“I don’t suppose you have an umbrella under that jacket of yours?”

“’Fraid not,” he replies, shrugging out of his jacket to wrap the heavy weight around me. “Let me pull the car as close to the door as I can get it. Watch for me at the curb, but it’s still a pretty good run.”

An image of me slipping and falling lat on my face is not a pleasant one, and I take of his coat, wishing I hadn’t left mine with Rey. “No, it’s too heavy for me to run in. Really. I’m no Grace Kelly, Chris. I will fall. I’d rather just leave now with you.” I shiver and hug myself. “I want out of this place.”

“I’m parked too far away. Wait for me. I’ll come back to the door with something to cover you up.”

“Fine. If you want to play Mr. Good Guy. I’ll wait. But please hurry. I don’t want Bernard cornering me again.”

Chris shoves an arm back in his coat, and the prickling sensations on my neck return. Uneasily, I glance around the lobby, and I’m instantly drawn to the proile of a man leaning against a nearby wall. He glances up and I gasp with shock at the familiar face. The man straightens instantly, preparing to bolt, and I grab Chris’s shirt. “It’s the pickpocket from the airport. He’s here.”

“Where?”

I point.

My pickpocket has dashed for the door in a full sprint.

Chris turns to me, hands solidly planted on my shoulders. “Stay here. And I mean stay here, Sara.” Then he runs for the door.

Sixteen

I’m running before Chris is even outside. There’s no way I’m staying inside when he’s chasing a criminal who could easily be armed.

Shoving my way past the doors, struggling to slide my purse across my chest, I burst outside, and I might as well have been sprayed in the face with a ire hose for the ierceness of the cold rain attacking me. Shoving my soaked hair from my face, I desperately scan for Chris, and ind him in a hard run to my left. Instantly I am in motion, wishing my thin silk blouse was warmer and my heels lower. Wishing even more that I dared have my phone ready in case I need to call for help, without the downpour ruining it.

When I am a half a block from the embassy, Chris is another half block ahead of me, and the rain is torture. I swipe the water clinging to my face, as if that will really help. I blink again and panic when I can’t ind Chris. One minute he was in front of me, the next he is out of sight. Panic assails me, and my heart jackhammers. Thunder crashes above me and I nearly jump out of my skin, but I keep running.

At the end of the street I scan wildly in all directions and cut left, the path without a street to cross and the logical choice, praying it’s the right one. I’m another block down, doubting I’ve chosen correctly, when a swinging gate catches my attention and instinct stops me in my tracks.

Cutting around the corner, I see a small, deserted court-yard and gasp as I discover Chris and the pickpocket in a physical scramble. My ingers curl around the metal gate and I barely contain a scream as Chris is shoved against the wall and punched in the face. A second later, the pickpocket is against the same wall and I watch as Chris throws a blow himself, followed by another. And he does it with his painting hand.

I don’t think; I just act, running toward them. I have to save his hand. “No!”

“Get back, Sara!” Chris shouts at me, and I cringe as my distracting him results in him getting a knee in the gut. Chris punches the guy again.

“Your hand!” I scream, closing the distance between us, and latching on to his elbow. “You’re going to hurt your hand!”

Chris curses and holds of a kick from the other man.

“Damn it, Sara, back away!” He punches the guy again, and this time the man slumps.

Chris leans in close to the other man and says something I can’t hear, let alone understand. The man’s reply is muled, a near growl. Chris knees him in the gut and the man starts talking. When he stops, Chris releases him, grabbing me and pulling me behind him.

The stranger darts of through the gates and Chris whirls on me, his ingers digging into my shoulders, rain plastering his hair onto his face. “Wait means wait, damn it!”

Blood rushes in my ears. “Your hand. Let me see your hand.”

His expression is pure fury unleashed, and instead of showing me his hand, he grabs mine and pulls me back onto the sidewalk and into a mad dash. Two briskly covered blocks later, we rush into a bar, rain dripping of our clothes and forming puddles on the hardwood loors. Chris doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t have to. Anger crackles of him, and I have the distinct impression he’s barely contained.

