"Soon," he stated. He had to rub his hand over his chest to ease the dull ache there. "If you miss this party, your dad will do more than just hurt me."

Her lips quirked. "Daddy is fairly particular about this party." She gave a small laugh. "Last year, he nearly drove me insane getting it ready."

His eyes narrowed. "You weren't there last year."

She reapplied her eye shadow, checked it, and glanced over at him. "I've coordinated all the parties Rutherford's has ever thrown since I was eighteen years old," she told him. "Drew didn't like it after we married, so I gave up the official job, just as I gave up my position in the company." She shrugged and looked down before glancing at him again with wry amusement. "I was a bit immature when it came to my ideas of what a good wife should be, I guess."

There was a warning there, and Chase caught it fairly easily.

"So you've always kept your pretty little fingers in that pie?" he asked her.

Kia shrugged. "The whole pie, I would say. Rutherford's will be mine one day. I wasn't willing to be completely ignorant, nor was I willing to turn it all over to Drew, no matter what he wished at the time. If anything ever happens to Daddy, I'll run it. Hopefully as well as he has."

Son of a bitch. He stared back at her. It hit him then. She hadn't been in society, she had quit her official position at the job, but for years club members had listened to Drew Stanton bitch about the amount of time his in-laws demanded of his wife.

She had been keeping both hands in that pie and Drew never had a clue.

"You could be a scary woman if you wanted to be, Kia," he finally told her with a grin. "Remind me to never try to tie you down."

She shrugged at that. "You make your own ties, don't you think, Chase? No one can tie you down. You can only tie yourself. I haven't done anything that I didn't think was best at that time. I hope I don't change that in the future."

Pure steel. Sweet and soft, silken and warm. But inside she had a will to match his.

"Get out of here." She nodded to the door. "You need to dress and we need to leave. I promised my parents we'd be on time, and we're already going to be a bit late."

Chase shook his head, but he went. He should have guessed, he thought. She had stepped back into Rutherford's as though she had never left it. Because she hadn't left it, not entirely. And she had stepped back into society with her head held high and her chin raised, daring comments.

She was tiny, fragile. A man could break her with one hand, but Chase knew that the indomitable spirit he was glimpsing would never be broken.

And he didn't want it broken. He wanted to see how strong she could get, how much she could challenge him, and he wanted the woman, the confidence, and the sheer adventure of loving her, of learning her day by day.

Damn, he was in deep here, he thought, as he stepped into the shower. He wished he had showered before going to her. He could have worn the scent of her flesh on him as she was wearing his on her.

Damn cock. It sprang up as hard as it had been the first time he had taken her at that thought. The thought of her wearing him, his seed still lingering inside her, marking her. He had to clench his teeth and force himself to shower rather than taking the additional time to jack off.

Jacking off wasn't needed. It would wait, he told himself. Tonight, when he got her home, tonight he would tell her.

He'd stare into her eyes and he'd give her the words tearing him apart inside.

"I love you, Kia." He whispered it in the shower. Those were words he had never given another woman. An emotion he had never thought he would feel for anyone. And it was frankly terrifying.

Chase Falladay had stared down bullets, drug runners, and even a few terrorists in his days at the Bureau, and he had never known terror. But now, realizing the depth of emotion he felt for Kia, he realized his guts were clenched in fear.

Because losing her would mean losing himself. And that was a risk he had sworn he would never take.

Chapter 24

From the moment they entered the Rutherford-Edgewood charity ball Chase knew there was going to be a problem. Not because he intended to start the problem. He was a great believer, in some situations, in letting people hang themselves. It made his life a lot less complicated when he did that.

And he knew the only way he was going to be able to break Drew Stanton's face was if the bastard started it. Otherwise, Kia was going to be a while in forgiving him.

He was very much afraid she wouldn't resort to the normal means of making a man pay either. Gutting him off would be the least of the punishments he might well receive.

"Stay away from Stanton," he whispered to her as they entered the ball and she moved into the receiving line with her parents and aunt and uncle.

Chase stood carefully behind her as the guests who had been waiting in the lobby for the ballroom doors to open began to file in.

"I'm not stupid," she murmured before the first guest appeared.

Chase was amazed at the line. Hollywood figures, senators, a member of a Middle Eastern royal family, and the cream of Alexandria and the District's social set moved through it.

Neither Rutherford nor Edgewood was powerful enough politically to pull in some of the names that were attending. But the charity, the band, and the nationally known singer who had donated her time to the ball, no doubt at Kia's urging, had drawn them in.

It was a social coup, Chase began to realize as the line moved into the ballroom and the adjoining dining room and buffet.

The band was moving into place, though the female performer had yet to make her appearance.

As Chase stood protectively behind Kia, he observed the figures as they went by. He could feel the hairs at the nape of his neck tingling. A sense of foreboding warned him trouble was coming.

He couldn't get the look of Kia's apartment out of his mind, or the fact that somehow, someone had managed to screw over the security in both the secured office as well as Kia's door.

