Swallowing the lump of emotion in her throat, she urged her legs to take her forward, feeling as unsteady as her heels suddenly felt.
He had the power to destroy her.
To finish her off.
But she had to do this … was burning with the need to claim him as hers.
He’d been an adolescent crush that she had violently subdued under her strong will, but the love that had grown those evenings when he’d held her, saying nothing to her, only listening and supporting her, was undeniable. She’d asked him to spend time apart, so the paparazzi would stop linking them together, she’d said. But what she’d needed was to give her heart distance from the wild attachment she’d already had for a man who turned heads everywhere he went, whose money and power set him up to get whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
She’d feared that she would never be enough.
But she was.
Now, more than ever, it was right for them. Their bodies had caught up to their emotions, and they were too starved to be denied anymore. Always she’d been putting barriers between them. Distance. Other men. Roland could’ve been a shield for Daniel. And yet Monica had danced too close to the fire, and now she would forever come back to him, like a moth to the flame. Only Daniel could make her burn, and yearn, and love him like this.
Dragging in a steadying breath, she started toward him, knowing with frightening certainty that it wouldn’t be simple. She’d never be able to control him, like she had other men she dated. No, Daniel wouldn’t be easy.
He would be hard. Harder than Davenport’s. Harder than anything she’d ever done. He’d give everything to her, and he’d demand to be paid with the same penny.
Loving Daniel would be both the most difficult thing she’d ever done, and the easiest. And for the first time in her life, she was ready for it.
* * *
“She’s here.”
Daniel’s insides jolted at Chloe’s words.
He’d been aware of her ever since she entered. There was a shifting in the air, an altering in his senses. He hadn’t even turned yet, but a simmering tension lay beneath his muscles, and he was nearly breaking the champagne flute in his hand. Dragging in a deep breath, he set it down on a nearby table and clenched his hands at his sides, already jealous of whoever stood at her side, already desperate to pound the man’s face in until he was unrecognizable to his own kin.
“Just don’t punch anybody here, all right, Danny?” Chloe said, as if reading his mind.
He spoke under his breath. “I don’t know how I’ll react, Chlo, if I see her with him.”
The detective had given Monica the information he’d found about Roland, but Daniel still didn’t know what she would do. She might be delighted she had found the perfect unfeeling partner to spend the rest of her life with. Someone who might, also, love someone else. His stomach roiled with anger and frustration. Stop running away from me, Monica!
“Don’t punch anyone, Daniel,” Chloe warned. She squeezed his arm and whispered, “There are five hundred guests here, Daniel. You’ll never live something like this down, and if you do, then she and her reputation might not. So please. Take it easy.”
He clamped his jaw tight and nodded, but he still visualized turning, seeing them together, and charging down to pound the man to the ground.
It would feel so fucking good, he was already thirsting, was practically delighting in giving way to the raging urge to claim his woman inside him.
He could throw all common sense and logic to the wind and do it, he knew. But all it would do was prove to Monica that he, like her parents, would do violence for h
er. No. He’d be damned if he gave her the satisfaction of thinking she’d made the right choice. Denying what they had between them would never be the right choice. But he could be civil, couldn’t he?
Couldn’t he?
Maintaining himself immobile until he got himself under grips, he stared blindly at the live orchestra at the far end of the room, his blood hot and storming through his veins as he remembered their parting words …
He’s what I choose …
Anger and jealousy whirled inside him again. He wanted to fight for her, openly fight the threat, eliminate it, bump her on the head, and take her to his cave. His body throbbed with the impulse to do just that.
But he couldn’t do this. Not with Monica.
He didn’t want to be her companion. He didn’t want to end up with the Ice Maiden at his side, and no Monica. He loved the Ice Maiden, but he loved Monica more. He knew that to claim a woman like Monica, force was not the issue. She needed to come willingly, on her own, or else Daniel would be able to physically possess her and yet soon realize that, emotionally, she would never be his. No. He’d be damned before he settled for that.
It was all or nothing now.