He asks the big guy at the door, “Toilette?”

We receive a inger point and a one-word reply, and we’re on the move again, my hand still irmly in Chris’s. The adrenaline readying me for our soon-to-come confrontation is all that keeps my aching feet and chilled body in motion down a light of stairs to a tiny hallway with one door at the end.

Chris shoves open the bathroom door, and drags me inside with him. A second later I’m in a space barely big enough for one, and Chris is locking the door. Another second later, and I’m pressed against the wall. For once, his big body is pressed against me and I’m not wet from arousal.

“What part of ‘wait’ did you not understand?” he growls at me.

“Someone had to call for help if you got into trouble.”

“I said wait, Sara, and I damn well meant wait. You have to listen.”

“Chris, I—”

“Don’t push me, baby,” he warns, water tracking the angry lines of his face. “You won’t like the results. And if you think you’ve heard that one before, think again. This is all new territory.”

I’m shaking inside and out, and not from the chill of my wet skin. “Don’t threaten me.”

“Then don’t f**king give me a reason to be this damn pissed. Nothing is worth risking your safety.”

“You are!”

His lips thin. “I’m not giving you the chance to repeat today. This ends now. We’re going back to the States.”

“What?” The one word is all I can manage, all that can cut through the clawing pain of my heart being ripped from my chest.

“Stephen said a week in the States, and we can end the Ava iasco.”

We. He’s saying “we,” and for a moment I cling to the meaning, but only a moment. If I go back now, he’ll shut me out. He knows it and so do I. “Did Stephen say I have to come back?”

“He said it’s a good idea. He’ll work out the passport situation.”

He’s shutting me out before I can hurt him. “Did he say I have to return?” I ask again, unable to control the tremble in my voice.

He presses his hand to the wall, his body lifting away from mine. His silence is damning, and my mind slides down a water-fall into the icy waters of nevermore. I’m sinking, and I have to escape before I drown. I try to duck under Chris’s arm.

His leg shackles mine, holding me in place. “I’m trying to protect you.”

“Don’t even go there, Chris. I’m sick of that excuse. If you want out, then say you want out. Let me by.”

He’s a solid, unmovable wall, his expression infuriatingly indiscernible. “That man back there was hired to follow you in hopes of inding Ella.”

My lips part in surprise. “What? Why? By who?”

“Ella has found her way onto the wrong radar screen.”

“Whose radar?”

“Garner Neuville, a very rich, very powerful man who’s nothing but trouble. The kind I want you nowhere near.”

“Why would he be looking for Ella?”

“Exactly. Whatever she’s into is bigger than marrying some small-time American doctor. I want you out of Paris.”

Icy ingers crawl up my spine. I’m no better of than the night I sat on Ella’s bed, willing her home, and wishing for Chris. They’re both a million miles from my reach and I haven’t a clue how to ind them.

“But sending me back to the States isn’t about Ella, is it? It’s about your fear that I’m going to go of and die on you.” He jerks away from me and it’s as if a door slams shut, and I almost linch with the impact.

But I keep going, I keep pushing. I’m worried about Ella.

I’m angry at Chris. I’m hurt. “Well, you know what I fear? This is my fear. This moment when, once again, you shut me out 195

and I’m alone. If you were going to leave me alone, you should have walked away before now, when I still knew how to breathe without you.”

We stare at each other and all he gives me is more of his damn silence. I’ve said the things we don’t say, and he doesn’t even react.

I begin to shiver. I can’t stop shivering.

Chris shrugs out of his coat and steps closer, our gazes collide, and the regret I see in his eyes carves a piece out of my soul. I’m going to lose him, and it’s going to destroy me. And I think it’s going to destroy him, too.

He moves toward me and I hold my breath, preparing for the impact of his touch that never comes. He wraps the jacket around my shoulders and I huddle into the dry, warm silk on the inside, but I don’t look at him.

