police could take him into custody, and he could go back to Brooke and tell her it was all over. Tell her she had her freedom at last.

The beam from his flashlight showed a door up ahead. Turning the beam, he signaled his team. On the count of three, they burst through the door.

He stood in the doorway, frozen. Beams of light from their powerful flashlights bounced off surfaces, highlighting the heinous stage laid out before them. Even after studying Spinks, and even after finding Brooke before, nothing could have prepared him for this torture chamber. There was complete silence. Silence because there were no words. Because there was no way to express the horror, the evidence, the understanding of what Spinks had expected would unfurl in this room.

Cameron felt the burning sting of tears in his eyes as he looked from the bank of cameras, the trolley of instruments, the chains attached to the bed, the human-sized jar filled with clear liquid he was very afraid would preserve whatever went into it. He stared, so sickened his teeth ached, at the wall in front of him where lists, instructions, and bits of dialogue had been posted, like a director’s cut of what Spinks had done the first time. And how this time he’d go further.

Also pinned to the wall were photographs, paintings, drawings, stencils, tattoo patterns. All of Brooke. Every single one. All covered under a veneer of vivid, blood-like red paint spatters and smears.

His stomach heaved. Studying Spinks, he’d always been one step removed. Logic had acted as a barrier. But logic had fled the moment he’d stepped inside this torture chamber and seen what Spinks’s mind was unleashing in the name of his “art.”

Forcing himself to breathe, he motioned for his team to go search the rest of the property. To stop staring at the horror Brooke had gone through. What Spinks planned to put her through again. Now he understood some of her need to keep others away from all this disgusting reality. Here in this room was enough evidence to take to a judge and ensure Spinks went to a secure mental facility for the rest of his natural life. Cameron’s brain registered that.

But his heart bled.

Bled for Brooke.

Because what would have happened if they hadn’t have found this place?

He’d have lost her. Failed her.

She wouldn’t have survived this. Not a second time.

Roiling rage mixed with despair. He wanted to raze this place to the ground so that she’d never have to know of its existence. Wanted to wipe Spinks off the face of the earth so she didn’t have to suffer one iota more. Wanted to be able to look her in the eye and protect her by hiding the horrors he’d seen here. How could he do that, though, when everything they’d been through together circled back to a monster?

But then he recalled her face when she’d told him she loved him. There had been none of Spinks there. Her bursting heart had shone in her eyes. Bringing them both to life until all he had been able to see in them was him reflected back. Only him.

And now he realized the love she had given him contained enough courage and strength and hope and joy for a new beginning.

He shouldn’t have demanded she wait.

Galvanized into action, he took out his phone and started to photograph everything.

Before Spinks, Brooke’s ability to let go and sing as though she held the key to experiencing the secret of life had played with him. Her spirit was indomitable.

He finished capturing each individual photograph and changed the angle of his phone from portrait to landscape. He stepped backward to get a photograph of the entire wall and remembered that he had found her spirit fascinating. She wore her heart on her sleeve, let her heart rule her head, and gave everything of herself to everything she took on. Whether it be music—or him.

“Sir?”

He looked up when his team reentered the room.

“We found nothing other than a creepy-looking mural in one of the upstairs rooms. You might want to check it out.”

His phone went back in his pocket, and he walked up the basement stairs, careful not to touch anything. He wanted to take a look around the rest of the house. See the other mural for himself. Then he needed to call the police and help them set up surveillance. Spinks would come back here, and they would apprehend him.

In one of the rooms on the second level he found the mural. Here was a younger Brooke, surrounded by music.

The art was gaudy. Amateurish.

He realized it didn’t show any character, any impression Spinks had of Brooke.

Cameron’s mind started supplying his own impressions and images. Even after every time he’d lied and told her he wasn’t interested, she would pick herself up and try again. After he’d failed her, he told himself that the best way to deal with life was to develop a thick skin and fill the hole with something more logical, less emotional. Like work.

But Brooke had never hidden from wanting him, and that spirit had gotten under the thick protective skin he’d developed. Seducing him.

Spinks had bent Brooke’s spirit, but he hadn’t broken it.

Cameron turned his back on the mural and quietly walked out of the room. His phone rang, and as he looked down at the screen, noting it was a member of his staff who was in the area looking for Spinks. He answered it, hoping they’d just caught a break.

Or had just caught Spinks.

…

In Cam’s living room, Brooke was completing a series of yoga Warrior poses when the phone rang. For once she didn’t jump a mile. Having discovered the rustling noise earlier was because of a single bird, she’d managed to laugh at herself before vowing not to get freaked out by every little thing. She was safe. She was in Cam’s house, and nobody, save Cam and his staff, knew where she was. Now she was glad not to have given Steven Cam’s address. The time to herself had helped her relax. Helped her settle and gather herself for whatever news Cam would bring.

She spied the phone on the coffee table and bent to pick it up, a quiet thrill working through her when she heard Cam’s voice. A voice filled with excitement.

“We’ve got him. And all the proof we need to get him put away again.”

Cameron was talking too fast for her to take it in.

“Oh, my God. Are you sure?” She sat on the sofa, pressing the phone tight to her ear. She squeezed her eyes shut in denial. Was she understanding him right? Could she trust her own ears? Tears filled her eyes.

“We found where he’s been staying. It’s one of his father’s former crash houses. We got the police over here, staked it out for a bit, and the police caught him a few streets away. I’m headed over to the police station to face him now.”

“No.” There was a clutch of fear. A desperate need to see him. To hold onto him. “Can’t you come back? Leave that to the police?”

“It’s over. Really over. Hold on a little longer while I tie this up, then I’ll be home. We’ll have a long talk then.”

“Cam, I—” She wanted to ask him once more to come back, so they could talk as soon as possible. So she would know as soon as possible that she didn’t have to wait to choose him because he’d realized they’d chosen each other. But instead, she said good-bye, her voice hollow, and hung up. She sat for a long time with her hands folded tightly in her lap, unsure what to feel, how to react.

Joy should have filled her, but instead, she felt…emptiness.

Could the police really have enough to keep Spinks behind bars for good this time? Would it really be over without her having to deal with him again? Thank God they’d thought about Spinks’s father. Who knew her quiet comment would be what set into motion the very thing she’d yearned for? If Cam hadn’t listened to her…

But he had. And that had given him enough to take down Spinks.

Oh, God, Spinks had been caught. Was in police custody. Cam was right—it really was over!

A bubble of lightness welled up from deep inside her.

She needed to do something. Run outside and scream, “It’s over!” at the top of her lungs. Dance in the streets. Call Megan and Steven and everyone else she knew and tell them the wonderful news. She was free.

But mostly, she wanted to see Cam. Wanted to share her freedom with him, first. Toast the ending of this madness with champagne.

She pressed a hand to her stomach. It was going to be difficult keeping all these feelings locked down tight until he came back and everything was official. She just needed to wait a little longer. She could do it. She’d do it for Cam.

After digging around his cupboards, she realized he didn’t have a single bottle of champagne, or much of anything else, for that matter. She’d seen a corner shop at the end of the street. Now that Spinks was in police custody, she could finally go out.

When she opened the front door, Ellie immediately turned around and offered her a brief smile. “You’ve heard the news, then? They caught Spinks.”

“I heard,” she answered, tipping her head up to the sun and breathing deep. Somehow the air felt lighter now. The sun warmer.

“You won’t have to wait much longer now. I’m sure Cameron will be back here with you as soon as he can.”

“I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t have to wait any longer—to leave the house, that is. I wanted to pop out and get some supplies for when Cam gets back. Champagne. Food. Flowers.”

Ellie turned back to survey the street. “As long as I come along. He told me to stick with you.” When she turned back to Brooke, she looked her up and down, focusing on Brooke’s bare feet. “Do you have shoes to go with that ensemble?”

Brooke grinned. The dress she’d worn to the Breakfast Today show was still in the washer, so she was in another of Cam’s shirts, belted at the middle. Stilettos were going to make her look like a streetwalker next to Ellie’s trouser and T-shirt combo. “I’ll go barefoot. It’ll be fine. Just let me grab my bag and the code to get back in.”

Thirty seconds later she was skipping down the five steps leading down to the street, with Ellie at her side.

The shop was empty when they entered, save for the checkout assistant, who had her nose in a book. Brooke found a refrigerated unit that held wine and looked over the labels. Plenty of white, but only one bottle of champagne.

The bell above the door signaled another customer, and she watched as Ellie automatically moved to get sight of the person. Still on duty, she realized. Still guarding her.

