The Boss Vol. 6: a Hot Billionaire Romance by Cari Quinn, Taryn Elliott Page A

unprotected. In danger.
    I’d had one fucking job—to keep her safe—and I’d failed. And all I’d needed to do was just be honest with her. To treat her as an equal.
    Swallowing the acrid taste at the back of my throat, I stepped back onto the elevator and rode it to the lobby. I went out to the parking garage, ready to rip the town apart from the steel beams of his building to the concrete supports that held up the streets if necessary. Whatever it took to find her, I would do.
    This time, I wouldn’t let her go.
    I’d tell her the truth—all of it—and I’d beg her to stay.
    I emerged on the level where I’d parked, hoping like hell she’d be standing beside my SUV. Instead she was inside.
    Thank fucking God, she was inside .
    My heart started beating again, faster than before. So fast I had to catch my breath before I began walking again.
    Wait a second. How had she gotten inside?
    I jockeyed boxes and my briefcase to pat my pocket for my keys. They weren’t there.
    Fucking hell.
    I’d unlocked the building and used the elevator via retinal scan so I hadn’t realized she’d picked my pocket. Damn little thief.
    I walked up to the vehicle and arched a brow. She unlocked the doors without looking at me.
    Exhaling, I managed to get the back door open so I could dump the boxes and my briefcase inside. Then I sat behind the wheel and wrapped my fingers around the comfortingly broken-in leather.
    “Were you planning on grand theft auto?”
    “If I was, you wouldn’t be sitting there right now.” She slid the car key on my ring into the ignition, but she didn’t start it. “My ass would be gone.”
    “So why didn’t you leave?”
    “Other than I didn’t want to risk a charge? Mainly because I’m tired of fighting. It’s all we do. We gripe at each other and snark and poke at soft spots, only to find a dozen more underneath.” She rubbed her forehead, her movements revealing her utter fatigue. “And for what? What are we doing all this for, Blake? You’ll have to tell me, because I honestly don’t think I know.”
    “We’re not just about fighting.”
    “No? What else, then? Oh, I know.” She snapped her fingers. “I also occasionally get to try to guilt-trip you into telling me the truth, since you won’t do it voluntarily about anything. Call me crazy, but to me that means you’re not only lying to me, you’re lying to yourself. And I’m lying too, pretending we have anything real between us.”
    “No.” My voice whipped out, and it took everything I possessed not to close the distance between us. To take her beautiful face in my hands and kiss all the doubts out of her head.
    But that was an easy out, one we chose too often.
    I had to give her more. She deserved that.
    “I told you my father was shot to death. He was killed by a guy in another family, after a decades-old rivalry finally boiled over.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Fourteen.”
    “I’m sorry.” She reached out to grip my hand on the wheel, and I let her. For once, it didn’t feel like weakness to accept the compassion someone offered.
    Because it was Grace, and everything was different with her.
    “He had another family, other children. I saw him sporadically, and that was a good thing. You’ve already figured out that he wasn’t the best influence. I met Dante as a child. I haven’t seen him since not long after my father died.”
    “So you didn’t go into that life willingly. You were dragged into it.”
    “Is it easier for you to look at me, to stomach what you know now if you believe I was blameless?” My voice was soft, and I didn’t look at her. “I made my own choices. Some were questionable at best. Some were criminal.”
    “You’re not in that lifestyle now. You haven’t been for years.” Her statement held steel. She was willing it to be true.
    Luckily, it was.
    “No. I’ve run things legit for years.” Or I’d thought I was anyway. But not saying that wasn’t a lie. I didn’t know