Both men are quiet, the heavy silence telling me they both know it sounds bad.

“I’ll ind someone there to help,” Blake says. “In the meantime, my staf will do what we can do from a distance.”

“Good,” Chris says. “I’m going to talk to Rey, my security person, and see if he has any suggestions, too. I’ll check in tomorrow.”

“Wait,” I quickly say. “Before you hang up, Blake. The lady at City Hall who helped us today said someone else had been by to check on Ella’s marriage license yesterday.”

Chris’s brows dip. “Did she give you any details on this person?”

I shake my head. “We were gone by the time Chantal told me. I didn’t have the opportunity to ask questions.”

Chris doesn’t look happy. “I’ll go back to City Hall, Blake.

You just get on this and let me know what you ind out. So you have nothing new on Rebecca?” he inishes.

“Nothing new.” Blake hesitates. “Ava’s sticking by her claim of innocence.”

“You mean her claim of my guilt.” My tone is lat and I drop my chin to my knees.

Chris spares Blake an answer. “Call me tomorrow with an update.”

“Will do.” Blake adds, “It will work out, Sara.” Then the line goes dead.

I can’t seem to make myself move. I let my lashes lower, and my chin sink a little heavier onto my knees.

Chris doesn’t ofer me words of comfort, and I’m glad.

Somehow, he knows I’ve reached my limit with words. I just need a moment of silence to calm a dark something brewing inside me before it has a name. I just need . . . a minute.

Then his hands come down on the edge of the tub in front of me. “Look at me, Sara.” His tone is pure dominance and authority, and it hits a button in me that snaps my gaze to his.

“Stop. No more.”

I blink. “What?”

“Fear is controlling you and it’s tearing you up inside. If you think I’m going to sit by and watch you do that to yourself, you don’t know me as well as you need to.”

My rebuttal is instant. “I’m not. It’s not.”

“You are, and it is. Focus on what you can control. That’s what I meant about limits, on the airplane. Know what you can bend to your will, and don’t waste energy on what you can’t.

It’ll suck you dry, like it is right now.”

“We’re talking about pending murder charges, and—”

“There are no pending murder charges. The police are simply making a case against Ava that rules out her using you as a defense later. And you’re here, where you don’t have to endure that process like you would in San Francisco.”

My defensiveness bristles into high gear. “It’s not just the murder charge. Most important, Ella is in trouble. I know she is—just like I knew Rebecca was dead.” I choke on the last word.

“And worry helps her how?”

I gape. He sounds so damn cold. “I can’t even believe you’re saying this! I’m not going to stop worrying about Ella.”

He squats down in front of me, and I’m captured by his commanding stare. “I’m not telling you not to worry. I’m telling you to face that worry, and then put it in the same box you put your father and Michael. Because it’s no more worthy of your heartache than they are.”

Those words punch me in the chest. Fear and denial have always been my poison. When I fear, I deny. But I can’t deny anything that’s going on now, and I don’t know what to do with that. Yes, my father and Michael are tucked inside a box, but the lid is so freshly sealed that I’m not sure how I managed to do that.

“We’ll hire the best of the best to ind Ella,” Chris promises, his tone gentler, “and I’ll do everything I can, too. But you have to focus on what you can control, not what you can’t.” He strokes a thumb from my cheek to my ear, and goose bumps rise as if he’d touched me all over. “We attack the problems.

They don’t attack us. And we do it together.”

I look deep into his eyes and ind myself wrapped in the familiar connection we share. It streams through me like moonlight on a bay, glistening through my soul. I sigh deep inside, tingling and warm, and I dare to admit what I’ve feared has left me too vulnerable, too easily hurt. Chris is how I opened, and then shut, my proverbial box to seal away the past. He made it possible. “I love you, Chris.” And I love how easy it is to say the words, how safe I feel to say them.

“I love you, too, baby. We have this under control. I promise.”

I reach up and let my wet ingers drag across his jaw. “Ah, my beautiful, talented artist. You have it under control. You always do.” I envy him that, but it feels good to know I’m getting there myself, and that I don’t have to do it alone.

He captures my wrist, his eyes twinkling with amusement, his seductive lips hinting at a smile. I like making him smile.

“Beautiful?”

He makes me smile. “Oh, yes.”

A sexy mix of heat and mischief seeps into his eyes, warning me I have a wicked, wonderful surprise coming my way, before he lifts my hand, presses his lips to my palm, and draws a circle with his tongue. I gasp at the unexpected, incredibly erotic act, and he leans back, dragging my wet hand down his neck before he stands up.

Biting my lip, I watch him take his pants of, and vow to call him beautiful more often if this is my reward. Chris watches me watch him and, when he is gloriously na**d, my eyes gobble up every last inch. He is hard. Everywhere. I like how hard he is everywhere. And I am now hot when the water no longer is, but I don’t think I’m going to care in a minute.

He steps into the tub and pulls me down so that we’re facing each other on our sides. “Your stitches are going to get wet,”

I warn, touching the bandage on his arm.

“I’m allowed to get them wet after twenty-four hours.” He wraps his leg over mine and settles the thickness of his erection between my thighs. “Ever had bathtub sex before?”

“No. Never.”

He begins to playfully tease my nipple with his inger. “Me, either.”

Surprised, my eyes go wide. “I’ll be your irst.”

He pulls me on top of him and brings my mouth near his.

“You’re the irst for a lot of things.”

I smile and then moan as he presses between my thighs and smoothly enters me. I suck in a breath as he thrusts deeply, burying himself as far as he can; then he stills and stares at me.

“About those limits. You’ll ind you don’t get any with me.”

“I wasn’t aware I’d asked for any,” I say.

He rolls to his back and pulls me on top of him. “Ride me, baby.”

