“No, Sheila, I just thought this time, I’d found a woman who didn’t need to be dragged kicking and screaming into life.” He turned back and glanced at her for just a second. A very short, very disappointed second. “I guess I was wrong.”
He opened the door and walked straight out of the room. The door closed behind him, an almost silent click that for some odd reason had Sheila flinching involuntarily.
She felt her stomach drop, then clench. Tears sprang to her eyes and she didn’t understand why. She couldn’t explain the dampness or the sense of agony that tore through her.
Her father had told her once, well, really, he’d told her several times that her habit of honesty was going to end up hurting her more than she was going to be able to heal.
That might have just happened, and she couldn’t explain to herself why it had. All she wanted was the truth. She just wanted to know if there was a chance that he loved her. That he could love her.
Pulling her boots, on, she pushed her toes forward as she jerked the expensive leather over first one foot, then the other.
She felt the heel that contained the flash drive she had collected earlier that night. Before she had danced with Casey. Before she had asked him what he wanted for her and before she had experienced the most incredible sex of her life.
What had she done?
Shaking her head at the frustration caused by that question, Sheila moved slowly to the door and left the room as well. Rather than leaving by the public exit, Sheila moved through the dimly lit hallway to the door in the back.
Pressing the code to the back door, Sheila slipped from the building and made her way to her car. She hit the remote to unlock it and managed to get inside before the first tear fell.
How had this happened?
Call him when she figured out the obvious answer as to why he wanted a relationship with her?
What was the obvious answer?
Laying her head against the steering wheel, she let the tears fall, though she tried to hold back the sobs.
There was no obvious answer. Casey wasn’t a man who held a whole lot back in that way. He threw himself into whatever endeavor he took on. Whether he was laughing, drinking, fighting, or fucking, he gave it everything he had. If the obvious answer was “love,” he would have never allowed her to push him away. He would have never left the words unsaid between them.
He would have told her he loved her. Wouldn’t he?
A sob shook her shoulders, surprising her. The sound had her jerking her head up, wiping the tears away, and fighting back fresh ones.
Crying didn’t help, she told herself. Feeling sorry for herself sure as hell wasn’t going to improve the situation.
Pushing the key into the ignition, she started her car and pulled out of the parking space. She didn’t know if she could bear coming in night after night now, without Casey’s touch, without his determined seduction.
How was she supposed to live without it now? How was she supposed to live without him?
* * *
Nick Casey’s woman left the parking lot, but it had taken her awhile to get going. And there was the suspicion she had been crying in her car.
What had Casey done to make her cry?
If Nick Casey was truly Beauregard Fredrico, then it could be any number of things. He wasn’t likely to break a tender heart, or to throw away a precious female he had seduced so effectively.
He had been much sought after in Italy before the Fredrico empire had crumbled.
Beauregard Fredrico, so handsome, so charming, and so disapproving of the families and the rules that had sustained them for so many generations.
Making his woman cry wouldn’t change how he felt about her, though. And Nick Casey, despite the gossip that he cared for no woman, treated this woman far differently than any other he had taken to his bed.
Yes, there was love here, and that was surprising. He wasn’t known for allowing his heart to become so involved with a woman. And neither was Beauregard Fredrico. Yet, all men loved eventually, didn’t they?
And this man’s heart was well and truly involved with his woman. It was proven by the fact that he stood in the shadows watching as she left, his expression heavy—was that sadness lining it as well?
It seemed this man felt much more for this woman than even he was comfortable with. How surprising. Judging by the look on his face, perhaps he and the woman had argued. Or was there a split? Because that was grief twisting his expression, and anger. Casey was not happy with his woman, or with himself. Perhaps some help was needed to draw them back together. After all, when a man and woman loved so fiercely, such separation should not be allowed. Nothing short of, well, death, should keep them apart.
Unfortunately, despite the subtle moves that had been made to frighten his woman, Casey still appeared unconcerned, and had not made the phone call that would bring in reinforcements for only one man. Beauregard had an army at his disposal. He had only to make a single call to cash in on the vows made to him.
And yet, he had not made that call. Perhaps he needed to be convinced.
With a deft turn of the wrist, the ignition of the four-by-four pickup sprang to life.
Pulling out of the shadowed parking spot and following Miss Rutledge took only seconds. Options began to come into focus and play out. Beau wasn’t getting a clue. He hadn’t yet realized his woman was in danger. A danger Beau couldn’t resolve on his own, and there was no chance he would tell
