She took one of his hands and held on to it as she patted it with a wet piece of gauze. She leaned
forward and his knuckle brushed her breast. She gave him a dimpled smile.
“Sydney . . .” He leaned away, but she grabbed the back of his head and kissed him hard.
He pushed her away and jumped to his feet. “What the fuck are you doing?”
She followed him as he crossed the room. She stepped closer and ran her hands up his chest. “It’s
been a hard night. You need to decompress.”
He stepped back and held his hands up. “Sydney, I’m married. Very happily married.” He shook
his head.
She rolled her eyes and deepened her dimples. “I know you’re in that men’s thing. You’ll be
sleeping with other women soon enough. Why not start tonight?”
She knew about The Brotherhood? Why did that surprise him? “No.”
“No, what? You won’t be sleeping with other women soon? Isn’t that against the rules?”
“No, I won’t sleep with you.”
She slid a hand up his chest again. “But we were so good together. You used to love bending me
over your desk and—”
He stepped back again and glared at her. “That was years ago. I wasn’t married. We were
blowing off steam at school.”
“Don’t you need to blow off steam now?”
He did. She wasn’t wrong, but there was no fucking way in hell he was going to do it with her. He
walked around her and toward the door. “Don’t call me again.”
He stalked to his room, fuming, and called Patrick, the Manor steward, as he packed. “I need a jet
from Tucson as soon as possible.”
38
CHASE DOZED AS THE SOOTHING SOUND OF THE PRIVATE JET ENGINE BROUGHT HIM CLOSER TO HOME,
closer to his beloved. He couldn’t fully sleep, though. He was too worked up.
Sabrina’s story became real tonight. He wondered what it would have been like to bust through a
door and find her being raped as a teenager. It was bad enough finding her tied to a bed after she’d
been kidnapped. What would have happened if he’d found out she’d been taken earlier? What would
have happened if he’d—
But what could he have done? He’d been in the army. He’d done the best he could with the