“I’m going to get the car,” he announces softly. “I’ll pull up to the door.”

My gaze snaps up as he reaches for the lock on the door, and I have this horrible feeling that if I let him walk out now, it’s done. We’re done.

“I’m not leaving,” I say, and my voice is steady. “I won’t leave without Ella, and I won’t leave without you. All of you, Chris.”

He stands there, more stone than man, more distant than present. Then he opens the door and disappears into the hallway.

We don’t speak on the ride to the house, the soft hum of the car heater illing the empty space. Once we’re inside the garage, and outside the car, Chris wordlessly takes his jacket from me 196

and hangs it over one of his bikes to dry. I’m mostly dry, thanks to my thin blouse and skirt, and the blast of the heater.

At the door we pause to remove our boots, and Chris takes of his socks as well. I can’t bring myself to remove my thigh-highs, and it’s the irst time in a very long time I’ve felt awkward with him. I think he feels it, too. It’s in the air. We aren’t right. We aren’t even close to right.

Inside the house, we wait for the elevator doors to open.

More awkwardness ills the air and it begins to twist me in knots. Finally the elevator arrives, and Chris waits for me to enter. We lean against opposite sides of the car, facing each other. Chris lets his head drop backward against the wall, and his lashes lower, wispy strands of half-dry hair teasing his forehead and cheeks. The wet cotton of his T-shirt outlines his hard body and dried blood outlines a two-inch cut on his cheek, which doesn’t look like it needs stitches. I hope the injury to his hand is equally minor.

The car begins to move and Chris doesn’t look at me. I have this sense that he believes if he does, the walls he’s convinced himself to erect between us will fall. I burn to tear them down myself, to grab him and hold him, and promise him I’m not going anywhere. That’s what he wants to hear: that I’m not going to die. He wants the impossible.

I can’t take not touching him, not talking to him. The elevator stops moving and I step toward Chris. At the same moment, his head lifts, his eyes crashing into mine, his face carved in hard lines and shadows, no rainbow in sight. We’re still living the storm. No surprise there.

I resist linging my arms around him and reach for his hand, glancing down at his slightly swollen knuckles, and back up at him. “Let me clean the cut and bandage it for you.” I back out of the door, gently tugging him with me, encouraged when he follows. I lead him to the bathroom and he immediately tugs his shirt of, and hangs it on the side of the tub before sitting on the edge himself. The sight of his dragon lexing with the hard lines of one shoulder and arm does funny things to my stomach. It’s a part of his past I will never know, if he has his way.

I look up to ind him watching me watch him. Emotion tightens my throat. “Where would I ind bandages?” I don’t even know where anything is in my home, which might not be my home soon. Why does that feel so much worse now than ever before?

“Under the sink.” It’s the irst time he’s spoken since the bathroom in the bar, and the sound of his voice is silk soothing my raw nerve endings.

I turn away from him, gathering my supplies while I also gather my emotions. Part of me is ready to regret becoming this attached to Chris, but I squash the idea. Chris is feeling enough regret for both of us. One of us has to be willing to put it all on the line for this relationship.

When I turn back to him, Chris moves to the toilet seat to allow me to sit on the edge of the tub. Still feeling a bit too emotional, it’s my turn to avoid eye contact. I sit down and tap my leg for him to put his hand on top of it. He doesn’t hesitate.

His ingers splay on my upper thigh, palm resting in the center, and I am instantly, achingly aware of the touch in every part of my body.

I study the cut on his knuckle, surrounded by rapidly form -

ing bruises. It’s impossible to tell if there is any serious injury unless X-rays are taken, which I’m sure he’ll refuse.

“I don’t know how to love you and not protect you,” he says, and my eyes lift at his soft confession. My heart thunders as he adds, “And I don’t know how to protect you and not overwhelm you. I’m always going to be on edge. I’m always going to think . . . too much.”

“No one knows what tomorrow brings, Chris. We have to live for today together.”