“Christ!” Alistair said, her actions paralyzing him for a few seconds. The woman’s utterly insane. But hot! So hot!

Garrick must have noticed that the door had been opened because the car stopped. Alistair threw himself out of the car after her, banging the door loudly behind him. She was ahead of him but his strides were longer.

“Stop, Sophia!” He ordered but she didn’t even look back. Hmm. Not so submissive. She hadn’t even bothered to put on her overcoat and it remained draped over her arm. Fuck, it’s bloody freezing. She’s going to catch a cold, damn woman. When she slowed her pace because of the flow of barristers, solicitors, and the throng of people going in and out of the court, he gripped her shoulders and whipped her roughly around, caging her in his arms. Gently, Alistair Connor, or she’ll bruise. “Where do you suppose you’re going, Sophia?”

“Back to my office, which I should have never left,” she retorted in a low, enraged voice. “It seems to me, Mr. MacCraig, that you just repeated the same behavior you condemned in Mr. Wales.”

“That’s not true. You encouraged me, allowed it to happen.”

“Oh, that is rich,” she leered at him. “It’s always that way. Women are to blame.” Her eyes flicked toward the entrance of the Royal Courts and she blanched so unexpectedly that Alistair was alarmed. Her hand shot to her throat, her coat fell to the ground and she swayed on her feet.

Somewhere to flee, somewhere to hide. She looked around, desperate.

“Sophia?” He narrowed his arms around her, enveloping her, and bringing her to his chest, giving support. “What’s wrong?”

“Get me out of here, please.” Her voice was barely a wisp. “Now.”

The BMW was right beside them, Garrick slowly accompanying their crazy run. Alistair opened the door for her and helped her in. She trembled so much she could barely walk.

“Stay here,” he ordered, picked up her coat from the ground and rounded the car to enter on the other side. She was already on the phone. He sat facing her.

“-please, Sarah. It’s urgent.” She bit her lip, hard. “Edward. Oh, Edward,” she whimpered. Tears welled in her eyes. “He’s here. Albe-. I’m sure. I’ve just seen. Leaving the Royal Courts.” She spoke in nervous, incomplete sentences. “He will. What are you going to say? What am I going to do?” She closed her eyes. “With Alistair MacCraig. In his car.” She turned to Alistair and held her iPhone to him. “It’s Edward. Err, Davidoff.”

He eyed her with a calm expression he wasn’t feeling and took the phone.

“Tell me, Davidoff,” he sighed while he listened to Edward’s cryptic explanation. Why I am always involved with complicated women? However, he was more concerned with the pale woman in the car with him.

Sophia was looking down at her wringing hands.

“What’s wrong? I cannot help if I don’t-.” What has just happened? Who is ‘he’? Who has frightened her so much? “Don’t worry. My afternoon is free. I’ll stay with her until you arrive.” He hung up the phone and gave it back to her.

She made another phone call and she spoke quickly in a language he didn’t quite identify, “It’s me, Maria. Don’t open the door to anyone. And don’t go out with Gabriela. Keep her in her room. I’m heading home.”

Alistair froze as he realized that an urgent need to help her had wedged beneath his skin. To breathe safety into her trembling body. To whisk her into his arms and caress her until she stopped feeling threatened. He didn’t do this kind of thing anymore. Not since Heather. Love isn’t worth the risk of betrayal, of pain, of death.

Sophia finished the call and closed her eyes, wrapping her arms tightly around her waist as if they could protect her.

Alistair touched the intercom when she ended the call. “Garrick, please, head to…” He waited for her to supply her home address.

“74, Eaton Square,” she dutifully informed him in a small voice.

He repeated the information and sat back, watching Rachmaninoff ‘s concerto toy with her feelings.

“The Adagio sostenuto…” she whispered.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The piano and the flute,” she murmured, her hair blocking the view of her face. He brushed it aside. “It’s the most touching part. I saw it in Lucerne, with Hélène Grimaud and Claudio Abbado, in August 2008. After…” She turned slowly to look at him. “It’s in the second movement. Listen.” Tears coursed down her face and she brushed them away with the back of her hands.

He inhaled deep, struggling to control his raging emotions. Her scent caught his senses and the need to protect her overrode his self-preservation and restraint.

Fuck the risk. He opened his arms, ordering, “Come here.”

