Free Mastered By My Guardian by Opal Carew Page A

wouldn’t move. If she forced them, she knew she’d stumble.
    His hand rested on her shoulder.
    “Chelsea,” he said softly. “I do love you. With all my heart.”
    She spun around, glaring at him with a ferocity that shocked her. “And that’s how you show it? By working with my partner to sell my company out from under me?”
    “That’s not what happened.”
    “I just talked to Sandy. She told me about the vote.”
    “She wasn’t in the meeting. Please, let me explain.”
    “No!” She marched away, forcing her legs to move. One step after another. Propelling her away from him.
    Just as she reached the door, ready to exit the apartment, he spoke.
    “Chelsea, stop.” He used that tone. The one that reached inside her somehow and compelled her to do what he said.
    She hesitated, her hand hovering on the door knob.
    “I didn’t take your company away from you. I worked against your son-of-a-bitch partner.”
    A hand squeezed around her heart, accelerating her breathing. Could it be true?
    She turned slowly.
    His somber blue gaze locked on hers. He was telling the truth. She knew he was.
    He’d never lied to her. He always told her the truth, even if it wasn’t what she wanted to hear.
    But it wasn’t like him to take the losing side of a battle.
    “So you came here to vote even though you knew we couldn’t win?”
    Her twenty percent and his fifteen wouldn’t beat the combined twenty plus twenty shares of Bill and the angel investor.
    “Why do you think we didn’t win?”
    Hope fluttered inside her but… she didn’t understand.
    “I…” She shook her head. He knew the math as well as her. “Bill said he had the support of the angel investor.” She wanted to grab onto the hope Zane offered and cling to it, but she knew better. “An angel investor wants to prosper from his investment and from the offer Bill received. No sane investor would say no.” Only someone like her, who was passionate about the company… who had pride in having built it from her own ideas and vision… would keep it in the face of an offer like that. “He’d have to be an idiot to turn it down.”
    His lips quirked up. “I don’t think of myself as an idiot.”
    She shook her head. “What?”
    He stepped closer, then took her hand in his. It was so warm, his fingers enveloping her cold ones.
    “I said I’m not an idiot. I’m the one who invested in your company when you were starting out. Through a separate corporation so you wouldn’t know.”
    Her eyes widened.
    “And before you go there, it wasn’t to keep any kind of control over you. I knew how much you wanted this. I wanted to make sure that no one could ever take it away from you.” He squeezed her hand. “Ever.”
    “You…” Her throat was so tight the word sounded strangled. She tried again. “You’re the investor? You…voted against Bill?”
    He smiled and drew her toward him. “You didn’t really think I’d ever let anyone hurt you like that, did you?”
    He pulled her into his arms and held her tight. Her head rested against the smooth wool of his suit, her tears dampening the fabric.
    He had saved her company.
    “Sweetheart, I love you. I have always done whatever I can to protect you. You may have felt it was controlling, but…” His lips brushed against her temple. “I could just never stand to see you hurt.”
    She eased back and stared up at him as she blinked back the tears.
    “So Sandy was wrong? The company is not being sold?”
    He tipped his head. “No, she’s not wrong. The company is being sold. To me.”
    Her gut reaction was to push him away, assuming he was taking control. That his attitude was that she’d had her chance to run a company… and failed. Now he’d take over and do what she couldn’t.
    But he deserved better than that. This weekend had changed everything she thought she’d known about him.
    He smiled. “When I heard via my sources that Bill had received an offer for the company, I had one of my