Taken by Chance (2 page)

And now
he
was involved. Chance Dalton. The man
who’d occupied her thoughts pretty much since he’d moved in across the street.
To be fair, he’d probably occupied most people’s thoughts. Six foot a million,
buzzed head, wicked smile, blue eyes that sparked over dimples, military tats
over arms like thick bunches of steel cable, and the man shows up in L.A. to
run the sex club everyone wants to join. So, on top of all that, obviously he
must be amazing in bed.

Practically all of
female L.A. had thrown
themselves
at him. And they
kept throwing themselves at
him,
because the rumors
were that he
was
amazing. If you
believed those same rumors, he’d already done half the women in L.A., and
they’d line up to give him seconds. Everybody wanted him. Hell, they probably
would have been after him even if he’d been
a nobody
—just
looking at him was enough to get Lena wet. It was nothing short of a miracle
that any man could interest her in that way after what Richie had done, but
Chance was definitely not just any man. The black t-shirts and jeans did
nothing to hide the musculature underneath, or the smooth, athletic grace of
the way he moved, like he just enjoyed using his body. Using bodies. Everything
about him seemed just one step removed from the wild.

And every time he
looked at her, she felt naked.

Just, something in
his eyes, even from across the street…

Much
better to be thinking about him.
Lena flicked aside the curtain and stole another look outside. He was still
there. With his arms crossed, staring at the photographers, who were now
huddled together across the street. Were there fewer of them now?

Wait, what the
hell was going on? He looked like he was guarding her house. A man she’d never
had the guts to talk to, who she was sure had barely noticed her amidst all the
incredibly beautiful women who threw themselves at him all day long, looked
like he was standing guard over her.

Lena shook her
head. That was
ridiculous
.
Maybe not any more ridiculous than her actual life at the moment,
but ridiculous nonetheless.
She was probably just getting cabin fever.
Or it was wishful thinking. Or…

“Thea?” Lena
whispered.

Her landlord-turned-adopted-family
had just come down the street, carrying a take-out bag from the breakfast burrito
place and smiling. Smiling?
And…stopping to talk to Chance?

“Oh shit,” Lena
said quietly. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

Thea was nothing
if not impulsive.
And nosy.
And
meddlesome.
And impish.
And possibly Lena’s
favorite person on the planet, but that didn’t keep Lena from experiencing a
wave of panic when she realized that Thea had turned all of those talents on
Chance Dalton.

Chance Dalton, who
remained the one guy she could fantasize about safely. Thea was…

Oh God, they were
laughing. Together. Like they were planning something. Chance turned around,
looked right at her, and waved. Then he held up one finger, as if to say, ‘just
one minute,’ winked, and jogged back across the street to disappear into the
Volare compound.

Lena jumped back
from the
window,
eyes wide open, blinking fast. What
the hell did that mean? What? How long had he been out there? Oh God, had he
been talking to the photographers? What if
that wink
…

Another horrible
thought struck her: he must know, too. Just like Thea. He must have seen the
photos. And the paparazzo scum outside her house would know who he was, just
like she did. They’d know he ran Volare, they’d know Volare’s reputation. Lena
was momentarily overwhelmed by horrifying visions of the
paps
bringing Chance into the story, asking him lewd questions, making ridiculous
insinuations, as though Lena hadn’t already been humiliated enough. The thought
of Chance playing along with that…

She shook her
head.
Stop being crazy
, she told
herself.
You don’t know him and he
doesn’t know you. Besides, would it be so much worse for one more person to
have seen those photos?

But somehow it did
feel worse. Lena had kept herself cooped up in her apartment, hidden away from
reality, to protect
herself
from all this crap, and
she’d let her imagination run wild to comfort herself. She didn’t realize what
a big part Chance Dalton, a man she didn’t actually know at all, had played in
those escapist fantasies until now. So what if it was a little foolish, and
maybe adolescent, and kind of weird? It had worked. It had given her a break
from remembering that the last man she had trusted, despite all of her
experience, despite everything she’d seen in this industry, had ruined her
career by violating her privacy so completely that the idea of trusting anyone
ever again now seemed hopeless naïve.

Well, that tiny
little comfort was gone now. If Chance hadn’t seen the pictures yet, he was
probably looking at them right now. Back to cold, hard reality.

“Lena?”

Lena turned around
to see Thea setting down the food on the coffee table. Lena couldn’t help but
envy the incredible shape her friend was in—she’d never guess the woman
was nearly seventy if she didn’t know it from being Thea’s emergency contact.
Lena figured it had to do with a positive outlook and enjoying life, something
that normally rubbed off on her. But now that they were in private, Thea didn’t
bother to hide her worry.

“Honey, are you
trying
to become the neighborhood cat
lady shut-in?”

“Um…” Lena looked
around. She hadn’t turned on the overhead light and the sun had passed mostly
overhead while the curtains were still drawn, so she was, technically, sitting
kind of in the dark.
By the window.
Crouched behind
the closed curtains. “Not on purpose,” she said.

“This is too much,
Lena. You have got to get out of here, have some fun,
get
your mind off things. At this rate by the time you step out into the sun you’re
going to burst into flames like a damn vampire.”

Lena snapped her
fingers. “You still have my
Buffy
DVDs! I’ve been looking for those.”

“I’m serious.”

“I know,” Lena
said. She could feel the heavy weight in her chest start to twist again,
tightening around her ribcage, making it hard to breathe. She was not in a good
place.