Her hand tightened against the neck of the bottle as the customer rounded the aisle. Judging from the woman’s frown, Brooke probably did look a little too bohemian without shoes. The woman passed by without comment.

It took a moment for her to realize she hadn’t even thought about the scars that were visible on her arms from where she’d rolled up the shirtsleeves. She’d only thought about how she’d looked in the clothes she was wearing. She grinned. The way Cam had not only accepted her scars but had shown her they were a part of her body—how he’d shown her she was still beautiful and desirable—had taught her to love her body once again.

She was doing okay.

She was doing better than okay.

She was free.

After grabbing some cheese and peaches, she paid for everything, then packed it into carrier bags.

Outside, she looked around her. Everything seemed fresh, new and filled with possibility. It was the most beautiful English spring day: a gentle breeze, fluffy white cotton wool clouds in the sky, pretty cherry trees in bloom lining the path, their roots pushing up various pieces of hot paving, their confetti-like blossoms drifting peacefully through the air.

“On the right day, London is really gorgeous,” she said as they started the short walk back.

“Now this is all over, do you think you’ll go back to France?” Ellie asked.

If Cam gave her the chance, she was going to live happily here with him on this street. She could see herself sitting in the park across the street, writing lyrics, or in his study with a keyboard and headphones plugged in while he worked away at his desk.

With dreams in her head, she barely noticed when Ellie jerked to the right, then stepped right in front of her, halting her momentum.

“Ellie?”

“Hang on.” Her guard splayed a hand out behind her as if to warn Brooke to stay where she was. “I thought I saw someone duck behind that building.”

They were only four houses away from Cam’s. Right before the road turned left—after that, home sweet home. She peered over Ellie’s shoulder but saw nothing. She couldn’t fault Ellie for worrying, though.

“Something feels off,” Ellie said quietly. “Stay put while I check it out.”

“We can go together,” Brooke insisted.

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Ellie said, her tone reassuring. “But I need you to stay out in the open where I can see you. Where people can see you. Understand?”

“But why?”

Ellie waved a hand but still kept her focus on the corner building. “Don’t worry. They caught Spinks. But Cam will have my hide if I don’t check this out.”

Brooke had nothing to worry about. The wait was over.

But still she watched nervously as Ellie cross the road to check around the corner of the house. She waited as Ellie disappeared from sight.

Then waited.

And waited.

No Ellie.

She was scanning the street now. Hyper vigilant. Super aware of every minuscule detail.

Where was Ellie? How long had she been gone? Seconds? Minutes?

Her nerves jumped, and she felt the hairs on her nape stand at attention. The grip on her carrier bags tightened.

There was no one on the street in front of her, nothing remotely out of place. But every instinct now screamed at her to run. Run as fast as she could and not to look back. Had Spinks done this to her? Would she always act the victim? Be scared at every shadow, every noise that seemed out of place?

And yet…

Trust your instincts.

Her instincts screamed something was wrong—just as Ellie’s had. Ellie wasn’t coming back. Something had happened.

Fight or flight.

But instead she froze.

And then saw Andre Spinks rounding the corner of the building. He stepped right out into the road. He was staring at her.

Waiting for her.

Oh, God, no. He’d somehow escaped.

Had gotten to Ellie. And had now come for her.

Please don’t, she begged silently. You don’t have to. Please.

As if he could hear her, he smiled.

She stood rooted to the spot. Not fighting. Not fleeing. As Spinks stepped out into the road, the thought running through her mind was that she and Cam would never get their chance. She’d waited all this time, and all for nothing.

Pain lanced her heart. It wasn’t fair! This wasn’t how they were supposed to end! Spinks would get her and kill her and Cameron would blame himself. Neither of them living.

No.

She couldn’t allow that.

She needed to fight.

But she couldn’t move.

Until Spinks stopped walking. And started running. To her.

Again. It would happen again. He’d take her, use her skin to create his art. But this time, he’d kill her.

From the very pit of her stomach came the warrior cry of attack. Firing her up and filling her with energy. The bags she was clutching fell to the ground. The bottle of champagne smashed and fizzed, oozing sticky alcohol over her bare feet. Acting on pure emotion and adrenaline, she rocked back on her heels, breathed in once, then met him head-on, ready to fight with her entire being.

Andre Spinks looked momentarily shocked that she would dare to attack. But then he smiled as he reached for her.

She screamed and clawed at his face, her sharp fingernails digging into his skin. She scraped downward, her fingernails gouging at his flesh as if to tear the smile clean from him. His arms came up and banded around her shoulders like steel, yanking her close, effectively quashing any movement she had in her upper body. Her vertebrae crunched as he crushed her to him, keeping her from being able to gouge out his eyes.

Blind panic set in as her feet left the sidewalk, and she screamed again. He half-pulled, half-carried her across the road. Her gaze landed on something huddled on the ground in the alleyway between the buildings.

Oh, God. Ellie.

Unconscious or dead?

Pure desperation made Brooke kick out. She connected with his leg, felt the slight give in his stance, and uncaring of the pain shooting up her foot, she kicked out again.

He was not going to get her.

Never, ever again.

This time, she let him pull her in close enough that she could connect her knee with his crotch. He screamed in pain and she leaped back, turning to head back to the road. But his fingers clutched her arm. Lashing out wildly, she fought with one solitary intent—to put him down and end him before he could end her. Knuckle met bone as she struck out at his face again. A loud crack sounded, and blood spurted from his nose.

And suddenly, she realized they were separated. She’d managed to push him back into the middle of the road. Free, she stepped backward. One step. Two steps. Three steps. Nearly tripped over the curb of the sidewalk. Watched transfixed as Spinks lurched about, blood streaming from his nose and cheeks, screaming now himself.

Focusing on the blood streaming down his face, she barely registered a roaring in her ears. Finally she turned and looked.

A white car. Barreling down the street. Headed in their direction. Not slowing. Not stopping.

She watched, uncomprehending, as the flash of white made impact.

Spinks’s body somersaulted through the air.

Once, twice, then thudded to the ground in front of her.

The roaring in her ears stopped as the car sped away. She stood stock still, her heart pounding. Oh, God. Had Spinks stepped into the car’s path, or had she pushed him? And why hadn’t the car swerved to avoid him? Why wasn’t Spinks moving?

The street fell eerily silent.

The world had once more stopped turning, leaving her and Spinks alone.

Except she was standing on the side of the road, and he was lying all bent and broken in the middle of it. A trickle of blood pooled into a puddle under his head, and still she stared unmoving at his twisted form. Her eyes moved over his body, and perversely, the thought came that he was so awkward and broken that the chalk outline was going to look really strange.

Chalk outline? But that meant he was…

Her breath formed in shuddering, heaving, waves.

Dead.

Chapter Seventeen

Cameron eased his foot off the accelerator to ensure he kept within the speed limit. He’d be back home soon. Back with Brooke.

He’d been halfway to the police station to face Spinks when he realized what he was doing—playing Spinks’s game. Making Brooke continue to wait as life swirled on around her. He’d turned around and headed back to his house—to Brooke. He’d send Ellie from her post to the station to positively ID Spinks as the man she’d seen in the nightclub. He’d follow later. The man was in jail—not going anywhere. And Cameron was done waiting for Brooke.

When he drove around the corner and saw part of his street cordoned off with police tape, he slammed on the brakes, alarm jackknifing through his body. Logically, he knew that with Spinks in protective custody, Brooke was no longer in danger. But instinct or habit had his heart pumping faster.

He parked, jumped out of the car, then grabbed one of the uniformed officers. “What’s happened?”

“Hit-and-run of a pedestrian. Fatality. You live around here, sir?”

His heart kicked it up a notch. He glanced at his house, and realized Ellie wasn’t at her post in front of the door. Sudden dread slammed into him. She wouldn’t have left Brooke alone, but might have taken her out. Could one of them be the hit-and-run victim? He whipped his gaze around to the ambulance, stationed a few doors down. He fought for breath. “The hit-and-run, was it male or female?”

“We’ll get to you in just a moment.”

Apprehension filled him. “Answer me,” he ordered, not wanting to hear the answer, knowing he had to. His skin pricked in stinging, cold sweat. There was no reason for either woman to have been hurt. No reason Brooke couldn’t be watching from safe inside his house. But then why wasn’t she opening the front door and stepping into the road to meet him?

“Sir? Are you all right?”

God, he hated being called “sir.” “Just tell me—male or female,” he ground out.

“Male, sir.”

Thank God.

Some of the dead weight pressing down on him eased, making it easier for him to breathe.