It’s one of the rare moments he’s let me on top, given me control, and considering how scorchingly hot I ind his dominance, I’m surprised by how much I like it. His eyes rake over my body, and the heavy-lidded, lust-laden expression on his face says he likes it, too.

I revel in my ability to make this amazing man, this beautiful, seemingly always in-control man, lose himself to passion— and I gladly obey his command. I ride him and the fantasy that I never seem to make reality, but he does. The one called control.

Saturday, July 14, Layover, Los Angeles I hate sharing. I hate being shared. This is what is on my mind as I sit in the airport, so close to home but feeling so far away.

It seems important as I return home to know what I will and will not accept in my relationship with “him” if we are to have one again. He knows I won’t sign another contract, but I want something that runs deeper than ink on the page. He says he’s ready for that, but is he capable of the commitment I crave? This is a man who brought others to our most intimate moments, who brought her to our bed when he knew it upset me. She hates me. It’s in her eyes every time we’re near each other, but I still had to endure her touching me. And him. I had to watch her touch him.

I shiver just writing about it, thinking about it. The only reason I endured it, and I can forgive it as the past, is his reason for doing it. Or what I believe in my heart to be his reason. He was hiding from a real connection with me and I know, I just know, that’s why he brought her to our play when we grew closer. She was his wall. His protection. Can he let down his walls? Can he let me see the real him? Can he love me as I love him? I only know that I can’t settle for less. It’s everything or nothing . . .

Thirteen

Morning comes way too soon, considering I’m still on San Francisco time and wrapped in Chris’s arms. Apparently feeling the same way, Chris moans at the sound of the alarm, burying his face in my neck. “What time is it?

“Early.” I reach to the marble-topped nightstand and hit SNOOZE on the alarm clock.

Chris lifts his head and glares at the display. Six thirty. “Why exactly are we waking up this early? I don’t have to be at the museum until ten.”

“Chantal’s taking me to the embassy to get my passport, and she thinks we need to be there when they open at eight thirty.”

I roll toward the edge of the bed and Chris’s big leg shackles mine, holding me in place.

“You aren’t going to the embassy without me. I’ll take you on Monday.” His voice is absolute pure authority, the voice I ind so utterly erotic, it can sink me to my knees on a rug.

This morning, I bristle at his command and roll to face him, my hands going to his bare chest, his eyes sweeping my bare breasts. My ni**les pucker and I’m irritated that my body betrays me.

“Stop trying to distract me,” I snap.

“You’re the one distracting me. You’re not going to the embassy without me.”

“I don’t need you to escort me to the embassy, Chris. There will be plenty of English speakers there. Besides, Chantal will be with me.”

“Ella is missing and some stranger is looking for her. I don’t want you running around on your own.”

“Running around?” I demand. A frustrated sound escapes my lips. “I’m taking care of business, Chris. And whoever was asking about Ella was looking for her, not me.”

“There’s a connection to you now since you’ve been asking around about her. I’m not taking a chance. Wait for me.”

“Last night you told me to take control of my circumstances and stop wallowing in fear. Now you’re telling me to hide in the house. That’s a double-edged sword you don’t get to use. Talking to the embassy about Ella is action, not fear, and I don’t want to put this of.”

“You’re not going, Sara.”

Unbidden, old demons begin to stir inside me. “Yes. I am.”

He stares at me for several intense seconds. I stare back. He reaches across me and grabs his cell phone from the end table.

“What are you doing?” I demand, certain that whatever it is won’t please me.

“Canceling my meetings.”

My eyes go wide. “No!” I roll to my back and cover the phone with my hand. “You can’t do that. What you’re doing at the museum is too important.”

“Then wait for me.”

I open my mouth to argue, but a glimpse of some deep, dark emotion in his eyes seals my lips. I remember seeing this look when he’d confessed fear for my safety. Suddenly my past, where my mother and I were more property than people, feels inconsequential compared to how deeply death has touched Chris’s life.

Copying the familiar, sexy way he reaches behind my neck and pulls me to him, I slide my ingers under his hair and bring his mouth to mine, letting our lips linger until I feel him relax into me. Intimate seconds tick by where his very existence tingles through my body and nestles deep in my soul. When our mouths inally part, I stare into his gorgeous green eyes. I will never get tired of looking into those eyes. “Thank you for worrying about me. I’ll be okay. I promise. I won’t go anywhere else. Straight there and back.”

The hard lines of his handsome face soften, his mood doing one of the dramatic shifts I’ve come to expect from Chris.

“You’re never going to be good at taking orders, are you?”

I grin, and go where I once never would have dared. “I thought I did pretty well on the rug the other day.”

Surprise and hunger register in his stare, and he drops the phone on the nightstand. “Yes, you did,” he agrees huskily, settling his heavy, perfect weight on top of me and pressing my thighs open. His thick erection presses into the V of my body.

His arms settle by my head and wispy strands of blond hair brush his brow. The hunger in his eyes has turned outright ravenous. I am breathless. “Maybe,” he suggests silkily, “I should take you back to the rug right now.”

Liquid heat pools between my thighs and I wrap my arms around his neck. “And risk Chantal walking in on us this time?”

“If she wasn’t on her way”—his head dips, and I feel his warm breath against my cheek, my lips—“would you want to go back to the rug?”

The idea, mixed with the seductive way he presses a kiss behind my ear, sends a surge of desire pulsing through me. “Yes,” I admit, breathless. “I would want to go back to the rug.”

He goes still for a moment before he smiles against my cheek. “I wonder what it would take for me to make you agree to that this morning?” His hand sweeps the curve of my breast, trailing down to my waist, and then pressing to my belly and lower. A burning sweet spot between my thighs aches for his touch. The alarm goes of again and I want to scream with the injustice of the timing, with how close he was to that spot.