Hot Protector(7)

She’d dropped it when he tackled her and she hadn’t picked it up again.

“Too late. Get in the car.”

“But my credit cards, my money—”

Chase looked utterly furious. “Get the fuck in the car, Sophie. You can’t use a credit card if you’re dead.”

He was right. She ran over and yanked open the door before throwing herself into the seat and grabbing the seat belt. The car was a Corvette. An older model, not the newest one, but nice with a dark interior and a black body. The car growled to life as he turned the key, and she had to drag her gaze from his face before she could think clearly enough to realize what he was about to do.

The garage door was closed and he was planning to put the car through it. With them inside. Oh God.

“Hang on,” he said tightly.

He jerked the car into gear, pressed a button on a handheld remote—and the door blasted open on its own. Sophie shrieked, but the scream died in her throat as she was thrown back against the seat. The car growled and shot out into the open, tires spinning and rubber burning.

“Get down,” he told her about the time she heard a pop.

Sophie slipped down in the seat as far as she could. The sky was orange and red as the building burned. Chase’s face was orange and red too, his jaw set firmly, his eyes flashing with anger as he drove the car like he’d just robbed a bank.

There were more pops and then some shouting, but the noise grew faint pretty quickly as they flew down the road she’d traveled up in a taxi just a short while ago. Sophie lifted herself up and turned around to look back. The sky glowed, but she didn’t see any movement behind them.

“He found me that quickly,” she said in shock.

Chase glanced at her. “Yeah, that quickly.”

“If I’d been delayed at any point—his people could have grabbed me.” Her stomach bottomed out. “I have to get to Paris.”

He snorted. “One step at a time, sweetheart. Let’s get somewhere safe and figure out what happens next.”

“I guess you believe me now, huh?”

Because it had been pretty clear at one point that he’d thought she was making it all up.

He glanced at her, his expression grim. “Hard not to after that.”

A car appeared on the road ahead. Chase tensed his fingers on the steering wheel as the lights grew bigger far more quickly than they should have. Someone was heading toward them at a high rate of speed.

“Fuck,” Chase said before downshifting the Corvette and whipping onto a side road. The tires spun and the car bounced across grass and gravel before finding purchase on asphalt again.

Sophie clutched the door, hard. She was positive that her fingers would need to be pried free eventually. The car flew faster than was comfortable for peace of mind. The road was dark, illuminated only by the headlights. If they came to a curve too quickly, or if a deer leapt out in front of them—

She didn’t want to think about it. She told herself to close her eyes, but she couldn’t manage that either. All she could do was hold on and pray they made it without crashing.

Chase glanced into the rearview. “These guys don’t give up.”

“Can you outrun them?”

“Probably not. I’m going to guess they’ve set up checkpoints along the road—” He seemed to listen for something, then nodded. “Yep, they’ve got a helicopter. This isn’t going to end well, Sophie.”

She could barely breathe. “It has to. You have to do something.”

He shot her a glance. “Why me? I’m not the one who got myself into this mess.” His hands tightened on the wheel. “In fact, if I just stopped and handed you over, I imagine I could be on my way.”

“You wouldn’t!”

His expression hardened. “No, I wouldn’t. But what kind of person shows up unannounced in the middle of the night with a bunch of criminals on her heels and almost gets a guy killed?”

“Chase… I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say, but I really am.”

“I don’t even fucking like you, you know that?” He glanced up in the rearview, downshifted the Vette suddenly, and spun into a turn.

Her stomach bottomed out as she gripped the door and the console and held on for dear life. Chase straightened the Vette and shot forward again.

“You don’t like me? But why not? You don’t really know me. You never even tried.”

His words hurt because she was nothing but nice to everyone she knew. Always had been. In the world she’d grown up in, where being thin and gorgeous was the highest currency possible, she’d had to find something to protect herself with. She’d become a people pleaser, because who could hate someone who was nice to you all the time? Someone who only wanted you to be happy?