Mine To Take Part 7

I was always comparing. How had that been fair? Maybe that was why Robert and Evan had ended things. They'd told her-both of them-that she wouldn't let them get close. That she put up a wall to keep them out of her life.

After Trace, she'd needed that wall. Because she hadn't ever wanted to hurt that much again.

When he left me, I felt broken. It had taken too long for her to put the pieces of her life back together.

"If I'm wrong, tell me now." Trace's hand seemed to singe her skin. "Tell me to back the h.e.l.l off, and I will. I won't push for something you're not willing to give. I want all of you. All or nothing."

Wasn't that the way it had worked between them before? She had given everything to him.

What had Trace given?

The car stopped.

"All or nothing, Skye. Make the choice."

Then he pulled away from her. Shoved open his door.

She sucked in some much needed air. A frantic glance to the left made her realize-definitely not the penthouse.

Her door opened. Only Reese wasn't standing there, holding said door. Trace was.

She scrambled out. "What are we doing here?"

And here was-the airport?

"Taking a flight. My jet's waiting."

He had a jet? Right, of course, the mega-wealthy guy he'd become would have his own jet.

Skye didn't step away from the car. "Where are we going?" Why was this like pulling teeth with him? "I have my studio opening, I can't just-"

"You want this SOB caught, don't you? Well, to do that, we need to head back to the beginning. If he started following you in New York, then we can try to learn more about him there."

He seriously thought she was just going to jump on a flight to New York? Right then? "I'm not going to-"

"You can make the people in that city talk to me. The dancers, your old neighbors. By you being with me, they'll share more. Maybe someone saw something. Maybe someone saw him." His fingers still gripped the door. "I need you to come with me. We'll be back before the studio opens, I promise you that."

Once upon a time, she'd loved New York.

But she'd run from it, so desperate to get away.

Only...now she wondered...had she been running from the city? Or from the man who'd been after her? The dark shadow that seemed to stalk her, with every step she took?

Before the accident, she'd started to become so nervous. Jumping at the slightest noise. She hadn't been able to shake the feeling that her actions were being monitored. Watched. Always watched.

And he'd been in her home. She knew he had broken inside, even though there had been no indication of a forced entry.

"Let's end this," Trace urged her. "Come with me to New York. Let me do the job that I know how to do. I'll find him, and I will stop him."

She glanced toward the waiting airport. A plane had just taken off, and the rumble of its engines filled the air. "All right. I'll come with you."

Reese slammed the trunk. Her head jerked toward him, and she saw that he was carrying two bags. One bag had to belong to Trace, but the other bag- It's mine.

"I thought you might see things my way," Trace murmured.

Confident, c.o.c.ky b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

He took her hand. "Not still afraid to fly, are you?"

Yes, she was. Terrified.

But she wasn't about to admit that fact to him. He already thought she feared too many things in this world.

I do.

She'd first started to fear when she was eight years old. When her parents hadn't come home from their dinner. When she'd heard her babysitter whispering about an accident. When she'd stood in a graveyard and watched as flowers were put on two caskets.

She'd feared when she went to the first foster home. When she'd gone to the second. To the third.

She'd feared when hard hands had reached for her during the night. When she was hurt. Pain that came again and again. Her only escape had been to dance.

A social worker had introduced Skye to dancing. She'd taken her to a community center, and Skye had gotten lost in the music, in the dance.

She'd danced. Day after day after day.

And she'd feared...

Until she'd looked up and into a pair of bright, angry blue eyes.

The fear had stopped then, for a time.

But it had come back all too soon.

It always returned, eventually.

Alex Griffin watched as the private plane taxied down the runway. Jet-setting away...that seemed to fit with the image that was developing for Trace Weston.

He'd been digging into the man's background for most of the day. A kid who'd grown up poor, Weston had entered the Army at twenty. His past had been easy enough to discover up until that point, but after he'd enlisted with Uncle Sam, Trace Weston's records had vanished. There was a four-year hole in the man's past. Four years of seemingly nothing.

Then Weston had appeared again in Chicago. He'd appeared and suddenly had deep ties with foreign dignitaries, government agencies. His security company had skyrocketed to the top of the field.

Weston had become a millionaire. No, a billionaire, according to his tax reports.

So why was a guy like that taking such a personal interest in a stalking case? That wasn't even the type of security Weston handled. He worked with corporations, not individuals.

Alex pulled his hands from the pockets of his jacket. He'd already used his badge to gain entrance to the back area of the airport, and he was about to use the s.h.i.+eld to help him again. People always talked freely when a badge was involved.