She pressed herself onto the door.

His arms enveloped her, pulling her into his body. “I’m not a monster, Sophia,” he breathed on her hair and handed her his soft, white handkerchief, embroidered with his initials in dark green. “Cry, if you will.”

The tender understanding and refuge that huge, rugged, and intense man gave her crumbled any of Sophia’s remaining control. It had been so long since she had felt secure like this. He felt like an unerring solid protector. How does he make me feel like this?

The yearning to protect Sophia made Alistair narrow his embrace around her. This delicate, fragile side of her awoke in him something so male, so primitive that he had to fight the urge to tell Garrick to drive straight to his home in the Highlands. “I won’t let anyone hurt you.”


“We’ve arrived,” Alistair said quietly.

Sophia lifted her forehead from the hollow of his neck and looked at the building. “Could your driver park in the garage, please? It’s just around the corner.”

“Sure.” He gave Garrick the instructions. “I’m going up with you.”

Not a request. More like an order. Sophia raked her hands through her hair and rearranged her dress. “Thank you.”

Thank you? Nobody has thanked me for such a simple thing for so long. But then, when have I done something like this for a woman since Heather? He didn’t know what to make of Sophia. He really didn’t. Alistair opened the door and held his hand to help her out.

She edged toward the lift. When the doors opened she looked over her shoulder, scanning the garage before entering it. She quickly punched in a long code on the panel. The lights flashed as they climbed up to the penthouse. When the lift jerked to a stop, Sophia almost fell, her knees weak with relief. Alistair snaked an arm around her waist supporting her as the doors opened into a private hall.

She opened the door to the apartment and turned to Alistair. “Thank you very much.”

He stood in her hall, aghast. She’s dismissing me. Nobody dismisses me. “I’m staying until Davidoff arrives.”

“Please,” she tried to convince him by putting her hand on his arm, “there is no need. You were kind enough to bring me here.”

He shook his head. “Until Davidoff arrives.”

“Very well,” she sighed. “Could I offer you something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” He looked around, taking in the richness of the paintings hanging on the wall. “You have a very nice apartment. You live here alone?”

“No,” she shook her head. No point in lying about it. “With my daughter. Please, sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

Once again, as she did on the office, Sophia masked her emotions. But he knew better. Her eyes betrayed her. They showed the fright she had been through. They were dark, not clear anymore.

He jammed his hands in his pockets and strolled through the living room. He stopped in front of her bookcase, analyzing her books, which were carefully stored in a methodic way. He chuckled.

“What’s so funny?” she asked, standing next to him.

“Your display order. Work on one side; leisure on the other; every book in alphabetic order by the author’s last name. It looks like a library.”

“You’re the first one to decipher my organizational code without an explanation.” She looked at him, flabbergasted.

He raised a black eyebrow at her, “The first one?” He returned his attention to her books.

“Well, I don’t have many guests. You like to read?” As he nodded, she continued, “I devour books. I can’t live without them. I read anything that falls in my hands. Classic literature, novels, anything-”

“In any language, it seems,” he murmured perusing the books. He took Inferno by Dante Alighieri, in Italian, off the shelf. He skimmed through it and stopped at a page, both of his brows shooting up; he turned his stare at her, his eyes questioning.

“You know, Dante was wrong. Hell is here. We live in a place of woes, of eternal pain, and loss,” Sophia said, feeling desolate. “We should abandon all hope when we are born. Happiness is a mere sparkle in the darkness.”

“‘A mighty flame followeth a tiny spark.’” He quoted in Italian as he studied her notes in the margins.

Her laughter sounded like a rasp, betraying how crestfallen she remained from her earlier encounter. “Good, Alistair, very good. Dante would be proud.”

“You were feeling desperate when you read Inferno,” he stated. “What was your sin at the time, Sophia?” Lust?

“If hell exists, like he said, I shall go to the seventh circle of hell.”

He stroked his chin, his brows creased in thought. “Violence? It is violence, right?” She nodded. Hmm, no submissive is violent. So difficult to unveil, Sophia. He returned the book to its place and went on with his exploration. “I haven’t read this.” He paused when he reached The Name of the Rose and pulled it out. “Not as many notes,” he affirmed absently, his mind still puzzled by the woman next to him.