Hendrix’s eyes dredged themselves from his desk, to his obviously rattled assistant. Grace wasn’t used to being gain-said, but that wasn’t his concern. Chloe looked about three blinks away from passing out. “What the hell happened?” He demanded, shooting up and storming across the office. He dismissed Grace with a wave of his hand and slammed the door shut behind her. Chloe flinched at the loud noise and Hendrix pulled her into his arms, holding her tight in the protection of his grip.
She breathed in deep, and then began to shake. “He’s going to petition for access to Ellie. Immediate access.” Her teeth were chattering. “He’s going to take her away unless I go back to him.”
Hendrix groaned against her head. The game was changing. He had to move with it. “He won’t win. I promise you that.”
She sobbed now, finally giving into the grief and worry, as she reached for the yellow piece of paper and handed it to him. “You don’t know him, Hen. He wouldn’t be doing this unless he knew he had me.” She swore softly and went to pull out of his embrace. There was reality to face, and it wasn’t going to happen if she stayed snug in Hendrix’s office.
“Chloe …”
She shook her head, refusing to be placated. “I can’t lose her. Don’t you get it? Damn it! I can’t let anything happen to her.”
He put his hands on her upper arms, holding her steady. When he spoke, it was more emphatically. “Do you trust me?”
She shrugged away from him. “Yes. But it’s…”
“Good.” He interrupted, kissing her gently, and then lifting her head, so that he could stare into her eyes. “My driver is going to take you home. I want you to pack a bag for you and Ellie, and then meet me at my apartment. You’re going to stay with me while we work this out.”
A line formed between her brows. “Stay with you?”
“Yes.” He nodded, as everything fell perfectly into place. The answers he’d been looking for – all of them – brightened in his mind’s eyes. “You and Ellie will move in with me.”
“No,” she laughed uncertainly, as though maybe he was going a little crazy.
“Oh, yes,” he overrode her. “Not only that, Chloe, you’re going to agree to be my fiancé.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Take them out,” he said with a gentle insistence, his black eyes fixed on the diamond studs she habitually wore. He’d looked at them like that earlier that day, when she’d been getting dressed in her apartment. Had it really only been that day?
How much had happened! From her meeting with William, to Hendrix’s strange suggestion that they become engaged, to her even stranger acquiescence. And now, this. Sitting on his leather lounge, fire crackling gently in the grate, Ellie fast asleep in one of the many guests room his penthouse boasted, being told to remove her earrings.
So much for keeping a little distance between Ellie and Hendrix! So much for making the right choices for her daughter! She swallowed guiltily, her cheeks flushing as she thought about how quickly she’d agreed to his suggestion. As though it were as simple as moving in with him! And pretending to be engaged! Her weakness made her heart hurt, because she knew it was a weakness. A selfish, indulgent craving to take whatever Hendrix Forrester could give her, while he was willing to give it.
“Please,” he added, mistaking her hesitation as a reticence to remove the earrings.
Curious, she lifted a hand and toyed with one of the gems. “Why? Why do they bother you?”
He reached for her hand and lowered it. Then, he leaned forward and undid the butterfly clip, sliding first one earring out, and then the other. Chloe was too completely absorbed by his proximity to care.
“Because, Chloe, I am not the kind of man who is happy for another man’s gifts to adorn your body.”
Was it possible that the great Hendrix Forrester was actually jealous? Of some gift that had long ago ceased to have meaning but the aesthetic to Chloe? “But … really?”
His eyes flared with the strength of his emotion. “Yes. Really.” He put the earrings carelessly onto the coffee table, and then stood. “Stay here.”
She watched as he moved with his easy athleticism across the lounge. Dressed in his black suit, he reminded her of some kind of panther – strong, powerful and lithe. He returned a moment later with a small, turquoise bag. Ellie recognised it instantly, of course. Not because she made a habit of shopping at Tiffany & Co, but because she passed bus shelters plastered with their posters, and she was a woman alive in the world.
She swallowed, anticipation at war with consternation. “What is that?” She asked, before he could hand the bag to her.
It was a flicker of emotion that betrayed his amusement, rather than a smile. And it reminded her so strongly of the first time they’d met. Had it really been a month ago?
“It’s a present.”
Her heart began to race in her chest. Her blood was pounding in her ears. “You don’t need to do this,” she rushed. And the suspicion she’d been carrying all week began to crack over her; like an egg breaking its shell, she felt it glide over her skin. The worry that she’d fallen in love with him was with her constantly. And at times like this, it was worst. Because she knew it was true. She did love him. It was the only explanation she had for why she’d behaved so rashly. It was completely out of character for Chloe to entwine her life so completely with a man she had only known for a short time. And yet she’d done it, because she loved him. It terrified her and it excited her all at once.
“No. Of course I don’t need to.” He reached into the bag and selected a small black box. “But the moment I realised that you still wear his jewellery, I vowed to correct that.”
“I don’t wear his jewellery,” she denied. Her fingers lifted to the bare lobes. “I don’t think of it like that, anyway.”