But then where the hell was Ellie? And why wasn’t Brooke at least at the window?

“I need to get inside my house,” he snapped.

The officer shook his head. “Not just yet…forensics needs to photograph the scene first.”

Quickly, Cameron pulled out his phone and punched in Ellie’s number. No answer. He swore under his breath, working to get the panic under control. Ellie had to have taken Brooke for coffee. Shopping. But then why wasn’t Ellie answering her phone? He disconnected and brought up the number for Megan, who told him she hadn’t heard from Brooke all day. Out of desperation, he called Steven Sheldrake and left a message demanding Steven return his call.

“Excuse me?”

He frowned and turned as another police officer came up to him.

“Are you Cameron Dexter?” the officer asked.

He nodded.

“We have someone over with the paramedics who’s asking for you. Brooke Bennet.”

“Paramedics?” he asked, then bent at the waist—couldn’t seem to get enough breathe into his lungs. She wasn’t the fatality, but she’d been hurt?

“Apparently, she witnessed the hit-and-run. It seems it happened in front of her,” the officer said. “It’s upsetting for anyone to see something like that, but she seems to be particularly unnerved. I’ll get her for you.”

Relief flooded through him. Not a victim, but a witness. Of course she was in shock. But she was alive. And safe.

He turned when he heard movement behind him. Brooke rounded the corner slowly, head bowed, white shirt covered in blood.

“Brooke?” he murmured, shaken by her appearance.

Her head came up, tears streaking her face, and she sagged into his arms. He held on tight, trying to soothe her trembling. This wasn’t ordinary shock. This was something else. Her teeth chattered so much, he couldn’t understand what she was mumbling. Finally some of her words filtered through.

“Ellie is—”

“What? Ellie is what? Where is she?”

“In the ambulance. She was hit on the head. H-his blood is all over m-me.”

“The victim’s? Did you and Ellie try to help him?” No wonder she was in such a state. Watching someone die in front of her… “You don’t have to talk. I’m taking you to the hospital to get you checked out, and then we’re going home.”

“No. Please.”

He reached for her hands to hold them gently between his. Her fingers were icy cold. Shock.

“I had to make them understand,” she choked out. “I knew it was him. Had to identify—”

Identify? He remembered Steven’s phone going straight to voicemail. Could she have invited Steven over once she knew she was safe? Could Steven have been the fatality? “Was Steven the hit-and-run victim?”

She tore her hands away, leaning forward to try and breathe.

God, he hated seeing her like this. “Just say his name. Tell me who it was you saw get knocked over.” Maybe then she could start to deal properly with the reality of it.

“S-s-”

“Steven?” he said, his heart in his throat. He couldn’t stand the snake, but hated seeing Brooke in pain so much more.

“Spinks.”

What? A chill whistled through him. “No, the police have Spinks in custody, remember?”

“Spinks. It was Spinks. He hurt Ellie.”

He stared at her in disbelief. “The police caught Andre Spinks. He’s in custody.”

“No.” She shook her head, seemed to steady herself. “I wanted to go to the shop. Ellie came with me. But on the way back she saw something and went to investigate. I watched her go around the corner. I watched her until she didn’t come back. Until Spinks walked around the corner instead. He was coming for me.”

“And Ellie?” he asked, bile rising in his stomach.

“She’ll be fine. He hit her, probably from behind, and knocked her unconscious for a while. But she was talking before the EMTs took her away in the ambulance. They say she’ll be fine. But Cam, that was Spinks. He was after me.”

He whipped his phone out of his pocket and rang his office to get them to send someone to the police station. Of anyone, of course Brooke would know the real Spinks when she saw him. The man the police had arrested had to be someone disguising himself as Spinks.

Snapping the phone shut, he tried to assimilate the facts. He needed to take the information in, check the facts, establish exactly what had happened. He needed to allow her to tell him in her own words, when she was ready. But all that was secondary to looking after her—his beautiful, courageous Brooke.

Who’d have thought some driver’s carelessness would set Brooke free?

“He was coming to kill me,” she said. “But now he’s dead. So now it’s truly over.” Her hand tightened on his arm. “It is, isn’t it?”

“I think it is, baby. I think it’s over for real this time.” It had to be. Coincidence or not, the hit-and-run had to be an accident.

She stepped into him again, her hands going around his back, her forehead resting upon his chest. “I fought him. Before he died, I fought him. And I got away. I might even be the reason he’s dead. I got him in the road, and he was staggering around, all bloody from where I broke his nose,” she said, her voice slightly muffled. “Oh, God. I’m not sure how to feel.”

“You don’t have to feel anything,” he told her, stroking his hand down the length of her hair. “We’ll figure it out together, okay?”

She stepped back. She plucked at her shirt, swallowed, and closed her eyes. “Together,” she whispered.

The words were there, just waiting to tumble out. But he wouldn’t let what he knew to be true to be spoken right now.

Because there was no way he’d allow the ghost of Spinks in the room with them when he told her he loved her.

…

Brooke felt the cold tile under her feet as Cam set her gently down on his bathroom floor. Out of his arms, the shivering returned. He reached past her, and she watched with vague detachment as he opened the shower door, switched on the shower, and closed the door again.

“I’ll be back with some fresh towels, okay?”

She nodded and heard the bathroom door close. There were all these feelings running through her, crashing into one another and exploding. As quickly as she tried to deal with one of them, another would hurtle past before she could quite catch it, then careen into another. She guessed she had to allow her emotions to settle down enough before she could process what she’d witnessed. What she’d dealt with. What she’d survived.

Opening the shower door, she stepped in. Hot water rained down on her, and thick, heavy steam rose up.

She bowed her head against the spray. Frowned at the red, ink-like puddles forming in the pool of water at her feet. Why was the water colored?

The shower door opened and she turned to find Cam staring at her. “Honey, you need to take off the shirt.”

Oh. Of course. Her hands went to the buttons. Fumbling and ineffectual, she glanced back up to him. “Cold,” she explained.

She saw him hesitate, then kick off his shoes before stepping into the enclosure.

“Better,” she immediately said, feeling warmer, feeling safe, feeling some of her more ragged emotions retreat in the face of his solid, steady presence. Feeling.

Her hands fell to her sides when he reached out and started unbuttoning the shirt she wore. She felt his hard, capable hands skim the shirt off her shoulders, and when the sodden material dropped to her feet she automatically glanced down.

Pink cotton, not white. Blood. Spinks’s blood.

Her gaze moved from the blood-soaked shirt, up her legs and over her torso. Wet, marred, and bared to Cam. Slowly she raised her head to find him watching her, his blue eyes dark and unfathomable as they roamed over her. When he reached out to sweep back her heavy curtain of wet hair, his hand wasn’t quite steady. She could feel the fine tremor in his fingertip as it trailed across her temple, seeking to smooth out her frown. And as the water rained down, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the emotion swirling through his eyes.

His voice was rough, making her eyes go wide, when he murmured, “I thought I’d lost you.”

He could never, she thought. She’d been waiting too long for him. That was what had helped her fight when she’d most needed to. If he let her, she’d fight for him. If he let her…

She watched him swallow. Watched him shake his head slightly as if to clear it of thoughts he had no business thinking. As if to rein in all that emotion he was so skilled at controlling so he could think with his head, not his heart. But she wanted what she’d first seen swirling in his eyes. Didn’t want him chivalrous or noble, not now that she was free. And she was free, wasn’t she?

Finally, blessedly, liberated from her prison of fear.

When he stepped back to open the shower door and leave her, she reached her hand out and latched onto his forearm. “He didn’t get me,” she said shakily. “You didn’t lose me.”

“Brooke.” Her name rumbled out of him, his eyes hooded.

Her hand squeezed against his arm. What she wanted was him.

Now. Tomorrow.

Forever.

But was she what he wanted?

“The scars aren’t all he made of me, Cameron. Show me again that you know they’re not.”

When he didn’t move, she ran her fingers down his arm to clasp his fingers. Bringing his hand to her chest to rest over her heart, she looked deep into his eyes and whispered, “Make me feel alive.”

His fingers flexed against her heart. Her heart beat crazily as she held firm. Then she didn’t know whether it was her reaching for him or him reaching for her, but they were in each other’s arms and kissing as if they’d been separated lifetimes and there was no tomorrow. Deep, demanding, soul-searing kisses that stole the very breath from one and fed it back to the other as they took and gave, gave and took.

