Chapter 33

Hope dragged herself upstairs and, once inside her apartment, kicked off her boots.

She walked into the kitchen and poured herself a tall, cold glass of water, drank half, then rested the cool glass against her brow. It had been a long time since she'd suffered from a panic attack, but then again, it had been a long time since she'd experienced a day like today.

The memory of Jeff Beasley's haggard features. The blood on his shirt…

It was too shockingly close to how she'd found Danny.

On top of the murders of Sylvie and her husband, it was all too much. She closed her eyes and blew out a long breath. She decided to head straight to bed. She still had court in the morning even though there might be a slight delay to the trial. But as Beasley wasn't doing the legal leg work, she doubted it. She felt selfish for thinking about the trial, but Ella Gibson's wellbeing was on the line too. The longer Jason Swann was walking around free, the more danger Ella was in.

Hope squashed the guilt by reminding herself how Beasley had made her work her full months' notice when she'd quit the firm. She'd walked away with a lot of money following a settlement and nothing in her heart except hatred and despair.

Maybe it wasn't Leech who'd stabbed the guy. Maybe it was one of his many dissatisfied coworkers or clients, and they'd used Leech's escape as a cover to get rid of the man. But that would mean she'd only imagined seeing Leech on the street tonight and that she really had lost her mind for a few minutes back there.

She didn't want to believe that. She needed to believe in herself if nothing else. What else did she really have? But she was tired and anxious after a week of little sleep and high stress. She needed some rest. She switched on the under-cupboard lights. Lucy was asleep on the couch, and she thought about stroking him, but he looked so content she didn't want to disturb him. A king in his kingdom, overlord to one.

She headed to her bedroom and shut the door to get changed even though she usually left it open for the cat. She didn't want an audience should one of the guys be heading down the stairs. They moved more quietly than the resident feline. She stripped and climbed into the shower to wash away the acrid scent of sweat and fear.

For all her tough talk, she'd almost passed out back there tonight, and that was simply because a man she didn't even like had been stabbed—and the memories it had evoked.

She'd wanted so desperately to get out of the car and grab onto Leech—to catch him and put him back inside the box he so richly deserved. To rot. To wither. To die.

She wanted to see him punished. She wanted to see him suffer. She wanted him to hurt even a fraction of how much she hurt.

And it would never be enough.

She'd always known prison would never be enough for him to atone for what he'd done, but it was all she could ask, except in the dark shadowy places of her soul where she wanted much, much worse.

But she wasn't the monster. He was.

She rinsed the conditioner out of her hair and turned off the tap. Wrapped herself in her soft bathrobe before quickly blow-drying her shoulder-length hair in the mirror.

She ran through her nightly skincare routine. Her eyes, probably her best feature, looked stormy and dark. Nose too sharp, mouth too wide for true beauty. But she had seen attraction on Aaron Nash's expression more than once. And suddenly she was thinking of something other than Leech and death and grim recovery as the only life path.

Desire uncoiled inside. Layered with guilt and the knowledge that Aaron technically wasn't allowed to get personally involved with someone he was supposed to be protecting. There were rules. Hell, with most government organizations even the rules had rules.

But he wasn't alone on this assignment, standing guard with his rifle night and day. There was a whole team of people on the job. Ten other men in an around-the-clock circle of protection. And she wasn't some poor victim who'd asked to be saved. She was the woman who'd helped convict that motherfucker in court, and Leech was one of many scumbags she dealt with on a regular basis. She was part of the same justice system Aaron was part of. Effectively they were on the same team.

And they hadn't given her a choice.

So, while this attraction might come to nothing more than the quickening of a pulse or the flaring of pupils in an unguarded moment, she at least intended to be ready for whatever scenario might come her way. She wasn't some wilting wallflower, and while she might not be that sexually experienced, considering the fact she was thirty-seven years old and had been married and conceived a child, she remembered the basics.

She pulled out her favorite scented body lotion and smoothed it all over. If nothing else, she was going to smell great tomorrow.

She felt better, she realized. Thinking about something other than Leech always felt good. And she knew it was nothing more than physical desire, but it was another win over the serial killer who'd for some reason declared himself her nemesis. Leech had stolen her sexuality as well as her family, she realized now.

This thing with Aaron was the perfect distraction. She wouldn't allow herself to get emotionally involved. She refused to be devastated when he left. She was immune to all that. Losing the man she'd loved had almost destroyed her once, and Aaron was a man whose job dared things to kill him on a regular basis.

She swallowed hard at the thought of it.

She was not about to risk going through that kind of heartbreak again. Ever. But for the first time in many, many years she wanted a man in her bed. And she wanted that man to be Aaron.

She hadn't heard him come upstairs, so she climbed into bed and pulled out her tablet, intending to read case notes. Instead she opened the latest thriller series she was hooked on.

She was asleep in under thirty seconds.