; She looked up at Clarke. “That’s the first time I’ve fully realized that,” she told him. “I was like a possession. Not a real person to him...”
And all the while, she’d been committed to making their vows matter, to being true and loyal, to making the marriage work, rather than walking out on it when times got tough.
“What an idiot I was.”
“No!” His shoulders, even bigger in the confined space due to the heavy coat he wore, seemed to loom so large. The car’s heater was on, but the late afternoon chill still filled the air. “Don’t judge yourself by his failings,” he told her.
“I chose him.”
“You chose what he presented himself to be. The lies are on him.”
She’d buy that, except... “How do I know, how does anyone ever know, what’s really inside someone else’s head?” she asked him. “I fell for Fritz’s lies. What’s to say I wouldn’t fall for another guy like that? I should have been able to sense that something was off...”
“Except that it probably wasn’t off at first. Or maybe wasn’t ever all the way off. I’m guessing there was a part of him that was the man you saw, the man you loved. Part of him who wanted to be that man.”
“Maybe.” Or maybe Clarke was just being kind. “But the cheating... They say a woman knows. I didn’t.”
“Sometimes we only see what we expect to see.”
She frowned. “You think I didn’t want to know he was cheating, so I subconsciously turned a blind eye to it, mentally as well as physically?”
“I’m saying that you believed him to be one thing and so that was what you saw. You had faith in your husband, Everleigh. That’s a good thing.”
So why didn’t it feel good? Why did it leave her alone at thirty-eight with no family of her own, no kids, no career and feeling like a fool...and having to hide out in a gorgeous man’s luxury condominium and pretend he was her boyfriend, just to try to save her life?
Ping! A sound came from just behind her, down by the seat. Jerking with a force that slammed her hand into the door handle, she ducked just as Clarke said “Get down!” with enough urgency to fill her with fear.
The car sped up so fast the force sent her backward into the seat. Then he swerved, and her shoulder hit the console beside her. She hid, fear consuming her, and waited for Clarke to give the all clear.
“It’s safe now,” he said thirty seconds later. She sat up, glancing at the inside of the secure parking garage underneath his condominium building.
“What was that?” she asked, but she knew, her heart beating so loud she could count the beats.
“Sounded like a gunshot to me,” he said, looking in the rearview mirror, and off to both sides of them as he pulled out his phone. They were not only underground, but the entry was secured by a guard in a booth, with car admittance only possible with a windshield transmitter that opened the gate. There were security cameras. They’d be checked.
And a little while later, a police officer, standing outside her car door, confirmed that a bullet had hit Clarke’s vehicle just behind and below the window where Everleigh’s head had been.
Gathering her things, she got out of the SUV, trying not to notice Clarke’s solid warmth beside her, or his body practically wrapping around hers as he guided her toward the very private, very quiet elevator up to his home.
She was shaking. Needing a feel-good to get her out of the hell her life had become. And still trying not to remember that she was intrigued by her protector.
That he’d been breathing heavy after he’d kissed her...
Because she was completely serious about not letting him touch her again in that way. About not responding to him. No matter how attractive she might find him.
Or how safe he made her feel.
Chapter 8
The night was easier to get through than he’d supposed. Everleigh made the enchiladas, as she’d said she’d do, while he worked in his office, getting reports from officers in the field around Fritz Emerson’s health spa, and from his family at police headquarters, too. So far, no one was talking about any woman Fritz might have been sleeping with. And there’d been no prints, other than Everleigh’s and Fritz’s, found in the Emerson home. Whoever had broken into Everleigh’s home had worn gloves. There’d been no sign of a shooter, or any shell casings, in the block between the latest attempt on Everleigh’s life and his home, either.
He hadn’t noticed any vehicles following them. Or any suspicious behavior. The security cameras hadn’t caught anything and the police investigation didn’t turn up anything, either.
Which meant that whoever was after Everleigh was either damn lucky, or someone who fit so completely into the world around them that Clarke and Everleigh could be looking straight at the criminal and not seeing them acting oddly in any way.
That strengthened his theory that the perp might be one of Fritz’s secret past mistresses, someone who didn’t stand out in any way. Nothing else made sense. The Emersons hadn’t been in any substantial debt. There’d been no gambling or failed business ventures, other than the health club that was no longer supporting itself but had been solely owned by Fritz.