She moved her hands to his chest, then lower, to snake under the soaked cotton to touch his hot, slick skin. His deep groan echoed off the shower tile, encouraging her to drag the wet material up and off, over his head. They worked in unison to tackle his jeans, pushing the heavy denim down and out of the way. His boxers followed, and in seconds he’d retrieved a condom from his jeans pocket and sheathed himself.

He took her hands and pressed them briefly to his heart before winding them up over his shoulders. Her breath caught as she thought—hoped—he was telling her she had his heart, as he had hers. And then she couldn’t think at all because he was lifting her, and her arms were tightening reflexively on his shoulders, and her legs were locking around his hips, and he was filling her. Completely. Fantastically.

His hands cradled her hips as he moved inside her, his rhythm growing so strong that the music in her head rang out. Wild. Savage. Abandoned.

Free.

Pleasure gathered, pure and explosive. This was their song. This, she thought, her forehead pressed against his as she matched his pace.

When she was sure her heart would burst from her chest, she fought to keep her eyes open so she could watch the emotions mirrored in his eyes. Maybe he saw the love she couldn’t hide, because suddenly one of his hands was moving from her hip to cup the back of her head, and he was slowing the tempo so she could feel and savor every exquisite nuance.

Captivated, her body adapted to the new rhythm. The song in her head became orchestral, sweeping across her heart, making her chest swell. He groaned out her name, and they came together in a heady, explosive myriad of stars and water drops.

She splayed her hands against his chest and tried to get her breath back. She couldn’t speak. Eventually, she felt him move as he leaned down to kiss the droplets from her eyelashes. She smiled up at him—such a big man, so much muscle to control. How incredible it was when he unleashed all that power on her and then leashed it back up because he wanted to be gentle. Protective. Her eyes fluttered closed, and peace, the kind of peace she hadn’t even understood existed, settled upon her shoulders.

Without speaking, he reached behind her and turned off the water. Then, making sure she could stand on her own, he stepped out of the shower and beckoned for her to follow. As she stood on the bathmat, dripping wet but no longer shivering from the cold, he wrapped her in a large towel. She huddled into the warmth and sighed happily, because he couldn’t have made love to her like that if he didn’t want to be with her. Could he?

But gradually, the longer he remained silent, some of the feelings he’d helped keep at bay started rushing in at her again, and her confidence evaporated. Disappointment welled, and reality crashed heavily in. Not once had he actually said that they could be together, now it was truly over.

Oh, God. His healing touch had reached into her heart and soothed her soul. It had been so beautiful. But… She swallowed. Had he simply been telling her good-bye?

She opened her mouth, but he pressed a finger against her lips, then followed the action with a tender but brief kiss before disappearing out the bathroom door.

Her heart cracked open a little, but hope sealed it back up. She’d back off for a bit. Wait a little longer. Without Spinks to fear, she now had the luxury of time.

Chapter Eighteen

Later, after Brooke had dried her hair and dressed in a robe Cam had handed her, she collected the clothes from the shower floor, and dumped his in the laundry. With the shirt she had been wearing in her hand, she walked into the bedroom. He was standing there, holding out a cup of tea.

“I wasn’t sure what to do with your shirt,” she said when his gaze flew straight to the sodden pink mass. “It’s ruined.”

He frowned. He seemed about to say something, then changed his mind. In two strides, he put down the tea and grabbed the shirt.

When he returned moments later, she decided not to ask him what he’d done with it.

Instead, she took a breath and said, “Cam, can we talk? I need to know—” Damn. Where was her courage? Perhaps Spinks had sucked it out of her, after all. She’d rushed into that road determined to fight him. Kill him, even. In the end, she hadn’t frozen. She’d chosen life. She’d been willing to fight for her and Cam. But now she couldn’t find the words to start a conversation about their future. Perhaps in death Spinks was having the last laugh, enjoying how he’d stolen the very last little bit of courage she had left.

Maybe she’d always been destined to win the battle but not the war. Maybe she’d always carry some baggage, be forever working to distance herself from the specter of her past. Was it really fair to expect Cam to want that for his future?

She reached for the tea but remained standing. “Did you make all your phone calls?” she asked, forcing conversation.

“I did. Ellie’s doing fine. She didn’t see who hit her on the head, but it had to have been Spinks. She’s already been discharged from hospital and is back at the office.”

“That’s good, I suppose.” She knew the words sounded banal, but what else was there to say?

“My team is officially working with law enforcement. No one knows how Spinks managed to trace my address, but his laptop will be systematically searched for information. It’ll take a while to check CCTV—a lot of cameras aren’t operational after the latest round of council budget cuts.” He looked sidelong at her. “Can you remember anything more about the car or the driver?”

She shook her head. “It was white. That’s all I recall. I thought the roaring in my ears was the sound of pure panic. I didn’t even register it was real. Even after the impact I couldn’t believe, couldn’t accept what I was seeing. My mind was stuck on the fact that we had been facing off—” She broke off and stared into space.

“It’s over now.”

“Yes. Over.” Brooke stared down into her tea and waited, because a minuscule part of her still wanted to hope he’d say the words. Words that told her they’d be together.

“Brooke, I—”

“Yes?”

He shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. Stared at the floor. “God, I wish I knew how to say this.”

The hope that had fluttered inside her died. She’d made a mistake in showing him the shirt. A stupid reminder of the monster that still stood between them.

“We can’t ever erase what Spinks did, but—”

“Stop!” she all but shouted. “If you’re about to tell me it’s time for me to go do some ‘living’ just so you can believe I’ll know my own heart…I can’t hear it. I won’t.”

He looked momentarily flustered. “Actually, I was going to tell you I figured out it would be wrong to spend the future trying to erase the past.”

Her mouth dropped open. Very carefully, she set her cup and saucer down on the table beside her. Before she knew what she was doing, she had taken a step toward him. Toward her future. If that was what he was offering. If she was understanding him correctly. With her heart in her throat, she took a breath. “The future in general? Or our future?”

He searched her face. “I guess I’m still having a hard time believing I deserve a future with you. If I’d handled everything better the first time around—”

“No,” she said softly. “You’ve got to leave the guilt behind.” She reached up to cup his jaw and look into his beautiful blue eyes. “You took too much accountability on your shoulders. Do you understand that, Cameron? I disobeyed your orders that day. That was on me. Regardless of how you spoke to me, without attention or responsibility, I broke the rules. You followed procedure. You did everything right.”

“Except for saying you were just a job.” He frowned. “Maybe if I had told you that you had always been more, you wouldn’t have taken the risk. I was too arrogant. Too stubborn. Too eager to prove I was in total control.”

She shook her head vehemently. “If we’re to have a chance together, you have to do what I did. Forgive yourself. That is what we’re talking about here, isn’t it? A chance.”

“God, yes,” he said, reaching for her, hugging her to him before dropping a soft kiss on her brow. “As soon as I found out Spinks had been released from prison, I dropped everything to be with you. I tried telling myself it was only to make up for last time.” His fingertip brushed against the underside of her jaw, tilting her head up. The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Damn, but you deserve for this to be done right. Can you hang on? Just until I get us some food. Champagne. Some supplies that ensure we don’t have to leave this house for days. After that, I can tell you—no, show you the future.”

“Days, huh?” she teased. For the first time in forever, she found herself prepared to be patient if it meant she got to experience what he was offering. She could let him give her his words slowly. Not forced. Not rushed. But with the knowledge that she had all the time and all the freedom in the world to hear what was in his heart.

“You could set the table while I’m gone,” he said. “Maybe put on another of my shirts. Or not,” he added with that grin that always seemed especially made for her.

“What are you waiting for? Go. Hurry back,” she ordered with a smile.

Cam kissed her lightly on the forehead, then grabbed his keys and wallet, waved at her, and was gone.

Alone again, she walked to the closet, humming the song she’d been writing. She ran her hand over his rack of shirts and the two of her dresses hanging next to them. Soon more of her dresses could be hanging alongside his clothes.

The doorbell rang, bringing her out of her reverie. Probably the police resuming their door-to-doors. As she closed the wardrobe door, she noticed the panic button brooch, still attached to the cocktail dress she’d worn to the nightclub opening. She unpinned it from the gown and popped it in the pocket of the robe she was wearing. She’d ask Cam if she could keep it—out of nostalgia, and maybe as a reminder to herself to listen.

The doorbell rang three times in a row. Whoever was there wasn’t going away. She went to the hallway and glanced at the security screen in the hallway, then groaned. Steven.

Seconds later, she’d yanked open the front door and stared at Steven. “What on earth are you doing here?”

