My coherent thoughts and protests are left behind as he drags me from the room without a word, his hold so tight the bones in my fingers grind painfully together. Distantly, I hear Brett’s laughter chasing us out of the study, down the hall, into the living room, and before I know it, we’ve reached the front door and I’m being yanked into the hallway. I don’t have the wherewithal to fight, at the moment, so I follow — my feet moving automatically, forced to jog if I want to match Chase’s long-legged strides. And even though it’s a pain in the ass to run in heels,notmatching his pace isn’t an option. I’m pretty sure he’s so mad, even if I tripped and fell to the marble floor, he’d just keep going, dragging me behind him like a child drags a toy doll through the mud.
Only when we’re alone in the elevator, descending rapidly down twenty floors to ground level, do I finally realize how flippingangryI am — at Brett, at Chase, at the whole goddamn situation.
He’s still holding my hand. I tug at it, trying to free myself, but his grip never loosens.
“Let go,” I hiss, turning to look at him.
His jaw is clenched tight, the vein in his neck is pounding, and there’s a muscle jumping in his cheek.
Whoa. He’s pissed.
“Chase,” I say, tugging again. “Let go of my hand.”
“No,” he growls flatly between tight-locked teeth.
My mouth drops open. “This is ridiculous! You can’t just burst into people’s apartments and interrupt their business meetings and drag them out like some kind of caveman! I’m a grown woman! It’s the twenty-first century! And frankly, I’ve reached my lifetime limit for dealing with overbearing billionaires, solet me go!”
I punctuate my words by pulling harder against his grip, this time putting my whole body weight behind it.
It makes not a bit of difference.
“Chase!”
“Quiet.”
“I will not be quiet! This is ridiculous!”
“Gemma, I saidquiet.”
“I don’t know who you think you are, but I don’t like it at all! This is absolutely outrageo—”
The words evaporate on my tongue when Chase steps forward, his vicious tug sending me stumbling after him, and pushes the Emergency Stop button. The elevator jolts to a halt, and suddenly, without the mechanical buzz of the car moving on its cables, it’s altogether too quiet, too close inside this tiny floating box. He stands there, staring at the illuminated buttons, the muscle still working in his jaw as he fights for control, and the space seems to shrink around us.
Feeling claustrophobic, I gulp for air as Chase turns slowly to face me, his expression thunderous with barely-leashed anger.
“We aren’t talking about this here.” The finality in his tone is unmistakable, and my own anger, momentarily forgotten, swiftly returns.
“We’re not talking about this at all!” My eyes are narrowed. “As far as I’m concerned, once we’re out of this damn elevator and you let me go, we’re never talking again!”
“Yes, we are,” he counters flatly, his voice booking no room for argument.
“You can’t tell me what to do!”
“I can. I just did.”
I shriek in frustration. “There’s something wrong with you! You say you don’t want me, then you bring me to your office. You tell the world I’m nothing but a charity case, and then you show up here like some kind of crazy person.” I throw my free hand up, exasperated. “Normal people don’t behave like this! Normal people don’t stomp around, all broody and mysterious, thinking they can do whatever they want and say whatever they want, and go wherever they want, whenever they freaking feel like it!”
He doesn’t respond; he just stares at me, waiting for me to finish. Which might take awhile — I’ve got a lot of shored up emotions, ready to explode.
“I’m getting pretty sick and tired of being manhandled! Guess what? It’s not fun at all! I was just doing my job, trying to sell some art, and now I’m pissed off and embarrassed and my freakinghandhurts, because apparently you and your cousin are in some kind of contest to see who can give me arthritis of the fingers first!”
His grip loosens instantly at my words, but he doesn’t drop my hand.
“I want to go home, Chase. I want this to be over. Whatever game you and Brett are playing — I don’t want to play. I don’t even want to know the rules, or who the winner is when you finally run out of ammunition in this pissing contest. Just leave me out of it.”
“I can’t.”
“Excuse me?”