Caleb Marshall fucked. He’d always, only fucked. He didn’t date.

“Well, it’s bigger news than I’ve got going at the moment. Why don’t you ever go out in public with her? All I keep hearing is that she never leaves your house.”

“She does leave my house, but she’s—she’s dealing with some stuff and doesn’t want to do a lot of socializing. Who have you been hearing all this from?” Caleb felt a strange mingling of annoyance, self-consciousness, and pleasure.

The pleasure was the most surprising feeling—as if part of him wanted the rest of the world to know that he was with Kelly. That she was fully his.

It must have been someone on his staff or from the office who’d gotten the word out, since he couldn’t imagine who else would know about the woman staying at his house.

“I’m not about to tell you and make some poor soul the target of your wrath. So it’s serious?”

“I never said it was serious.”

“Who do you think you’re kidding? You’ve tried to pretend it doesn’t exist, but you’ve always had this white knight complex going on, ever since Mall—”

“That’s ridiculous,” Caleb interrupted, before Wes could complete the thought.

“No, it isn’t. You make yourself heartless so it won’t hurt if you can’t save someone again. It doesn’t take a psychotherapist to figure that out.”

It felt like the air was thickening around him, dulling his vision, getting caught in his throat. And knowing his friend was right didn’t make him want to hear it any more.

After a moment, Caleb cleared his throat. “If you’re through with the half-assed therapy session, I really need to get back to work.”

“Yeah. Fine. But I want to get together while I’m in town. And you should bring your gorgeous damsel in distress.”

Caleb didn’t dignify that comment with a response, just said good-bye and hung up.

He thought about what Wes had said, though, and he decided it wasn’t quite right.

He did want to save Kelly.

But that wasn’t all he wanted.

His phone rang again. It wasn’t Wes calling back, and it wasn’t Kelly. It was Tim, the head of his security team.

Frowning, Caleb answered the call, having absolutely no idea what he was about to hear.

“Mr. Marshall?” Tim said.

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“You said you wanted us to report if anything happened concerning Miss Watson.”

“Yes.” Caleb’s heart jumped painfully. “What happened? Is she okay?”

“Yes. She’s fine. But Pete, the guy I have following her, witnessed something that seems—worth mentioning.”

Tim’s pause in completing the sentence was the first clue Caleb had that he was about to hear something he really didn’t want to hear. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me.”

“You know she was meeting with a client this afternoon. She asked Pete to wait in the lobby instead of coming up to the apartment with her.”

“What?” Caleb interrupted. “There are multiple areas of access to apartment buildings. You can’t be sure she would be safe if he just waited in the lobby.”

“I understand that, sir. Pete didn’t want to wait there, but she insisted. And our understanding was that her protection wasn’t forced.”

Caleb let out a breath, knowing everything Tim said was correct. They couldn’t force protection on Kelly if she refused it—no matter how much Caleb might want to.

“Okay,” he said. “So what did Pete do?”

“Since he was concerned about leaving her up there unprotected, he managed to get access to the building’s security cameras while he waited. There aren’t very many—just in the lobby and the public areas. Including a workout room on the eighth floor.”

Caleb drew his eyebrows together. “Okay. So what’s the point?”

“The point is that, after she met with the client, Miss Watson went to the eighth floor and met with someone in the workout room. Tim copied the video feed. I’m sending it to you now.”

Caleb froze, trying to work out the significance of this information. “Who did she meet with?”

“We don’t know. We’re trying to identify him, but we have nothing to go on, so I don’t think we’ll be able to figure it out. They seemed—close.”

And it was then that Caleb’s heart stopped jumping and started to sink. “Close?”

“Sex didn’t happen. But close. Yes.” Tim was obviously reluctant to give that particular answer.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Okay. Thank you. I’ll look at the video and tell you how to proceed.”

He was holding his breath when he pulled up the message Tim had just sent him, clicking open the video feed.

The video quality was poor and it was black and white, but Kelly was clearly visible coming into the room with a tall, dark-haired man.

The man was facing the camera more than Kelly was, and he was clearly into her. Caleb could tell even from the slightly fuzzy image. They talked, standing very close, and the man got closer and closer as the conversation progressed.

Caleb recognized the man immediately. The same man from the dressing room. The one Kelly had insisted was a stranger who was just randomly coming onto her.

As he watched, Kelly put her hand on the guy’s arm at one point, and later he had her pressed up to the wall, his body against hers.

Caleb felt a shuddering of possessive rage as he watched this other man with his body all over Kelly. His Kelly. And something painful ripped through his chest as he saw her arms go up around his neck.

He dreaded the idea of seeing them kiss, but he couldn’t look away.

He waited, a lump lodged hard in his throat, for something worse to happen, but they left before anything did, the man’s arm around Kelly’s waist.

He stared at the final image for a long time, trying to think, trying to use his mind instead of his instinct, which was to howl in outrage and start knocking things over.

There weren’t many possibilities for why Kelly had met up with this man. She’d snuck away to meet with him twice, so they were obviously in some sort of relationship.

She had lied to him—right to his face, so convincingly that he’d completely fallen for it. Whether or not she was cheating on him with this guy, she was keeping secrets from him.

Either way, Kelly wasn’t being faithful.

He’d just turned down a luscious woman who had offered him easy sex for the taking. He hadn’t even wanted her.

When Kelly was here betraying him.

He was washed with wave after wave of cold anger and pain, and he sat stewing in it for the rest of the drive home.

He was in a bad state when the car pulled through the gates, and then up in front of his house. Something big and intense and broken kept swelling up inside him—something that felt like a dangerous, trapped, wounded animal—and he had to clench his fists to keep his hands from shaking as he climbed out of the backseat.

Nothing really had changed. He was still Caleb Marshall, a man who had always ensured he remained perfectly in control of his world.

He did what he wanted. Took what he wanted. Didn’t let anyone stand in his way.

He never let himself do anything, want anything, be anything that would cause him to be helpless again.

One young woman wouldn’t have changed him. Wouldn’t have cracked the hard contours of his life.

He wouldn’t let that happen.

When he entered the house, Breah started to greet him pleasantly, but she shrank back when she got a look at his face.

“Where’s Kelly?” he asked in a low voice, trying to level out his tone.

“She’s upstairs—showering and changing clothes, I think.” Breah’s face twisted. “Is everything okay, sir?”

Caleb didn’t answer, although he’d always made a point of treating Breah with courtesy. He couldn’t answer. He just strode down the hall and into the west wing of the house, where Kelly’s guest suite was located.

He had no idea what he was going to say when he saw her.

When he got to her door, he stood outside for a few seconds, taking a couple of breaths and trying to get himself under control. If he lost his restraint, then Kelly would have the advantage, and he couldn’t give her that.