He lowered his shades to stare over them at her. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

For an instant, she considered saying no. She still felt raw from the morning’s events, and she didn’t want to hash it all out again. And she wanted it to be just her and Cam when he returned with the champagne. There was a difference between waiting to hear his words and waiting for Steven to leave so that she could hear them. But she supposed she couldn’t very well not tell him what had happened. He deserved to know. She stepped back to let him enter.

He followed her to the living room, where he walked to the window, moving one of the slats on the blind a little to peer out. “I was really worried about you.” He turned back to her, a sheepish smile on his face. “I rang Megan and begged for the address. I’ll be having to phone and apologize tomorrow. Probably shall have to apologize to Cameron, too.”

She realized she’d zoned out to think about Cam, and noticed the grin on Steven’s face had disappeared and was now replaced with a watchful expression. “Cam’s not here. He’s out shopping.”

“I know.” Steven jangled the change in his pocket and turned back to the window. “I saw him leave.”

“He’ll be back soon. Come through to the kitchen, and I’ll make us some coffee.”

“Very domesticated,” Steven teased, following her into the kitchen. “You certainly look at home here.” He leaned against the wall, studying her. “I would have been here earlier, but I couldn’t get access because of some accident. The street’s cordoned off.”

“There was a fatal hit-and-run.”

When he shrugged, his casual stance suddenly irritated her. “Steven,” she said in a rush, “that man killed in the hit-and-run was Spinks. I was right there. I saw him get killed.”

Steven’s face remained devoid of expression. She turned away to make the coffee, leaving him to his thoughts. When she turned back, he was still standing in the same spot, carefully studying her. Perhaps she shouldn’t have told him quite so bluntly.

“It’s over, Steven. I’m free,” she said, trying to make him understand.

“He’s…definitely dead, then?”

She nodded.

He crossed the distance and hugged her. “Thank God. You’ve finally got your life back. You worked so hard for it. I know how it felt when it was ripped away from you. But now it’s all over. You can get back to where you were.”

He paused, then picked up one of the coffee cups and went to sit at the kitchen table, leaving her to follow.

He looked different. Happy, in a gleeful way. She wished now she hadn’t let him in.

“I’ve been thinking,” Steven said. “You should mark the end of your ordeal with something that gives you back your confidence—something that makes you feel alive. You should release a new record.”

She stared. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, that wasn’t it.

“It would be fantastic,” he continued enthusiastically. “A Nocturne comeback single. All of us together again. A winning combination.”

“Sorry, Steven. Not interested. I really don’t think Megan would be, either.”

“She would if you asked her to,” he said. “What better way to draw a line in the sand and to celebrate by doing what you love best? Making music, performing in front of thousands of people?”

Her throat got tight. “Sorry to disappoint, but—”

“So don’t disappoint me,” Steven said flatly.

The atmosphere changed. Darkened somehow, and a sly fear began nibbling away at the base of her skull.

“Come on, Steven, play nice.”

“Play nice? I’m offering to restart your failed career. Feels like you’re biting the hand that’s trying to feed you.”

She remained silent. His words had been deliberately designed to shock and insult. In the awkward, heavy silence, she noticed his usual nonchalance had been replaced by a sheen of desperation. Good God, how bad off financially was he? Desperate enough to pressure her into resurrecting the band so he could get his old job back?

“I said no. I’m not interested in reforming Nocturne or making it on my own as a solo artist. I told you before—I don’t see myself as a performer anymore.”

His lips compressed into a hard, uncompromising line, and his hands went knuckle white against the plain bone china, but he didn’t speak.

Weary, she got up from the table and moved to the sink. “I don’t want to fight with you. I guess I’m more tired than I thought after this morning. Maybe we could change the subject.” She gazed out of the kitchen window and watched a magpie pecking at a cherry tree. That was the second one she’d seen today. Her heart gave a funny little flutter, and Steven’s earlier words filtered through. Frowning, she asked, “Did you say you got Cam’s address from Megan?”

“Does it matter where I got it from?”

Her heart kicked against her chest wall. Why would Megan know Cam’s address? But then, maybe Cam had asked Megan to come see her and had given her his address. But would Megan really have given the address to Steven? She stared at the magpie.

“Brooke? Did you happen to see the driver of the car that hit Spinks?”

She turned back to him, confused by his abrupt change of conversation, hating the churning in her stomach when she remembered the accident. “I don’t think I saw the driver. Only that it was a white car.” Peering down at the cup in her hands, she lost herself in the image of Spinks spinning through the air.

“Are you certain?” he prodded.

No, she wasn’t certain. She’d avoided reliving the experience. She’d made a report to the police who arrived on the scene, but she’d still been in shock. Then she’d turned to Cam to blur out the reality of what she’d witnessed. Now, in her mind, she watched Spinks spinning through the air again, only this time she paused the memory like a movie and tried to focus on the driver of the car.

And saw a face that shouldn’t be there.

Her heart dropped into her stomach. The cup slipped. She clutched at it, just managing to stop it slipping clear and smashing against the side of the sink.

She turned around to gape at him. “Steven, what have you done?”

“You know what I did.” He studied his feet.

My God. The car hadn’t stopped. Hadn’t even slowed. “Tell me it was an accident, Steven.” Her voice sounded hollow in her ears.

“He was going to kill you, you know. Capture you and torture you. Cover you in tattoos of his music. And then kill you.”

She shook her head in denial, but the truth was written plainly across his face. Not in words of contriteness, regret, guilt, or sorrow, but expressed in something far more dangerous. Steven had seen Spinks come after her and had deliberately hit him with his car. Killed him.

The room spun, and she gripped the edge of the sink.

She hadn’t asked for that.

Would never ask for that.

Her skin itched. “Steven, the police will figure out it was you. They’ll track down CCTV. Match tire prints or paint scratches or something. You could go to prison. Do you think I would ever want you to ruin your life because of Spinks?”

“Somebody had to put everything on the line. I took action when no one else would. Because that’s my job, isn’t it?”

“Protecting me wasn’t your job, Steven. It was Cam’s job.”

Steven squared his shoulders and said, “Cameron wasn’t getting it done.”

She tried to think. He didn’t seem to understand the consequences of his actions. She should phone the police. And phone Cam. Or should she wait? Try to make Steven understand that what he did was criminal? “Steven, you need to go to the police and explain you didn’t mean to kill him. That you were just trying to help me escape. I’ll come with you, explain it was an act of passion.”

Steven clasped the mug tightly between his hands. “You’d really do that for me?”

“Of course. I can explain how in the heat of the moment all you saw was the threat to me. He was about to kidnap me, after all. And I wouldn’t have survived his torture this time.”

“You know,” Steven said, staring now into the distance instead of looking at her, “I think it would work out better if you did something else for me, instead. Now you’re free, you can help with something. Call it a way of thanking me.”

Wait. A way of thanking him? She was trying to help him, not thank him. “What do you mean?”

He slid his gaze back to hers, his eyes cold. Unconnected. “Come on, another hit record—would that really be such a sacrifice?”

Tick, tick, tick, went the kitchen clock as she stared at the man seated before her, suddenly a total stranger. Tick, tick, tick, counted down the seconds as she realized what he was asking of her. He’d killed Spinks, and in return he wanted to hang onto her coattails again. To get his money through her hard work. Use her. Bile filled her stomach.

“Come on, where’s your loyalty? After all I’ve done for you. I gave you a safe place to stay. Away from everyone except me.”

She stared incredulously. “I’ll always be grateful. Your house in France saved my sanity.” But she could never be grateful for the taking of a life. Even of a murderer.

“Yes, but not so you could squander it! You were supposed to realize your place was here in England with us, not France. I thought you’d hate the isolation and would come back after you recovered. I thought you’d want the limelight again, would want to play music—”

“Stop!” She pressed shaking hands to her ears. She couldn’t let herself believe him. He’d set her up in that house in France on purpose! To keep an eye on her. He’d planned out her future, a future he’d intended use for his own gain. She swallowed against the burn in her throat. “All this time, you’ve only pretended to understand the scars that monster left me with.”

“But the monster is gone now, isn’t he? Thanks to me.”

She stood dumbstruck. It wasn’t the words that frightened her to her core so much as the quiet, logical way he said them.

And then she saw what she’d been hiding from ever since Steven had walked into this house and told her he’d got the address from Megan—when she knew he couldn’t have.

He hadn’t killed Spinks for her. He hadn’t tried to stop Spinks from coming after her, nor had he tried to protect her—not for her sake, anyway.

But for his own gain.

Oh, God.