“You know it’s not
good for you to get out there. Avoidance is never good.”

“I just can’t go
through that yet,” Lena said softly. “As soon as I step out there, it’ll
just…all over again. What he did. All those questions, all the stuff they’ll
say about me. Remembering how he used me. I just…can’t.”

Thea came over to
join her on the window seat and took Lena’s hand gently in her own.

“Then you’re going
to kill me,” Thea said.

Lena slowly turned
her head to stare at Thea in horror. “Oh my God, what did you do? What did you
say to Chance Dalton?”

“Oh, you mean that
gentleman across the street whom you
eyefuck
every
morning?”

“Thea!”

“Oh come off it, I
know you’re not a prude,” Thea said, suddenly serious. Lena flinched at the
word ‘prude,’ and that didn’t escape Thea’s notice, either. “And I
know
you’re not going to let that scumbag
Richie determine how you feel about yourself or your sexuality. Right?”

Lena closed her
eyes. Sometimes she’d prefer to have a best friend who was somewhat oblivious.
Thea had a tendency to see straight to the heart of an issue and head right for
it, preferring to be blunt over tactful. She used to say that the older you
got, the less inclined you were to waste time dancing around the stuff that
mattered, but Lena had a suspicion that she’d always been like this.

Lena didn’t feel
quite ready for it at the moment.

“Please just tell
me what you did.”

“First, I only did
it because I care about you.”

“Stipulated. Go
on.”

“And second, I
don’t know exactly what I did.”

“Thea…”

Thea shrugged.
“Well, he was very eager to help. He seemed genuinely offended by this whole
situation, which I think speaks to his character, does it not?”

Lena groaned. “Offended
by the situation” could mean many different things. It could mean that he’d
check out the story and decide she was just a cheap whore, just like everyone
else, or worse, that she leaked the story herself for publicity.

Which, in this
town, wasn’t a crazy assumption. But it also wasn’t Lena. Maybe she’d never
been a good fit for this place.
Or for this career.

“He said he had an
idea to help get you out of here,” Thea went on, her voice mellowing. “No idea
what, though. And he gave me his phone number.”

“…What?”

Thea cackled. “So
I could check up on him, honey. Old fashioned, in a way. Strange for a man who
runs a sex club, don’t you think?”

“Honestly, Thea, I
have no idea what to think about anything. I am incredibly tired of thinking. I
just…oh crap.”

Lena was peeking
out the window again, and this time there was something new: a black vintage
muscle car with a white racing stripe, a Mustang or a Challenger or something,
rumbling up the narrow side street to come to a halt directly across from her
window, on the far side of the street.

She also saw that
the photographers were back right outside the gate, waiting. None of them
bothered to turn around and look at the car that sat idling, the massive engine
audible from across the street.

But Lena did. And
she saw Chance Dalton get out, look right at her, and wink.

Without thinking,
she waved back. And she laughed. First time in two days she really felt like laughing.
The man was just…incorrigible.

And
gone.

As soon as he saw
her wave, he jumped back in the car and drove out of sight, and reality came
crashing back down on Lena in a crushing wave. Nope, she was still stuck here,
still in this situation, still with a ruined image that no one would ever take
seriously again, if they ever had. Still humiliated, still violated, and with
what remained of her professional dreams in ruined tatters.

Then Thea’s phone
rang.

“You didn’t,” Lena
said.

Thea looked down.
“Of course I did. And it is him.”

“Jesus.”

Lena’s heart was
pounding, but really, why? Why was this making her any more anxious than she’d
been since the photos had been published? She was such a mess.

But Thea was
already talking.
 

And
handing over the phone.

“He wants to talk
to you.”

Lena felt a little
queasy and her hands felt cold, the way they did when she got really upset. Her
body was an absolute coward, and her mind was a little disgusted with it. Her
mind, in fact, was starting to reach the limit of its patience with this whole
thing. She had been in L.A. for ten years. She had thicker skin than this.

“Hello?” she said
into the phone. Thea did a triumphant little fist pump.

“Hey, Lena. This
is Chance. Thea tell you about me?”

“Briefly.”

“Good.” She could
tell he was smiling, even over the phone. Confident bastard. “Lena, I’ve got a
question for you. That gate out in front of your house—does it open
outward or inward?”

Lena felt like she
was hearing things. “What?”

“Outward or
inward?”

Lena felt her mouth
open and close, open and close, like a fish. What kind of bizarre…?

“You ok, Lena?”

“Fine,” she said.
She had to close her eyes and visualize the gate. “Inward. What is this about?”

“Excellent,” he
said. “It’s about the fact that I hear you’re trapped up there by a bunch of
idiots with cameras, that correct?”

And now Lena felt
ridiculous all over again. Silly. Childish. On the one hand, she was shattered.
On the other, what a silly set of problems to have.

“Well, not
physically trapped or anything,” she said, feeling worse by the second.

“Don’t do that,”
the voice over the phone said. It was gruff without even trying, amazingly
male. She couldn’t help but listen. “Don’t belittle this bullshit. My cousin
Lola was in a situation like that not too long ago. I know how bad it can
be.”
 

Lena’s mind
latched on to this, grateful to have anything to think about besides her own
embarrassment: he meant Lola Theroux, the woman who ran the original Volare
club back in New York. She’d just married the owner, Roman Casta, and it had
even gotten press coverage in L.A
..

Ok, maybe he did
know what he was talking about.

“So Lena,” that
voice said, “I’m going to help you get out of there. All you have to do is say
yes.”