he asked, “I mean, what made you pick negotiation in the first place?”
He thought she was going to say it was none of his business—or tell him where he could shove it—but instead she asked, “What made you pick the FBI? Huh?” She stepped closer, fury on her face, and he knew he’d crossed a line even before she added, “You want to talk about your motivation? You want to talk about what happened to Maggie?”
Scott got out of bed so fast that Chelsie backed up. It had been ten years since his sister’s assault, the event that had driven him into the Bureau. And Chelsie wasn’t the first person, or even the first FBI agent, to ask about it. But her throwing that at him pissed him off more than pretty much any other response she could have given.
Maybe that was the point, he thought as he got in her face and watched her eyes widen. No matter how she might want to deny it, she knew how to get inside people’s minds. She was getting in his right now, trying to use his emotional weak spot to drive him away.
“Fine,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “You want to push me away, Chelsie? Congratulations.”
He pointed at the door. “Get out.”
What was wrong with her?
Chelsie walked slowly into the living room. She couldn’t believe she’d thrown Maggie’s assault in Scott’s face. Even if Maggie hadn’t been her friend, it was a horrible thing to do. Especially since Maggie’s rapist was still out there somewhere, still claiming a new victim every year.
She’d seen Scott’s expression as he’d asked her to dredge up all the memories from the day of the massacre. That determined expression that told her he’d push until he got what he wanted. The same intent look she’d seen that day back in the bar, when she’d taken his hand and let him take her to heaven.
And the idea of turning her psychoanalytic lens on herself, which she’d managed to avoid for a whole year, made her panic. So she’d done what came naturally. She’d figured out the one thing guaranteed to make him back away.
Scott was right about her. She did understand what people wanted. The flip side of that was, she was also good at figuring out what they didn’t want, which for negotiations, was sometimes just as important.
So why had she failed that day? Accepting that she hadn’t had time to make a difference was an easy excuse. Certainly there was some truth to it, but she, more than anyone, should have been able to connect with Connors. It might’ve been different if she’d known what he’d endured while serving, the loss of his unit. For a military long-timer like Connors, his unit would be his family.
And she understood that kind of loss. Her stepmom was the only mother she remembered, but that was because her dad had married her when Chelsie was three. Her birth mom had been military, just like her dad. And she’d been killed on Chelsie’s first birthday.
No matter that Chelsie didn’t remember her. No matter that she had a close bond with her stepmom and half brothers. She still felt an empty space in her life, wishing she’d had the chance to know her mom.
If she’d seen Connors’s military connection from the start, and used her own experience to forge a bond between them, he might have hesitated. Maybe even long enough for those men to run to her side, to safety.
Except that it hadn’t really been safe, had it?
“Hi, Chelsie.”
The sound of Andre’s voice was a welcome distraction from thoughts that were headed in a direction she didn’t like them to go.
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