“You knew all along where Spinks was. You knew he was coming to get me,” she whispered. “You followed him to kill him. But you didn’t kill him to protect me. You killed him for yourself!”

Chapter Nineteen

Brooke’s breath backed up in her lungs as the ramifications took hold. Why had she opened the door to Steven? Now she was all alone with him—whose actions were not those of a friend. Killing Spinks had been no accident, and he plainly wasn’t ever going to the police.

But what did that mean for her? Her hand crept up to rub her breastbone. She wasn’t sure she could process any more information

Suddenly, all the times he had checked up on her in France made a macabre kind of sense. There’d always been an ulterior motive behind them. A selfish motive. She thought about all the times he’d prompted her to do interviews since she’d been back—but only the ones that came with a large fee. She thought about how he didn’t seem so busy, and she recalled Megan’s odd concerns about him. But mostly she remembered how he pushed, pushed, pushed.

Especially since Spinks was released.

Her hand went to the brooch in her pocket. In desperation, she pressed it, knowing the action was futile. No one would notice. Cam was still at the store, and the other guards were no longer at their stations, all of them knowing Spinks was dead. Thinking the threat had ended. She could only hope Cam would return from the shop soon.

“Did Spinks really send that e-mail about the house in France being for sale, or was that you setting all this in motion?” She squeezed her eyes shut. It had been hard enough understanding Steven had deliberately killed Andre Spinks with his car, but this insanity… No. She must have gotten it wrong.

“I thought I could control him,” Steven said, and she opened her eyes in horror. “But then Cameron told me Spinks had actually stabbed that man at the nightclub instead of just scaring you the way I thought he would.” He frowned at her. “I never figured he’d go that far. I certainly didn’t instruct him to kill anyone.”

Wait. Steven had some sort of relationship with Spinks? He’d told Spinks she would be at the nightclub? He’d asked that madman to scare her? She shook her head in violent denial.

With a charge of adrenaline, she started to run past him. It was what her psyche had trained her body to do. Run and hide. Run and hide.

Behind her, his chair scraped. She whipped around to see if he was following, just as he reached out to grab her. She lunged to get away and smacked her face right into the kitchen door frame.

The impact made her stagger back. Pain exploded, and she reached up to cup her cheekbone.

“Let me see,” Steven said, reaching for her hand to check the damage.

She wrenched away and looked frantically around. She spotted the block of kitchen knives on the counter. But realizing what she was about to do, he launched himself forward and plucked one of the knives from the wooden block. Then he spun and lifted it toward her.

…

Cameron stood impatiently in line at the store, his hands in his pockets, a basket of food and champagne by his feet. He’d had to go to the store five streets away, since Brooke had bought the last bottle of champagne his little corner store stocked. After making love to her, he’d known once and for all that Spinks was no longer between them. And now he was getting to take his moment and do it right.

When he told her he loved her, he was determined to provide champagne and flowers.

He hadn’t dared dream of the possibility of them being together when he’d headed to France to collect her. He’d set out to do a job, and do it right this time.

But now Andre Spinks was dead. Part of him still couldn’t believe it was over. But it was, and now that they had all the time in the world, he wouldn’t wait. He was going to offer Brooke his words, his heart, his life—everything he had.

The line finally moved forward, and he pushed the basket with his foot to close the gap. Next to the counter was a rack of magazines, dozens of front covers taken up with the same image of a famous singer leaving rehab. But it wasn’t the headline that grabbed his attention. It was the tattoo on the rock star’s shoulder.

He took a closer look. What was it about the tattoo that had him thinking? It wasn’t in any way like the treble clef Brooke once had on her shoulder. But something about the tattoo reminded him of Spinks’s rat’s hole. Distracted by the image, he hefted the basket onto the counter, considering the wall of photographs in that dilapidated house.

The photographs on the folded piece of paper Spinks had slipped into Brooke’s bag at the nightclub were the same as those on the wall…but something was different. Then he figured it out. The backgrounds weren’t smudged out the way they’d been on the paper in Brooke’s bag.

Hmm…

He paid for his goods, bundled everything into a bag. With a troubling sense of overlooking something vital, he left the store. Outside he stopped dead, the realization hitting him.

In both sets of photos, Brooke’s tattoos were missing. But the photos on the paper had been cropped down to show just her face or shoulders. The photos on the wall were untrimmed. And the backgrounds had been clear—the pictures had shown her gardening, practicing yoga, sipping tea while smiling at the photographer.

And with sudden, blinding clarity, he knew where they had been taken—Brooke’s house in Châteauroux. Photographs that could only have been taken when Spinks was in prison.

Someone else must have given Spinks those photos.

Someone Brooke knew. And trusted.

His pulse spiked.

The only person in regular contact with her in France had been Steven Sheldrake.

“Fuck!” he shouted, then shouldered his way past a couple on the sidewalk, pulling out his phone to call the office to start hunting down Steven Sheldrake.

As he listened to the phone ring, he started checking his own logic. Why would Steven feed Spinks photographs of Brooke? To prove to Spinks he had a relationship with her? That he could procure her for him? Disgust knifed through Cam. But what would giving Brooke to Spinks do for Steven? Nothing.

So why, then?

Could it have been about getting her back in the spotlight, the media, the business? Could Steven have been using Spinks as a kind of reverse bait to lure her out of hiding? Not just since he was released from prison, but before, too?

But surely Steven wasn’t stupid enough to think he could control Brooke? Or Spinks…?

Not stupid, Cameron realized, but blind. Jesus! This was about Steven’s ambition. For fame, and for money. Damn. He should have been more vigilant. He should have been paying closer attention.

But even as he called himself a thousand kinds of fool, he could hear Brooke’s steadfast insistence that he couldn’t control everything, that people made their own decisions, right or wrong.

As soon as Ellie picked up the phone, he started speaking. “Ellie, I need—”

“—I was just about to call you,” Ellie interrupted. “Brooke’s panic button has been activated. I figured since you were with her—”

“I’m not.” He went straight to high alert. He dropped the shopping bags and broke into a flat-out run. “Christ, I think Steven Sheldrake is with her.”

“Sir?”

“Run a check on him. I’m convinced he was working with Spinks.”

“But Spinks is dead.”

He ignored the stitch of fear as he processed another thought. “Ellie, how quick can you run the plates on Steven’s car?”

“Don’t tell anyone, but I can hack into the police database. Running the plates now.”

In the background, he could hear Ellie tapping on a keyboard. Come on, come on.

“It’s a white BMW, license plate—”

“Never mind the number.” He had all the information he needed. He sprinted across the road, narrowly avoiding a cyclist, phone glued to his ear. Brooke had said a white car mowed down Spinks.

“Cameron? What’s going on?” Ellie asked. “Do you want me call the police?”

“Yes. Get them to my place. I think Steven’s there, threatening Brooke.”

“You need to wait, then. Follow procedure.”

But there wasn’t enough time for the police to arrive. He was not losing her. “Screw procedure. I’m almost there.”

“Sir? No! Wait for backup. I’m calling now.”

But he wasn’t waiting for anything. He disconnected and frantically punched in his home number.

He didn’t care about procedure, or DSC, or the damn police.

He cared about Brooke.

He just prayed he’d get to her in time.

…

The sound of the phone froze Brooke in place. She speared her gaze at Steven.

“Let it ring,” he ordered, brandishing the butcher knife in his fist.

“Steven, please.” She tried to keep the pleading note out of her voice, but ever since he’d armed himself with the kitchen knife, she’d been terrified he would really hurt her. He’d changed. Become cold and desperate.

When the ringing didn’t stop, she took a risk to claw back some control. “That’s Cam. He’ll worry if I don’t answer.”

Steven searched her face. Then looked at the phone. “Fine.”

Relief swept through her, but as she reached for it, he stopped her by pointing the tip of the blade at her face. “Put it on speakerphone. If it’s Cameron, make sure you sound normal. Stall him. I need enough time to get you to my car without being seen.”

His car? Without being seen? Her mouth ran dry. She wanted to demand he tell her where they were going and what he meant to do with her. But didn’t dare.

Instead, with a trembling hand, she picked up the phone.

“Brooke?”

At the sound of Cam’s voice, a lump formed in her throat. “Cam?” How could she do this? “Didn’t they have any champagne?” she rushed out, hoping against hope that her weird opening would hint to him that something was very wrong.

Steven scowled and took a step toward her.

Her mind raced. Before Cam could respond, she blurted, “I thought you said you’d only call if they didn’t have any.”

Silence filled the space, then Cam spoke. Slowly. Deliberately. “Right. They don’t.”

