Privilege (Special Tactical Units Division 2)

By yesterday, he’d pretty much given up on anything to do with being civilized or, hell, anything to do with being human.

Now he was here, and crap, this might have been the worst idea he’d ever had. The way she was looking at him…

God.

He didn’t want her to look at him that way. As if he were the last man on earth she’d ever want to see.

“Chay?”

Her voice was soft. Full of bewilderment. Why? How come she hadn’t thrown herself into his arms? All the way here, he’d imagined her doing just that…

Hell.

No.

Not all the way here.

Only last night. Or, fuck, the night before. Or whenever it was he’d finally said Enough, climbed on his Harley, done better than ninety getting to the airport.

She loved him.

She had to love him.

One week and three days or whatever it was of rethinking what had gone down when she left him had convinced him that she’d been wrong to leave him.

Or maybe, okay, maybe he’d been wrong to let her go.

Whatever. She loved him.

At least that was what he’d figured until he was jammed into that last little seat, until he’d moved out of that little seat, stretched out his legs, had time to think, and that was when the doubts had set in. Maybe he’d read everything wrong, the way she used to look at him, touch him, kiss him, even the way she used to say his name, Chayton…

The possibility was more than he could take. It was agony, and the only way to survive the pain was to turn it into something else.

Anger.

“Goddammit,” he growled, “did you really just open this door without checking to see who was there?”

She swallowed. “I—I thought you were room service.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not.”

“No,” she whispered, “no, you are not.”

The elevator gave a soft ping. Chay looked down the corridor. Shit. Room service. The guy was wearing an abbreviated version of a monkey suit. He looked foolish, but compared with him, Chay figured he probably looked like day-old dog poop.

“Leave it,” Chay snapped, when the guy reached the door.

“But, sir—”

Chay pulled out his wallet. Took out a bunch of bills. Handed them over.

“Leave it,” he said again.

The guy looked at Bianca. What could she do but nod in agreement? “Yes,” she said, “please just leave it.”

The room service guy turned away. Chay ignored the cart. So did Bianca. He stepped forward. She stepped aside. He moved straight past her. She hesitated, and then she closed the door and looked at him.

“What are you doing here?”