Page 19 of Last Resort

Chapter Six

Chance stared down at Maci in the sparring ring. Both of them were near snarling.

It was the end of the final day of training. Tomorrow she’d be heading undercover as Stella at some bigwig art gala. Whether she was ready or not.

Chance knew she was ready, or as ready as someone could get in just three days. There was so much they’d been trying to cram into the limited time. The hours of defense training may have been the most physically demanding, but all the other elements took their toll also.

Maci had spent hours studying footage of Stella’s mannerisms and nonverbal communication in order to effectively impersonate her. Weston’s fiancée, Kayleigh Delacruz, had come by the office to help Maci style her hair and makeup as close as possible to Stella’s.

Maci, Chance and his brothers had spent an ungodly amount of time studying the people who would be at the gala, as well as friends and acquaintances of Stella’s. There were a few friends—surprisingly few—who would recognize Maci wasn’t Stella. Nicholas had helped make sure those friends wouldn’t be in attendance—mostly by offering them a weekend trip to the French Alps.

Must be nice to have those sorts of resources.

Rich Carlisle, Stella’s companion, had come in to coach Maci on how she would act with different groups of people. That entire process was distasteful. Not only was Stella basically a self-centered snob to most people, Rich was slick and handsy with Maci.

Chance had to stop himself from breaking the man’s fingers every time he tucked a strand of Maci’s hair behind her ear or touched her shoulder. Every time he gave her one of his charming smiles, Chance wanted to punch him in his perfect teeth.

Logically, he knew Rich was behaving the same way he did with Stella. He was trying to help the best he could. He would actually be the biggest part of selling this whole ruse—Stella rarely went anywhere without Rich.

But Chance still found his hands balling into fists way too often around the other man. Especially when Maci laughed at something charming he said.

To avoid bloodshed, his brothers had put him on layout duty—which honestly played to Chance’s strengths anyway. He’d studied the layout of the gala building, determining potential places the stalker might make some sort of attempt to get near Maci. Dorian Cane had offered backup guards to place at any locations they were needed.

Chance had studied the exits and made sure Maci knew about them. And backup exits. Ignoring everyone’s rolling eyes, he’d even pointed out a couple of large air shafts she could use to hide in if needed.

Long after everyone had gone home each night, he’d run possible scenarios in his head. How he would react to different threat types. How he would get Maci to safety.

Over and over. As many situations as his mind could come up with. He wanted to be as prepared as possible. It was how his mind worked. Always had been.

But now, looking down into Maci’s blue eyes, he was afraid they might kill each other before the stalker had the opportunity to do any damage.

It was a stressful situation and they both were exhausted, but that wasn’t really the issue here.

She was hiding something from him.

Hell, notsomething...everything. The more he thought about that flinch on the first day and what it had revealed, the more he realized how little he actually knew about this woman.

He knew they were combustible in bed. Knew that everything about her stimulated him mentally and physically.

But she had very carefully kept the details of her past from him. And the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that it had something to do with why she’d run from his bed two months ago.

She still wanted him. And he damned well wanted her. Training so closely together over the past few days had proven that on both sides. There’d been way too many times when they’d had to take a step back from each other—both of them breathing hard and not just from exertion—to settle down.

Multiple times he’d tried to get her to talk about anything—them, her past, why she was keeping so much from him. But she’d avoided his attempts every time.

“That’s it,” he said, dropping his hands from her and stepping back. He’d been teaching her how to break a wrist lock, and he’d spent the entire time feeling the racing of her heartbeat under his fingers.

“What’s it?” Maci asked, stepping back herself. He hated the distance. “Did I mess up?”

“No, you’re doing great, but I want to talk.”

Immediately, the open expression she’d been wearing morphed and he felt her shutting him out. Again.

“Let’s just get this lesson done with, okay?”

“We’re going to finish it, but we’re going to talk too. I can protect you more effectively if you stop trying to keep silent about every personal thing about yourself.”

Her shoulders tightened, creeping up toward her ears. “Chance, we’ve been doing so well. Just don’t.”

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