If she let Chase Carden in he had the ability to obliterate everything she’d built—her life, her career, everything that mattered.
Looking at him, she knew any woman in this bar—hell, the city—would jump at the chance to be Chase Carden’s wife. And a small part of her thought maybe she would, too.
If he had wanted a wife, a relationship. If being a daredevil hero, an aerial jockey hadn’t been the single-minded goal of his life.
If it were real.
But it wasn’t.
Besides, if they started anything that remotely resembled a relationship their chances for an annulment would disappear like a puff of smoke. And an annulment was the only way for them to keep this whole thing a secret. And keeping this whole thing a secret was the only way they were both going to prevent the possibility of being court-martialed for fraud.
With the simple act of not reporting their marriage they’d both broken several major air force rules. And the air force tended to frown on that.
Chase had broken more by not completing all the required paperwork for entry into the Thunderbirds. There was no way he could have gotten her consent to the assignment…not when he didn’t even know she was his wife. Would the air force consider it fraud if he hadn’t known about the marriage? Possibly not. But it wasn’t worth the risk for either of them.
A simple, quiet, quick annulment and their marriage never happened. If she could just figure out how to tell him they were married in the first place.
“Would you like a drink?”
“No!”
Chase and their waiter both turned startled eyes to stare at her. Rina dropped her gaze back down to the menu in front of her, concentrating on the words, and tried to ignore the blush she knew was creeping up her face.
She didn’t want to let him unsettle her. Unfortunately, he did. No man had ever had the ability to set her on edge with a single look the way Chase Carden seemed to do.
He made her feel things she didn’t want to feel. Want things she knew she couldn’t have. And question the course of her life that had been set since she was five.
Without even trying. That’s probably what upset her the most. He had no idea he knocked her off balance. From the moment he’d walked in today she’d felt a little off center, like a ball spinning five degrees off axis—not enough to see, just enough to feel.
“I’m still paying for the last time I overindulged.” She gave a halfhearted smile and ordered a Diet Coke. Taking a deep breath, she let oxygen flood her body, bringing with it a familiar sense of equilibrium.
“Better?”
Maybe he had noticed his effect on her. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
“Maybe.” She let her lips twist into a self-deprecating smile.
This was too much. She was wound tighter than a top, while he was sprawled in his chair, one hand resting comfortably around the ice-cold beer, the other slung over the back.
She should tell him.
“How’s the General?”
Rina cocked her head to the side, wondering where this was going, and answered slowly, “Great.”
He leaned forward, playing with the curling edge of the beer bottle label, his eyes staring straight and true into her own. Blue, deep, dark and dangerous.
“He still pulling your strings?”
The familiar anger welled up inside. She should be used to it by now, the automatic assumption that she’d gotten something—everything—simply because of who her father was.
She’d had to deal with it when she entered the academy, taking more shit than any of the other cadets just because of who she was. They’d wanted to break her. To have her go crying home to daddy. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. With each assignment, including the one to the Thunderbirds, she’d heard the whispers behind her back. “Oh, she’s the General’s daughter.”
Years of experience had hardened her to the reaction but, for some reason, coming from Chase…it hurt. But why should she expect more from him than everyone else? She could count the things she knew about him on one hand. His middle name was Edward and he could make her body hum with desire faster than should be legal.
“No one pulls my strings, least of all my father.”
“I think we both know that isn’t true. If it were we’d have had this conversation about seven years ago.”
Why was he baiting her? Why was he doing this? Pushing her chair back from the table, Rina grabbed her purse. “This was a mistake.”
“Sabrina.”
“Don’t call me that.” She bit the words out as she stalked from the bar.
His voice followed her from the restaurant, through the ever-present casino and into the falling darkness—or as dark as it could get with megawatt bulbs blaring from every direction.
She ignored him, melting into the crowd of people on the sidewalk, blending in to the ebb and flow around her.
That had not gone well. She walked through the throng for several moments, pushing unseeingly against the people and things in her way. After a couple minutes the anger finally peaked inside her and her steps slowed to something resembling normal. Then came the disappointment at losing control of her temper. She didn’t do it often, for not much pushed her to the edge, but Chase seemed to have a knack for stirring her emotions.
Of course, if she was honest with herself she’d admit that she’d used the anger as an escape. She wasn’t ready to tell him. Didn’t know how to tell him.
“Sabrina.” His voice was soft. And close. It touched her moments before his arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her out of the flowing crowd.
One minute she’d been walking down the sidewalk, the next she was pressed against a cool stone building. How had that happened?
“I’m sorry.”
The heat of his hand seeped into the skin where it rested at her hip. “No, I,” she said, and swallowed hard, trying to tamp down the firestorm building inside her. “I’m touchy when it comes to my career and my father. I’m sorry.”
“I’ve been on edge lately, but that’s no excuse for purposely baiting you.” A sad smile pulled at the corners of his lips. His bright blue eyes flashed, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the lights around them or from some internal source she couldn’t understand. It only lasted for a moment before it was gone, and his normal cocky facade replaced the surprisingly unsettled expression.
“If I promise never to mention the General again, will you come back inside with me?”
Chase looked down into her eyes, his body holding her hostage against the unforgiving side of the building. She’d never known anyone else who, with a single look, could convince the people around him that he was all innocence and sincerity—all while hiding pure devilment underneath.
Normally she was immune to macho charisma and oozing flyboy sexuality. But she couldn’t seem to remain unaffected by Chase. Her nose wrinkled. No matter how much she wanted to.
His finger slid from the center of her forehead down between her eyes to the tip of her nose, smoothing the peaks and valleys as he went.
“That’s kinda cute. I don’t remember that from a year ago.”
“I don’t remember much reason to frown.”
“But you do remember.” He leaned closer into her space, his teasing smile fading away, along with the sounds of a city that never slept.
She could only nod, his eyes holding her hostage.
His hand lifted to her face again, only this time