* * *
Shane spent most of the day on a low simmer. Never boiling over, but he knew it wouldn’t take much to set him off. His staff—with the exception of Dee-Dee—gave him a wide berth, as if they sensed he was bottling something explosive inside and wanted nothing to do with it or him.
His wrath wasn’t aimed at the four men whose names were written in Carly’s notebook, although he’d started the day with a cold determination to discover which one had betrayed his trust. But his conversations that morning with the FBI and the agency had taken the edge off his anger where his staffers were concerned, and right now they were the least of his worries.
No, his ire was reserved for one quietly beautiful, blue-eyed brunette who’d made a mockery of his attempts to protect her. Who’d gone off cool as you please to cover a story, leaving Shane a message that she’d get herself back to the security of the condo on her own. Every time he thought of her message, he ground his back teeth until his jaw ached.
Part of Shane knew he was overreacting—until a week ago he’d barely been aware of Carly’s existence, and only from seeing her on TV. But now that he knew her...now that he’d held her in the stillness of the night...now that his life had forever been changed by the way her eyes smiled before her lips did...he couldn’t bear the idea of anything happening to her. Especially not because of him. If he hadn’t been at the Mayo Clinic last Saturday, she wouldn’t have been there. If someone hadn’t tried to kill him, she wouldn’t have tried to catch the would-be killer on her smartphone. And if he hadn’t been so damned sure he could keep her safe when she wasn’t at work, he would have hired bodyguards to watch her every minute of every day until the man trying to kill them was caught.
He’d called Carly’s producer at the network...for all the good that did him. J.C. Burrows had been closemouthed until Shane admitted Carly herself had told him where she was heading. Burrows had then condescended to inform him the network had hired some rent-a-cop to protect her while she was in Philadelphia—as if that was good enough against a hired killer who might very well have her in his sights.
Shane texted Carly three times throughout the day just to make sure she was alive, and her replies had told him she was. But he didn’t trust himself to call her. Didn’t trust he’d be able to keep the anger out of his voice, which he needed to do because Carly didn’t belong to him, much as he wanted her to. She hadn’t given him the right to care about her. Worry about her. In fact, she’d given him no rights at all where she was concerned—except sexually. He could take her to his bed...but he couldn’t take her to his heart.
And that thought was killing him.
* * *
It was close to six-thirty when the cab Carly was riding in pulled up in front of the condo building. Night had already fallen, and though she wasn’t normally nervous at night, she slid her .22 out of her purse and into her overcoat pocket, then flicked the safety off. She hadn’t taken the gun to Philadelphia—she’d left it in a locker at the heliport. But she felt a little safer now that it was back in her possession.
She paid the cab driver, grabbed the small suitcase from the seat beside her, glanced around to make sure no one was hiding in the shadows and slid out of the cab. Her purse was slung over her left shoulder, and her right hand was buried in her coat pocket, her fingers wrapped around the comforting touch of steel. But her heartbeat accelerated uncomfortably just the same. She didn’t dawdle once she was out of the cab, just entered the condo building as quickly as she could.
She identified herself to the guard on duty because she didn’t have a key to Niall’s condo or the passcode to the elevator. The guard said, “I’ll have to call to confirm, ma’am.” He picked up the phone. “It’ll just take a minute.”
Carly hoped Shane was already upstairs because she really didn’t want to wait in the lobby for his arrival. The well-lit interior turned the tall glass windows into mirrors, and she couldn’t see outside. That made her nervous. Made her heart jump. And made her breath come a little faster.