His eyes narrowed as he saw a man rus.h.i.+ng away from the runway. "Uh, excuse me, sir..." Alex called out.

The man, older, balding, frowned at him. He wore one of the light blue uniforms typical of the ground crew.

"Were you just working on Trace Weston's plane?" Alex asked, as he kept his badge out.

The fellow glanced at the badge, then back at Alex's face. "Mr. Weston doesn't have any trouble with me. I do my job, I-"

"I never said you didn't," Alex soothed. "I was just curious..."

And he had been curious. He'd pulled up at Skye's studio just in time to see her climb into Weston's car. So he'd followed them, and he'd watched them fly right out of the city.

Strange. An attack one day. A vacation the next?

"Where was Mr. Weston heading?" Alex asked as he c.o.c.ked his head.

The guy glanced over his shoulder. "I-I think he was going to New York again."

Where Skye Sullivan had lived for so long. "Does he go to New York often?" He could, for business, or for- "Yeah, he goes there a lot. At least once each week." The man tried to brush by him.

Alex just s.h.i.+fted and blocked his path. "Guys on the ground can sometimes hear stories." And pick up a lot of gossip. "You hear any stories about why Weston visited New York? In the past? Tonight?"

The man smiled, revealing a crooked front tooth. "I don't care why he flies. It just matters that he does. Gives me a job."

Right. This info wasn't helping him.

The guy walked away. Alex glanced up at the sky. Light raindrops were still falling down. He couldn't see the plane any longer.

Maybe Weston had been taking all those trips to the Big Apple strictly for business.

Or maybe...maybe he'd been heading to New York for another reason.

Alex had pulled Skye's accident report. He'd read her statement about someone following her. Forcing her off the road.

The more he probed, the more he worried.

Skye Sullivan was in danger. He just hoped she wasn't putting her trust in the wrong person.

A mistake like that could prove fatal for her.

Trace kept his hand curved around Skye as they headed through the hotel's lobby. The marble floor gleamed up at him as the concierge quickly escorted them to the private elevator.

Skye wasn't speaking. She was barely making eye contact with him, and he hated that.

He missed how they used to be.

I'll have that again.

He'd have everything again.

The elevator doors closed, and the ascent began. The elevator slid up, higher and higher.

"Uh, Mr. Weston?" The concierge-Max-cleared his throat. "Is there anything that you'll be needing tonight?"

Trace didn't even try to take his eyes off Skye. She'd slept on the plane. He'd been too wired to even consider dozing off. "I have everything I need." His voice rumbled.

Skye's gaze cut to his.

The elevator's doors opened.

Max scrambled outside. "Y-your suite is waiting, sir. Of course, it's our plaza suite, just as you always request when you visit to see the-"

"I know the suite," Trace cut through his words before Max could say anymore. The fellow was d.a.m.n chatty tonight.

Max hurriedly opened the suite room door. Skye strode inside. Her head tilted back as she looked up at the ma.s.sive chandelier that waited in the great room.

"You...um...are you sure you don't want the personal chef to come up?" Max lingered near the door as the bellhop brought in their luggage. "It's late, but never too late for you, Mr. Weston-"

He knew that the personal chef came with the suite. Trace just didn't want the guy up there at that moment. He wanted to be alone with Skye. "Send him up for breakfast," Trace said. His gaze narrowed on the bellhop. "All the bags go in the master bedroom."

Skye had paused at the windows that overlooked Fifth Avenue. It seemed her shoulders tensed.

She'd heard his order about the bags.

But she wasn't arguing.

Yet.

The bellhop and the concierge left a few minutes later. The door eased shut behind them.

Skye kept staring down at the city below. "Sometimes, I forget what New York is like..."

Snow fell lightly past the window. They'd flown out of rain in Chicago and right into a late snowfall in New York.

Her hand lifted and touched the pane of gla.s.s. "When I was a kid, New York was everything to me. The people here...they were happy. Famous. Everyone loved them."

When she'd been a kid, she'd bounced from foster home to foster home.

She'd found dancing thanks to a social worker who'd wanted her to have an outlet. That outlet had been at a small, community center. Skye had once told him how nervous she'd been the first day she walked into that center.

She'd been nervous, until she danced.

Skye turned away from the window. "The suite, Trace?" She cleared her throat. "There are only two of us. Do you really think we need...what is this?" She glanced around with pursed lips. "I'm guessing...four thousand square feet?"

"Forty-five hundred." He pulled off his coat. Tossed it aside. Went to her.

"Any room would have worked. Any-"