Free THE CALLAHANS (A Mafia Romance): The Complete 5 Books Series by Glenna Sinclair Page B

him, making it impossible for there to be even a breath of space between us. He held me, his breath warm against my temple, his hands doing things to my equilibrium that neither of us could deny. He kissed me, his lips brushing the curve just in front of my ear. He was about to kiss me again, his lips so close to mine that I could already taste them, when his phone buzzed in his back pocket. My hands were close enough, I could feel it. He stiffened, guilt slipping through his eyes as he pulled it out, glancing at the screen as he moved to dismiss the call. But something he saw clearly changed his mind.
    He held the phone to his ear without saying a word. Tension burst through him, turning his expression to stone.
    “We have to go,” he said as he let me go, sliding the phone back into his pocket without pause.
    “What’s going on?”
    “There’s been an accident. Rachel’s been hurt.”
    He didn’t touch me until we were at the elevators, stepping into one of those infernal boxes for the third time together, side by side, that weekend. He shoved his finger against the buttons, his hand shaking when he pulled it back.
    “Brian…”
    “I’m an asshole,” he said so softly that I almost couldn’t hear him. “I’ve done this to you twice now.”
    “No.” I moved up behind him, slid my hands over his shoulders. “She’s going to be okay. And I…I can wait until you figure things out.”
    He turned into me and drew me against his chest, but then he pushed me away, shoving me up against the wall of the elevator hard enough that the wind was knocked out of my lungs for a brief moment.
    “You don’t understand, Cassidy. You never did. I’m not a good man.”
    “You are.”
    I reached up to touch his face, but he pushed my hand away, pressing both hands against my shoulders, shoving me hard against the wall again.
    “I’ve done things I’m not proud of.”
    “We all have.”
    “But these things would change your image of me. They’d make you hate me.”
    I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s possible.”
    “I don’t want you to want me, Cassidy. I don’t want you to care about me, to need me. And I…” His voice broke then even as he moved closer to me, his lips barely a hair from mine. “I don’t want to need you. That makes you a target, and I can’t lose anyone else. Do you understand?”
    I slid my hand over his jaw. “That’s why you chose her, isn’t it? Because she understood?”
    He pressed his forehead to mine. “She grew up in my world. She knew.”
    “We could have run away.”
    He groaned. “It was a lovely fantasy, but they never would have let me go.”
    “Then I could have—”
    He kissed me, roughly, his hands holding my head so tightly that I thought my skull might pop if he didn’t let go. But I didn’t try to pull away. Instead, I buried my fingers in the front of his shirt and pulled him closer to me.
    “I’m only going to hurt you again,” he whispered harshly against my lips.
    “Consider me warned.”
    He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes.
    “I love you, Cassidy.”
    That was the moment. That was the moment when I should have turned and walked away. I could have ended it all right there. I could have told him the truth. I could have left him standing there. I could have done almost anything but what I did.
    I slid my arms around his neck and whispered, “I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
    And that, as they say, was the final nail in my coffin.

Chapter 11
     
    Brian
    It was Killian who called. He had no idea what his news would do to me because he had no idea it was Rachel I’d been seeing these last few weeks. His concern was that a reporter who’d done a very public story on MCorp and me had been in an accident that police were calling suspicious. It was Killian’s job to protect MCorp from any form of attack above and beyond our other interests.
    Killian was waiting when Cassidy and I stepped off the plane.
    “How is she?”
    He