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“No.”
Chloe moved to him without thinking about it. Her legs carried her forward, controlled only by the yearning to comfort him; to remove his pain. “Why not? You’re a brilliant lawyer with a whole firm at your disposal. How did he get away with it?”
“Money, Chloe. The Williams of the world are used to throwing money around to make their problems go away. His blood tests miraculously came up clear.”
“How?” She demanded, outraged on Hendrix’s behalf.
“I presume he paid the lab to switch his test with someone else’s. The police eventually concluded that it was just an accident. One of those things.” His tone rang with cynicism.
“That’s … terrible!”
“Yes,” he agreed, angling his face to hers. And his eyes were like black chunks of coal. She shivered at the rage that emanated from him. “So you see, Chloe, I know what we’re facing with your husband. I know what he’s capable of. And I won’t let you get screwed over.” He unhooked the ring from his thumb and placed it back on her hand.
Chloe stared down at it, her heart jackhammering in her chest. She thought about pointing out that William wasn’t necessarily anything like the man who’d killed Eleanor. But Hendrix was hurting, and she wanted to take that hurt away. She reached up a hand and curled her fingers around his cheek. “I’m so sorry about your sister.”
His chest was rising and falling with the strength of his breathing. What could he say? She’d been as much a victim as Eleanor. The same man had weaved poison through their lives.
“I want to go to bed,” she said quietly, her hands dropping to his chest.
“Are you tired?” He queried, realising belatedly that they hadn’t eaten.
“No.” She shook her head, sadness in her expression. And something else. She stood on tiptoes and captured his lips. Her kiss was warm and gentle. Soft and filled with promise. A promise that it would be okay. Not for her, but for him. She felt his ache, she understood his sadness, and she was kissing it away.
He groaned, deepening the kiss, and lifting her against his body. He didn’t want her gentle touch. He didn’t want her to be soft with him. That was too much. More than he deserved.
Her body, on the other hand, he was powerless to resist. He carried her to his room, not even pausing to turn the light on. He didn’t do anything that might delay his coming together with Chloe Ansell-Johns. His need for her was all-consuming. As though he could erase all of the chaotic disaster that had brought them together in the first place.
He made love to her as though he was possessed by demons. Which, he acknowledged hours later, he was. Demons of the past, and demons of a future which would not feature Chloe.
Not when she learned the truth.
And so he held her tight in that moment, aware that he would have to let her go soon enough.
For the time was near. Soon, he would put his plan into action. Soon. But not yet. He wasn’t ready just yet.
CHAPTER NINE
The falling rain should have been his first clue. It was heavier than usual; a real downpour, it drenched New York with a thunderous insistence.
Hendrix sat in his chair, his eyes dark, his mood darker still.
“I can do this, sir.” Clint Douglas was not prone to nervousness. But the always over-bearing Hendrix Forrester was in a strange mood. He’d barely looked at Clint since he arrived in his office an hour earlier. Only a small nod every so often gave any indication that Hendrix was listening.
“Perhaps,” Hendrix conceded quietly.
Far, far beneath him, the stage was being set. William would be near enough to the building. If he hadn’t in fact already arrived. And Chloe? His stomach dropped as he thought of her. The woman he’d intended to use as a pawn in his revenge plot now stood to find out, for the second time in her young life, that men were untrustworthy bastards.
“Do you w
ant me to?”
She’d been in his apartment for a fortnight. She, and Ellie. If it was possible, his gut ached even harder. The little girl with the mop of fair curls and beaming eyes had worked her way into his spirit in a terrifying way. Despite his best efforts to keep a hard heart, he’d fallen under her spell too.
“No.” He tipped his head, so that he could face his young associate.
“No what, sir?”
Hendrix turned back to the view. “No, I don’t want you to take this meeting. You’ve got all the paperwork in the file?”
