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Kayne had done protectivedetails for celebrities, politicians, undercover assets, and once, a blowhard billionaire who’d insisted someone was trying to poison his green juice.
He’d never tailed anyone like Chloe Giordano.
Because Chloe didn’twalk.She floated.Drifted.She got distracted by plants, puppies, and construction workers who somehow forgot she was the CEO of a small empire and treated her as if she was their friendly neighborhood fitness fairy.
She also had a bad habit of wandering off the second he blinked.Which was exactly why his jaw was clenched so tight he was one molar away from a dental emergency.
They were in her gym’s loading area, checking a new shipment of equipment.Kayne hovered two feet behind her, scanning the space, every nerve humming as if a live wire had been plugged directly into his spine.
Chloe signed a delivery form, thanked the driver with an earnest smile, and started toward the back door.Then, of course, she veered left toward the side lot out of his line of sight.Long enough for his pulse to spike into thethis is how operatives develop ulcerszone.
“Chloe!”
It came out harsher than he meant.Harsher than a man faking a relationship with a woman he was absolutely not supposed to be falling for.
She froze mid-step, ponytail swinging, eyes wide.“What?”
He closed the distance in three strides.“You don’t go out of sight.Not today.Not with Talbot out and whoever’s driving that damn car playing demolition derby with your life.”
Her lips parted, shocked.
Then he saw it, a flicker of hurt, quick as a shutter click, before she smoothed it away.“Kayne, I wasn’t going anywhere.I was checking the recycling bin.The truck comes tomorrow.”
“I don’t care if you were checking your horoscope,” he shot back, breath choppy.“You don’t disappear on me.”
A long, tense silence stretched between them, thick enough to lean on.
Chloe folded her arms with a quiet, steady resilience that punched the air out of his lungs.
“I’m trying,” she whispered.“I really am.But you’re acting like every move I make is a mistake.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face.Damn it.He hadn’t meant to scare her.But fear and love shared too many of the same hallways in his heart, and Chloe had a talent for wandering down both.
“That’s not what I think,” he said, voice lower.“I know you’re capable.Hell, that’s half the problem.”
Her brows pulled together.“How is capability a problem?”
“Because you think being strong means being alone.”The truth slid out before he could stop it.“And I’m not letting you do that.”
The next breath she took trembled.
And Kayne felt the exact moment she stopped pretending everything was normal.
Not because she was afraid.Because she realizedhewas.
Her breath hitched barely, but he felt it like a tremor through the ground beneath his boots.
“Kayne,” she murmured, “come here.”
He stiffened.“Cher, we’re in the middle of a parking lot.”
“Come here.”
He stepped toward her before his brain caught up, stopping only when she placed a hand over his chest.Her touch seeped through cotton and bone and into the parts of him he’d duct-taped shut years ago.
“You’re scared for me,” she said.“Not because you think I can’t handle myself.But because you’re used to handling everything alone.”