Her heart swelled. For him to follow along meant he must understand.

“Don’t worry,” she heard him add. “I’m not far away.”

Steven started, and Brooke’s heart rate shot through the roof as she watched the light bounce off the blade of the knife. If Steven completely lost his head and cut her, what if Cam was too far away to save her? She needed to stall Steven, not Cam. But she had to be careful so Steven wouldn’t figure out her plan.

“You don’t have to hurry back,” she said, wincing when her voice wobbled. She looked at Steven and he made a “keep going” motion with his hand. “I, um, won’t be here.”

“Oh?”

“Steven has organized a surprise for me. Megan’s meeting us for lunch at a restaurant. Isn’t that great? I can’t believe she didn’t say anything when we were on the phone this morning.”

There was a long pause, and she worried she’d gone too far. Prayed that Steven wouldn’t have heard the edge of desperation creeping into her tone. Prayed he would think she had spoken to Megan that morning. Prayed Cam would understand.

“I can’t believe that Megan,” he answered. “You were on the phone with her for at least twenty minutes.”

“I know! So, you might as well go into the office like you were talking about doing.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s…great. I have a ton of paperwork to catch up on.”

She wanted to cry. He did understand. She just had to hang on. But she could do more. Tell Cam where in the house she and Steven were. “Oh, and Cam, since we’re leaving right away, I won’t have time to fix the venetian blind in the living room like I promised.”

“I understand. Have fun,” he said. “See you later.”

She disconnected the call before he could say anything else. He knew she was in danger and that Steven was with her. That they were in the living room. And she’d bought him some time. Shaking from head to foot, she dropped down onto the sofa. “What happens now?” she asked Steven.

“Now I need to think.”

Hope ebbed away as she watched him wander over to peer through one of the slats in the blinds. He was off somewhere in his own head. Unreachable. He kept checking to make sure there was no one on the street—yet still he took no action.

She couldn’t see how this was all going to end. How had it come to this? How could her friend, mentor, confidante, have changed into a killer?

Had she driven him to this?

No. She clung to the belief that he’d made his own choices. But why? There was still so much she didn’t understand. “Steven, how did you know I was here at Cam’s house?” she asked.

“I followed you both from the television studios and then e-mailed the address to Spinks.”

“So you already knew I was here when I phoned you?” She couldn’t believe how slickly and easily he’d lied to her. “But I’m your friend,” she said. “Why would you want Spinks to hurt me?”

He shook his head, continuing to peer out between the slats. “Not to hurt you—for me to hurt him. After Cameron told me Spinks was escalating, I realized I needed to finish him. If I’d simply asked him to meet me, he would have suspected something. If I had tipped off the police to his whereabouts, he would have told them about our arrangement. No, I had to stop him myself. For good.” He turned to face her. “You were right. If he’d gotten to you this time, you wouldn’t have survived. Megan didn’t make Nocturne—you did. I needed you alive.”

A slow and burning anger started in the pit of her stomach. She used it to anchor her to reality. She was not tied to a steel gurney. And she would fight for control. Because suddenly she couldn’t believe she’d been cowardly enough to ever have considered going back to France without fighting with everything she had.

For everything she could have.

Her gaze snagged on the scattered pages of music lying on the coffee table. Her gaze caught something, and she leaned forward. Where she had written “Heartsong” across the top, added next to the title in Cam’s strong, masculine handwriting were the words, Music and Lyrics by Brooke Bennet.

After making love, he must have come in here and seen she’d been composing again. He’d wanted to remind her that she should be proud of her music. Not run from it, not hide from it. He believed in her music.

He believed in her.

She remembered being in the yurt with him. Remembered him telling her to breathe. To think.

That’s what she had to do now.

Not run. Not hide.

Think.

Chapter Twenty

No one got to take away her hope, Brooke realized. Hope had always been the one thing she had. She’d clasped it tight to her while Spinks inflicted his torture. Had nursed it back into her life in France. Had nurtured it when she’d realized she was in love with Cam. And even when she thought he could never love her back, hope had beat inside her heart, fighting to take wing.

Filled with hope was the most logical state of being for her. And now she needed to do what Cam had always known how to do—plan for the worst and hope for the best.

Sucking in a breath, she said to Steven, “How did you know I would come back to London to face Spinks?” The longer she kept him talking, the bigger the chance she had of outmaneuvering him.

“I didn’t. But I’d hoped you would. When I visited, you’d tell me you were doing better. I really started believing you. Except then you never could take the next step and return to England. You needed another option. To have a compelling reason.”

And yet she’d stayed hidden from the world. Hadn’t followed Steven’s vision. “You were the spokesperson for both me and Megan. Everyone had to go through you. All those press conferences. All that attention. You had your fifteen minutes in front of the cameras. And you wanted it back. Is that what it was? Is that when it started? Your addiction to maintaining that lifestyle?”

“At first it was easy to let you go because it was obvious you couldn’t work. And I signed new acts. But no matter how hard I worked, there wasn’t that buzz about them. No psycho stalker boosting their popularity. Do you have any idea the income I lost when Nocturne disbanded?”

“I’m sorry.” It seemed like such an ineffective thing to say.

“But then I figured out a way to make some quick money. A book. From the stalker’s point of view. I even contacted Spinks. But he wasn’t interested. He was convinced he’d be getting out of prison.”

Steven turned and twitched the blind again, and she risked reaching into her pocket for her panic button. The small pin was the only thing she could think of to use as a weapon. She thought her heart was going to jump out of her mouth as he whipped his head around to glower at her. Folding her hands between her knees, she clasped the pin and prayed he hadn’t noticed.

“Spinks talked to you about making a deal?” she asked, trying to get him talking again.

His brows pulled together. “Before he got out, I borrowed money for him. Enough to help create his cavern of horror. I set up an e-mail account and sent him very specific instructions on how to stalk you. I wasn’t worried. I knew Cameron wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you. And I knew you’d try to show him you weren’t terrified.”

She swallowed back the bile that rose in her throat. Steven’s need to control people, his love affair with the cameras, the press, and the public, all had eaten away at his soul. The remaining insidious bitterness had brought him to this.

But she had to be smarter. Had to save herself. “What if I agreed to go back into the recording studio?” she asked with as much sincerity as she could muster.

He walked over to where she sat on the sofa. He lowered onto his haunches and tipped his head to the side. He looked at the ugly bruise on her cheek, then into her eyes.

Unable to breathe, she forced herself to maintain eye contact.

“You must really think I’m stupid,” he said.

“On the contrary,” she confessed. “I’m the stupid one for believing you ever had my best interests at heart. I see now it’s always been about you and what the people you know can do for you.”

He appeared at a loss to respond, but then straightening, he said, “What was that—did you hear something?” He moved swiftly to the window to peer through a slat once again.

She caught a tiny movement out of the corner of her eye, turned her head, and focused hard on the door. Had it been her imagination? Slowly, infinitesimally, the door pushed open. Her heart leapt with joy as Cam moved into view.

“Okay?” he mouthed. Cold fury ignited his eyes as he took in the bruise on her cheek.

Her gaze swept to Steven at the window and then back to Cam. She nodded once and mouthed the word “knife” as she made a tiny stabbing motion with her hand.

A lethal calmness stole over his face. He gestured for her to keep Steven talking, and she looked back at him in consternation. He wasn’t taking her out of here? Then she realized he was here on his own. No backup. He didn’t want to risk her safety, so he needed to bide his time and choose the right moment.

She needed to wait.

She glanced deliberately at the music sheets on the coffee table, then back at him. She wanted him to know she’d seen what he wrote. So he would know she’d taken strength from it. From him. She wanted him to know she would follow his instructions. That they were a team.

Taking a cleansing breath, and keeping her eyes firmly fixed on him, she cleared her throat and asked Steven, “What’s out there? Can you see anything?”

“Don’t know. It all feels wrong. It’s too quiet. Does no one live on this street?”

He sounded tired. They were running out of time.

Cam motioned to keep him talking and held up one finger in his other hand. One more minute.

She could do this. She could keep Steven talking and give Cam a chance to assess the situation. And make a plan. She nodded once and started counting backward in her head. Something she’d been doing one way or another ever since Spinks. Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…

She turned, her gaze drawn unwillingly to the knife Steven held in his hand. “I expect everyone’s at work,” she answered. “Why don’t you put down the knife, Steven? Surely you can’t really mean to hurt me? What about your plan? You need me to sing.” If she could get the knife away from him, that would help Cam.

Steven looked down at the knife and started, as if he’d forgotten he was carrying it. “What makes you think I haven’t changed my plan?”

