Mine to Keep (Mine #2)(6)
Author: Cynthia Eden

He’d protected her. Saved her life.

“When he’s off his meds, Ben has hallucinations. He talks to people who aren’t there. He sees people who aren’t there.”

Just like her mother. Skye swallowed. “But are you sure—”

He kissed her. His lips—so warm and sensual—pressed to hers. “Don’t worry about him,” he whispered against her lips. “You don’t have anything to fear from Ben.”

It wasn’t Ben that she was afraid of. It was his warning that wouldn’t stop playing through her mind.

He’d said death was coming. “Are you safe?” Skye asked Trace, lifting her lashes to look into his bright gaze.

“Always,” he told her, and she wanted to believe him.

After all, Trace wouldn’t lie to her…

Would he?

His hands closed around her shoulders. He seemed so warm and solid, so incredibly strong before her. “I don’t want that part of my life ever touching you.”

She shook her head. “That’s not going to work. We can’t be that way.”

Trace stilled.

“No secrets,” she heard herself say. “That’s the way it needs to be. You know everything about me…” Every fear she had.

Every desire.

He let her go. “There are some things that you’re better off not knowing.”

“Trace…”

He lifted his hand. “Let it go, baby. Just…let it go. The past is buried, and all I care about is my future with you.”

“But that man—”

“He’s crazy!” Trace exploded.

She flinched. Not because of the anger in his voice, but because his words hit far too close to home. “And what if I am, one day? What if—”

She didn’t get to say more. Because Trace had her in his arms, holding her so tightly that she knew she might bruise, but Skye didn’t care.

“You aren’t. You won’t ever be.”

So easy for him to say.

But Trace hadn’t lived in a home with a mother who lost her hold on reality a little more each day. A woman who talked with people who weren’t there. A woman who hurt her daughter and never remembered doing it.

The doctors said her mother had been psychotic. Sometimes, too many times, Skye wondered if there was a ticking time bomb within herself.

That’s why I won’t go see the shrinks. I don’t want to know…

“You survived that sick bastard’s kidnapping. You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met.” He’d lifted her up against him and buried his face in the curve of her neck. “I know crazy, Skye, and it’s not you.”

She could barely breathe in his grasp. Skye pushed against him, and Trace let her toes touch the floor once more. “I came to you,” she said, searching his eyes, “with the same story that Ben just told. Someone was watching me. You believed me.” What if he hadn’t? “Are you so certain that man wasn’t telling the truth?”

“Ben…he has a problem with reality. For the last few years, he’s been convinced that someone was after him.” His lips thinned. “He thought his past was chasing him.”

“What if it is?” He’d seemed so desperate.

Her mother had been desperate that way, once.

Her desperation had led her to take her own life—and to take the life of Skye’s father in the process.

“I’ll have another talk with him, okay?” Trace said. “If he’s being hunted by anything other than his own demons, I’ll find out.”

Relief had her shoulders slumping.

“Your heart’s too soft,” he growled, and Trace sounded angry. Odd, he didn’t usually get angry with her.

Everyone else? Oh, yes, but not her.

“You can’t be so trusting, Skye.” He let her go and stalked across the room. The marble floor gleamed beneath his feet. He stopped at the bar. A bar that took up half the left wall. Trace grabbed the decanter of whiskey and poured a sloshing glassful. “That trust can get you into trouble.”

Even though he wasn’t looking at her, Skye’s chin hitched up. “Trouble? You mean the kind where I trust the wrong man and nearly get killed because of it?”

He whirled around. “Skye—”

“Been there, done that,” she snapped at him. Her hands fisted. “I’ve got to say, this is one hell of a moving-in party.”

She spun on her heel and marched down the hallway. Her heartbeat sounded like drums in her ears and—

“I don’t…want it touching you.”

Skye paused a few steps away from their bedroom. Then, crap, she found herself storming back toward him. “What are you talking about?”

He drained the glass. Slammed it back on the bar. “I’ve done things that weren’t good, Skye. Things that—if you knew about them—they’d give you even more nightmares.”

He headed toward her with slow, determined steps. A predator, stalking his prey.

I’m the prey.

“I don’t want you to know about the things I did while we were apart. I want us to go forward. Fuck the past.” He stopped just a foot away and gazed down at her. She couldn’t read the expression in his eyes. “What we have is good. I’d damn well die for you, and you know that.”

She did. She also knew…

He’d kill for me.

The world saw Trace Weston as a suave businessman. A charmer who’d exploded onto the security scene. He’d amassed billions in record time.

But no one knew about his past.

Once, Skye had thought that she knew everything about him.

Now she was realizing that Trace had secrets he didn’t intend to share with her.

“Nothing can come between us now,” he told her.

Why did she feel like he was making a vow?

Trace smiled. The smile that had always made her breath come a little faster.

He advanced toward her. “You were right when you said this wasn’t the way to celebrate your moving in…”

“Trace.”

But he’d scooped her into his arms. He carried her to the bedroom. The room was dark. The sun was setting, and the light barely spilled through the curtains and onto his massive bed.

But…something was shining on his bed.

Skye glanced over, frowning, even as her arms tightened around Trace’s neck. “What is that?”

“It’s your welcome home present.” He kissed her and slowly lowered Skye to her feet.