There was something that wasn't clicking, he could feel it. He should have the answers, the reasons why, and they weren't adding up in his mind.

Drew had never seemed psychotic, until recently. Of course, Kia could make a man crazy, Chase reminded himself.

As the line finally thinned and dwindled, she turned to him with a strained smile.

"If I don't get a glass of wine, I may well collapse at your feet," she told him.

"We can't have that." His arm went around her, his gaze taking in the violet and silver-threaded gown she wore.

She loved velvets, he was going to have to remember that. And she looked damned good in it. The gown made her look like a fairy princess.

Moving across the ballroom he guided her to the table Khalid, Ian, and Courtney had taken on the outer edge of the ballroom. Conversation hummed around them, glasses clinked, and laughter filled the room as the band played the soft strains of a Christmas tune.

"Poor Kia. Your feet must be killing you." Courtney smiled as Chase held Kia's chair out for her.

There was a hint of strain to Courtney's eyes, though, as well as in Ian's expression. And if Chase wasn't mistaken, Khalid was at the edge of losing his temper.

With Khalid, it wasn't always easy to tell. That thin scar at the side of his jaw was always a dead giveaway, though. It went perfectly white with his fury. And it was almost snowy at the moment.

"My feet will take weeks to uncramp." Kia sighed as Chase caught a passing waiter and relieved him of a glass of champagne before ordering Kia's favorite wine and a whiskey for himself.

He set the champagne at her elbow.

"You're an angel." She smiled back at him mischievously as Ian and Courtney both made a sound of denial to that description.

He kissed her upturned lips quickly, then whispered in her ear, "I'll remind you of that later, sweetheart."

Her laughter was what he needed to hear. He didn't sit down. He watched as Khalid rose from his chair instead and moved around the table.

"Could we speak for a moment?" Khalid asked, his lips thin as he glanced around the room.

Chase glanced around, then with a grimace bent to Kia. "I'll be right back." He glanced at Ian and received in response a nod that the other man would watch over her.

He and Khalid stepped back, too far from Kia to suit Chase, until they were against the wall in one of the few clear areas in the room.

"What's up?" he asked.

Khalid shoved his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo trousers and frowned.

"Ian met with Drew this afternoon," Khalid finally stated, his gaze moving over the ballroom before coming back to Chase. "He had information that may well concern you and Kia as well."

This wasn't about the attack on Kia. If it had been, Khalid or Ian would have contacted him. This was personal, and Chase had a pretty good idea what it was.

Khalid grimaced, his lips flattening again, obviously reluctant to give Chase the information.

"Does it have anything to do with the fact that you were Drew Stanton's third that night?" Chase finally asked.

Khalid's eyes flared with surprise. "You knew?"

Chase shrugged at the question. "You're too protective of Kia, Khalid. You were either in love with her or eaten up with guilt. I know you too well, my friend. I knew it wasn't love; that left guilt. It was easy to figure it out from there."

Normally, Khalid's lusts ran much darker and a bit rougher than what he had displayed with Kia. The other man had been too intent, had gone to abnormal lengths to make certain each touch, each kiss, each caress was nothing but pleasure, nothing but those strokes, those whispers that would build a woman's confidence and her pleasure.

"And I'm still alive?" Khalid asked.

Chase grunted at that. Killing Khalid wouldn't be that easy.

He had figured it out during that second ménage with Kia. But there was no anger. As Drew's third that night, Khalid had made certain Kia wasn't raped, that she had the precious time she needed to lock herself away from Drew. Then he had called her father to come for her.

"You saved her, Khalid," he said finally, with a sigh. "It's not your place to feel guilt over what happened that night. She got through it. She might not have if you hadn't been there."

Khalid nodded slowly, then said, "It seems my threats have lost their effectiveness. Drew is threatening to go before the review board of the club to have my membership placed under sanction. This, too, I thought you should be aware of, should you require me again. By sanctioning me, they will also be sanctioning any relationships I have formed within the club." He looked over at Kia. "She is a beautiful woman, my friend. That part I would regret. The rest…" He shrugged again. "My life affords me the freedom and whatever pleasures I choose. However I choose them."

Chase grinned at that. Arrogance wasn't something Khalid lacked.

Then he frowned. Kia's father had moved to the table and was holding his hand out to her. Timothy Rutherford wanted a dance with his daughter. Damn.

He watched as she was drawn to the dance floor. The female per-former was singing a lighthearted ballad, her clear, pretty voice bringing the couples to the dance floor. And it was filling up.

He didn't like that because he kept losing sight of her and her father. He tracked their progress and felt that edge of danger biting at his neck again.

"You are in love with her, are you not?" Khalid asked, his voice faintly showing his amusement.

Chase took a second to glance at him ruefully. "Is it that easy to see?"

"Eh, only to one who knows you well, perhaps." Khalid grinned. "But it appears I will win the pool this month. I predicted your fall before the end of the third week of December. The others were predicting much later."

That damned club pool. That was Courtney's fault, damn her. Somehow she managed to sneak into the club and write the bet down on the books every damned time it struck her fancy.