A Defender's Heart

CHAPTER TWO (#udc7d5650-032c-5356-81ff-d9f7219f9482)

I’M OVER CEDAR. COMPLETELY.

There she was. Heather Michaels. His Heather. Standing right in front of him.

Saying she was over him completely.

“Cedar! You made it. How are you?”

She sounded like her mother. Or any of the other thirty or forty voices coming from the front room. Superficial. Yet not ten minutes earlier, he’d been certain that the voices emanating from the party had to be sincere. Because the Heather he knew wouldn’t have been celebrating her engagement with her parent’s crowd.

What had they done to her?

Rather, was this what he’d done to her?

“I’m well, and you?”

Raine stood just off to her left. He wanted to catch the other woman’s eye. It was good to see her, too. She’d been Heather’s roommate when he and Heather first met. Had been there through all of their ups and downs.

It wouldn’t be good to be on the receiving end of one of those looks of disappointment he’d occasionally seen on her face in the past. When he’d shown up late. Or not at all. Without bothering to call and let Heather know.

He’d been all about saving his clients’ quality of life. At least that was how he’d described it. The way he’d thought about it. When he’d thought about it. If he’d ever thought about it.

“She’s great!” Lianna burst into the silence that had fallen, alerting him to the fact that he and Heather had been standing there, staring wordlessly at each other.

He could only imagine what she was getting from him. What “tells” he was sending.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, instinctively sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Feeling damned conspicuous because she’d read some kind of message into that, too. Figuring he had something to hide. He wanted to pull them back out, but if he did so, that would communicate another message he didn’t want her to have.

He’d learned a lot from her. And not nearly enough.

“Um, can you two please leave us alone for a sec?” Heather’s tone had changed. Her gaze was still locked with his, but she sounded more like the confident woman he’d been with for the best five years of his life.

Pretty pathetic that his best five years included debts he’d spend the rest of his life paying off—debts of the soul. And he’d die without ever having paid them off. In spite of the millions he’d amassed and was successfully investing. This wasn’t a matter of money...

His peripheral vision caught a movement. The two women slid closer to Heather.

“Please,” she said to them. “Just for a sec. I’m fine.”

No one moved for a long few seconds. He had the sense of stopped time, the kind that was filled with tension and you knew you were at a make-it-or-break-it point. His cue to move in for the kill. The witness on the stand was about to crack. To present him with the source of that shadow of a doubt he had to put in the minds of the jurors.

His jaw ached with the effort it took to keep his mouth shut, the muscles in his neck bearing the brunt of the tension as he remained locked on Heather, rather than turning his manipulative abilities on her friends to help her get them out of there.

He wanted her alone.

God, how he wanted her alone.

But whatever was going on between Heather and her friends—the choice to leave her with the wolf or not—was solely up to them. He could use his skills and probably get what he wanted—Heather alone. But he couldn’t take on any more of that kind of debt.

There simply weren’t enough years left in his life to pay for it all. Unless medical science found a way for a guy to live to a thousand. He figured that just might cover it, considering that a few of the worst criminals he’d put back on the street not only came with the current victim to atone for, but the future ones, as well...

More movement. Heather’s deep blue eyes seemed to glisten as her friends quietly—and very slowly—backed up. They were still watching him when they exited the room opposite the side he’d come in.

Then he was alone with Heather. He’d hoped he’d have that moment, of course...but hadn’t counted on it.

He had nothing prepared to say to her, although there was so much he needed to tell her. No way to do that with a throat tight enough to strangle him.

Strangling. No less than he deserved.

But not until he’d done one hell of a lot more work.

“I’m sorry.”

She nodded. “That’s all behind us now. I’m just glad you could come. I want you to meet Charles.”

He had it coming—watching her with the guy she’d chosen. The man who’d treated her right.

“I’d like to meet him,” he told her, speaking for his better side. A small side, to be sure, but there.

“I’m sorry about the girls,” she said, nodding toward the door through which her friends had just left.

She’d made no move toward that door, which would lead back to the party and, he presumed, her fiancé. It occurred to him to wonder what the guy would think, knowing that the woman he was going to marry had skipped out of their party and was alone in the kitchen with the man she’d slept with for five years. Slept with. Vacationed with. Did laundry with—in the early days, when they’d done their own. Cooked with.

“They’re looking out for you,” he said, forgiving Lianna and Raine even as he wished they’d been a bit more supportive of his presence. He needed their approval if he had any hope of convincing Heather to help him.

The irony was not lost on him. The jerk he’d turned out to be had broken Heather’s heart, and now, in order to redeem himself, he’d come to her.

“They’re afraid you’re going to hurt me again.”

“By saying hello?”

She shrugged and smiled. “They seem to think you’re a lot more irresistible than I do...”

The words stung. He deserved them. But they stung.

“Are you sure there isn’t a tiny part of you that wonders if there’s anything left?”

He felt like he should smack himself upside the head as soon as the words were out. Coming on to Heather wasn’t in the plan. It was the furthest thing from the plan.

But she’d asked her friends to leave and made no move away from him. On the other hand, she’d given no indication that she had anything in particular to say to him, either. She just stood there, so close, looking at him, taking him in, making it seem as though they were talking without saying a word.

As though they were still who they’d always been.

They weren’t, of course. He knew that. Didn’t even want them to be. He had no intention of being that man again.

Not that she’d be able to tell with him practically begging her to admit, on the night of her engagement party, that she still felt something for him.

“You’re wearing my favorite dress,” he said aloud, in spite of his best intentions. He’d noticed the second he’d come in through the kitchen door and seen her standing there.