Page 2 of The Chase
He had promised to protect her. He had promised. And he’d screwed that up, too. He let out a hot curse. The woman next to him flinched, one hand coming up between them. Like…she was afraid of him now.
Of course she would be.
It had been her first time. It should have been special, with flowers and romance and a man who worshipped her, heart, body and soul. Not a jerk like him.
He disgusted himself.
Kurt was better than this. He’d always thought he was a better man than this. Heneverwould have done this to any other woman. Would never have dreamed of hurting a woman he cared about like this. Ever.
He’d kick a man’s ass for using a woman this way. So why had he done it to her? To the one woman who had ever made him feel the way this one did?
The memory of her giving him a smile when he’d found her broken down alongside his private road two weeks earlier snuck in. He had known who she was, theoretically, he just hadn’t realized Hiller’s youngest sister had grown up. He’d thought she was still a teenager. She looked younger from a distance—and he’d only ever seen her from a distance until that day.
But Greer Hiller had grown up into the gorgeous creature who’d needed him to rescue her that day. He’d rescued her—she’d captured him.
He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since.
He’d let her buy him dinner at the Barratt Hotel to repay him helping her. And he had been…enchanted. Everything about the woman had fascinated him.
He’d been with her every night since, then he would drive her home and ask himself what in the hell he thought he was doing.
He just couldn’t stay away from her. No other woman had ever made him feel this way.
The first time he had kissed her…he had never felt like that before. Felt like a certain woman was made just for him. His for the taking. Like the other half of him, body and soul. The hardest thing he had ever done as a grown man had been taking her home chaste every night.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, with a bite in her tone that had him focusing on her face again. She’d pulled his blankets up between them. “I would at least like a bit of privacy while I dress, now that thefun times for Kurtare over.”
He’d ruined everything for her. Her first time, and he’d ruined it.
He had screwed up everything.
And he never should have touched her.
He never should have hurt her because he hated her brother and intended to destroy him. Greer hadn’t deserved to be a pawn in his war with her brother. That Kurt had made her one damned near destroyedhim.
He would never be able to make things right for her now. But he would have to find a way to try. But he had no idea what the right words were now. “Greer…”
She just stared at him. “Don’t…just don’t ever talk to me again. From this moment on, you don’t even exist.”
She grabbed her T-shirt and jeans from next to the bed and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Leaving Kurt just staring, wondering what to do next.
How had he screwed this up so badly?
2
She had thoughtshe loved him.
This…had to be because he hated her brother. It was the only thing that made sense—he didn’t like Gene, so he had done this toher.
If he said anything else to her it would destroy her.
Greer Hiller called herself the stupidest idiot on the planet for what she had done tonight. She had thought she loved him. No man had ever made her feel as accepted and appreciated as Kurtland Chase had. Even though she had knownhe and her brother Gene had fought each other for years, because of that stupid Carly Fueller, her ex-sister-in-law. Greer had just…thought everything would be okay once the two men got to know each other. That if they both cared aboutherenough…
She’d been so naïve, thinking she could fix everything.
But Kurtland Chase didn’t care about her one bit.