“Because then you will have murdered two people.” Forty-one, forty, thirty-nine… She had to keep all of Steven’s attention focused on her.

“Maybe I’ll use the knife like Spinks did instead,” Steven said, twisting the blade in his hands as if fascinated by the idea. “Carve something onto you and then slit your wrists. Make it look like suicide, like you couldn’t live without that psycho stalking you.”

She wanted to retch at his words, but she had to stay calm. She had to help Cameron. Twenty-seven, twenty-six, twenty-five… She rose on shaky legs. “You won’t kill me, Steven,” she said. “There’s a big difference between knocking someone down with a car and plunging a knife into someone you know. Besides, if you hurt me, Cam will hunt you down and kill you.”

Steven smirked. “Cameron will follow procedure, just like he always does.”

Sixteen, fifteen, fourteen… She was running out of words, with too many numbers left. Out of sheer desperation, she asked, “You really think so?”

“Of course. People don’t change. Just look at you.” He snorted. “Cameron had the chance to kill Spinks when he found you the first time, but he didn’t. He’ll always follow procedure. Just like you will always run away.”

Three, two, one.

She vaulted over the coffee table and out of the way of the door just as Cam came bursting through it to charge at Steven.

Steven hit the bookcase with a loud crash as Cam threw him against it. Books flew from the shelves. Cam went at Steven with enough rage to put him down, but Steven, desperate and with nothing to lose, fought back with everything he had.

She watched in horror as the knife in Steven’s hand arced up and lashed out.

Nooo!

She didn’t know if the frantic roar was in her head, or if she’d screamed out loud. All she knew was that she couldn’t lose Cam. Not now. Not after everything he’d done for her. All he’d risked for her.

She hadn’t expected him to rush at Steven unarmed. She stared in panic at his chest, waiting sickeningly for blood to flow out. She blinked in incomprehension when his white shirt remained pristine—no blossoming blood. Thank God.

Steven made a noise of frustration and swapped the knife to his other hand. He lurched forward. Cam feinted left, lashing out with his right hand to punch him back against the bookshelves. But he just caught Steven in the shoulder. Steven whipped the knife in, slicing across Cam’s forearm. Blood spurted.

With a cry, Brooke reacted instinctively, grasping her brooch pin and stabbing it hard into Steven’s knife arm.

The man howled in pain, and Cam took the split second of distraction to close the gap. He kicked Steven’s legs out from under him. As Steven’s knees buckled and collapsed under him, Cam dropped onto him. Twisting, he pinned Steven to the floor, face down, his hands locked behind his back.

“I ought to kill you right here, for marking her,” Cam growled at Steven, putting his knee into the small of Steven’s back to keep him down when he tried to wrench free.

“Cam, no!” she cried, reaching forward. “He didn’t hurt me. This,” she said, touching her cheek, “was an accident.”

“He betrayed you,” Cam gritted out, breathing hard. “He was going to hurt you.”

“Stop,” she pleaded when she read the intent in his eyes. “He’s not worth it. I don’t want you to lose everything because of him. Please.” She heard the faint whine of sirens in the distance. “You protected me. You did your job. Now it’s over. It’s truly over.”

…

“Brooke?”

Brooke looked up from where she sat on the sofa as Cam walked into the living room. She smiled. “Hey, you.”

It had been amazing the way he’d dealt with the police and his staff over the past two hours. Efficient. Cool. Professional. But he’d barely looked at her. Had spoken to her only once or twice after the police had carted off Steven, and only to fact-check information.

Now everyone was gone, and she was unsure what would happen next. It had been so easy to harbor hope in her heart when her life was on the line. Now, in the quietness of Cam’s house, with all the threats once and for all extinguished, she was floundering.

If this proved to be one obstacle too many for Cam—one more parcel of guilt for him to unwrap and hold dear… Please let me handle it with grace, she silently prayed. Let me be able to let him go—so he’ll be free to live without guilt.

He came to a stop in front of her, sat down on the edge of the coffee table, and reached out to her. Running his hands gently over her arms, he whispered hoarsely, “Just checking for myself that you’re really all right. Maybe then my heart will start beating again.”

“I’m fine.” He was the one who’d risked his life for her.

His fingers laced with hers. “Brooke, I was coming back to tell you… I need you to know that…”

“Tell me what?”

“That… I love you.”

Her breath lodged in her throat. His eyes sought hers. She reached out a trembling hand and put her fingers against his lips. Not to stem the words, but to check that he was real. That she could believe what he was saying.

“I love you,” he repeated through her fingers.

She felt his warm lips move against her fingertips. Felt the words travel up through her flesh and into her heart. Felt her heart pulse wildly with joyous acceptance. A sweet lightness shot through to her very soul. How could she feel so incredibly light when her heart was so incredibly full?

He pulled her off the sofa and onto his lap. “Enough with the waiting, I think you said. I always told you that you didn’t have to apologize for anything. But I’m sorry for taking so long to tell you. I’m sorry I wasted so much time.”

“Oh, Cam.” None of that mattered now. He loved her! And he wanted the two of them to be together.

Now.

Their lives could finally start now.

Epilogue

Devon, England

Two months later…

Brooke smiled as she felt a hand trail over her shoulder. She paused her fingertips on the keys of Megan’s baby grand piano and turned to look up at the man she loved.

“Finish your song?” Cam asked.

“Nearly,” she replied. She’d been sitting at the piano in Megan’s freshly painted formal great room for a while, tinkering with the same melody.

“Good. We eat in fifteen.”

Brooke smiled again, then glanced out the window, down to the private beach that backed onto the house, spotting Ellie Turner at the barbecue and a recently healed Alex laughing with Megan. When Brooke had moved in with Cameron, both Alex and Ellie had gone to France to fetch her few remaining possessions. As they helped her set up in Cam’s home, she’d become good friends with the two.

“Will you sing me what you have so far?” Cam asked, his fingers running a casual circle over the scar on her shoulder where her treble clef tattoo used to be.

She looked at the leather notebook she’d propped against the music rest, took a breath, and softly hummed out the top line melody while her fingers played the rest. She’d made incredible progress with her music, but she was still a little shy using her voice. It didn’t matter if she ever got it back to professional standards, though. She was never going to sing for a living again.

But she would put her music out there. Of that she was sure.

Life was for living. She and Cam had taught each other that.

“Beautiful,” he murmured into her ear when she’d finished. “Like its composer.”

She reached back to cup his jaw, twisted to kiss him lightly on the lips. Then, taking his hand in hers, she stood. “Come on. Let’s go join the others.”

They walked out onto the balcony together, pausing to look down onto the beach where old and new friends were getting ready to eat. She smiled contentedly as his arms came around her, enveloping her in warmth and love.

“No more waiting,” she whispered, with a heart that couldn’t be more full. She smiled, and the smile tipped into laughter when he nuzzled the side of her neck.

The waiting was over. Now was the time to live. And love.

Acknowledgements

First, thanks must go to the wonderful Nina Bruhns, Editorial Director of Entangled Suspense, for seeing something in my writing and taking a chance on this debut author! Next, massive oodles of thanks must go to my quite simply brilliant editor Rochelle French. Rochelle, I can’t thank you enough for the ways in which you have helped me through the publication and editing process—all with such great skill, patience, warmth, and humor. Kudos! And lastly, I have to give great thanks to my husband. Husband mine, when life got tough and writing along with it, thank you for helping me to mostly laugh, rather than mostly cry. You have always supported me completely in my pursuit of publication, never once telling me that I couldn’t do it, or that it wouldn’t happen. Not only that, you are always on hand to help with character names. Although sadly, Mr. Vill.I.An didn’t make the cut for this book!

About the Author

Growing up in locations like Botswana and Venezuela gave Eve Devon a taste for adventure; her love for romances began when her mother shoved one into her hands in a desperate attempt to keep her quiet during TV coverage of the Wimbledon tennis finals! When Eve wasn’t consuming books by the bucketload, she could be found pretending to be a damsel in distress or running around solving mysteries and writing down her adventures.

As a teenager, Eve wrote countless episodes of TV detective dramas so the hero and heroine would end up together every week. As an adult, still hooked on romance and mysteries, she worked in a library to conveniently continue consuming books by the bucketload, until realizing she was destined to write contemporary romance and romantic suspense herself.

Eve is now happily settled in the UK, a book-devouring, slightly melodramatic, romantic fiction-writing sassy heroine with her very own sexy hero husband.

Visit Eve at her website: http://www.EveDevon.com.