“It’s not a role that fits, you know why since you and your colleagues jacked my shit. So leak it. I’ll take it.”

“It’s conceivable this would make the news. You were held up as the poster boy for bravery against corruption. The media enjoys building a hero. But they enjoy it more, tearing him down. It could destroy your life.”

“Clue in, ass**le, my life’s already in the toilet. Not only would it be a relief but, I don’t think you get this, I know my father’s plays but I am not my father or any of the men you work for. I got a pair. Shit happens, I don’t hide behind my money and men like you. I deal. Dish it out. I want you to. I already live under a cloud. Nothin’ you or those douchebags you work for, who keep you in your expensive suits and shoes and haircuts, could do could make it any worse.”

“You are very wrong, Chace.”

“Try it and see.”

Clinton held his eyes and Chace let him.

Then he said quietly, “There could come a time when Trane can’t protect you.”

“Let that time be now,” Chace invited. “I don’t want that piece of shit’s protection.”

“This is the wrong decision,” Clinton whispered.

“No,” Chace did not whisper. “Your boys are runnin’ so scared at the same time thinkin’ their money and position can buy them anything, they haven’t been payin’ attention. Your first move is against Ty and Lexie, you’ll create a shit storm so extreme it’ll never blow over. Not only is Ty Walker a man who has taken enough and is not about to take any more and will do what he’s gotta do to protect himself, his wife and the family they’re makin’, he’s a man who’s got some serious power at his back. He stubs his toe and it looks suspect, the full force of the media, Samuel Sterling and whoever Sterling can round up will be all over your asses. I got their back and I’ll have it any way I have to have it even if it means throwin’ myself on my sword. Think of that in your strategy sessions. And since I’m handin’ out advice, Darren Newcomb is a racist asswipe, dirty cop who beat his wife so badly, the only play he gave her was for her to leave him and her kids. But he loves his daughter. He’ll go down for her. You f**k with him and any chance he has to help his daughter beat that shit eatin’ away at her, he’ll make it ugly. So counsel your boys to take on a new charity and learn to hope Newcomb doesn’t get greedy. You see his daughter through that shit, deal with him after. He deserves it. His daughter does not.”

“I’ll take this under advisement and share it with my colleagues.”

“Good call.”

“But you haven’t addressed the matter of your mother.”

Chace couldn’t beat it back this time and sucked in breath.

If his mother knew about his father, it’d kill her.

She’d been a beauty her whole life, even now, at age sixty. She came from money, had been spoiled but it didn’t make her like Misty, grasping and entitled. Nothing could beat his mother’s sweet. It was how she was because it was who she was.

She loved and adored her son.

She loved and worshiped her husband.

Trane Keaton was a lot of things and not one of them was good. Except the fact that in his sick way, he felt the same about his wife. Like Chace, he handled her with care, like she was exactly what she was, a delicate, fragile thing who gave nothing to the world but beauty.

But she wasn’t perfect precisely because she was fragile. The kind of fragile it took medication to strengthen or it would come flying apart. The kind of fragile that, before the meds and even sometimes after them, led to episodes that were at best unpleasant and at worst, especially when he was a kid, terrifying.

Fuck, she’d had a bad break that put her into treatment after reading an article about a little girl who’d been kidnapped, molested and murdered. As terrible as that shit was, she totally couldn’t deal.

Finding out her husband was unfaithful to her repeatedly throughout their marriage and how would end her.

Chace knew that. His father knew that. But it was Chace knowing it that bought them his cooperation, until he couldn’t stomach cooperating anymore because he couldn’t even look in his own eyes in the mirror.

His threat to tell her had been a bluff at the time and Clinton knew it. But now, as he had when he made the decision to approach Internal Affairs and offer to assist in exposing the corruption in Carnal, Chace had to weigh his mother’s mental health against the well-being of an entire town.

And he loved her a f**kuva lot.

But Ty and Lexie Walker had been through enough in their lives and they had a baby on the way.

Just they tipped the scales.

The rest sent them crashing.

“You force my hand, I’ll do what I have to do. I do what I have to do, I’ll deal with the fallout but you will deal with my father,” Chace replied.

Again, Clinton’s shades stayed locked to Chace’s eyes.

Then he murmured, “Please step away.”

“I will, I get your assurances I don’t see you again or hear from any of your crew of ass**les.”

“I cannot guarantee that, Chace.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Chace whispered.

Clinton continued to hold his eyes long moments before he requested quietly, “I’m asking you to step back.”

Chace drew in breath at the same time he realized he couldn’t do what he very much would like to do. Use his fists to provide Clinton Bonar with the experience Darren Newcomb’s daughter was very familiar with and that was a prolonged hospital stay.

His only play was to step back and walk away.

So he stepped back and walked away. The direction he walked was toward the library.

“This isn’t finished,” Clinton warned his back.

“It never is,” Chace muttered, not knowing if Clinton could hear him and not giving a f**k if he could.

He watched the library coming closer as he thought of dancing with Faye after midnight to a fantastic f**king song while she smiled at him and let him hold her close. He’d sat in her truck, smelling her perfume, watching her expressive face, hearing her sweet voice using a variety of different tones that were as expressive as her face.

He’d bought her coffee. He’d watched a kid who had nothing grab five bags full of what he would consider gold that Faye Goodknight gave to him out of nothing but kindness.

He’d had a good morning, his first good morning in a really long time that his father and his bullshit had turned to shit.

And that was exactly what he felt as his long legs ate the distance from his truck to the library. Shit. He smelled it. He felt it. He tasted it in his mouth.

He had to get rid of it.

He knew only one way to do that. Only two times in f**king years he’d smelled nothing but sweet, felt it and, only once, tasted it.

Dancing with Faye and kissing her.

The library wasn’t open yet but he still wrapped his fingers around the handle of the front door and pulled.

It opened.

Thank f**k, she was in and hadn’t locked the doors.

He walked in, vaguely seeing the layout, the shelves, the books, smelling that smell that only libraries had but his focus was on scanning the space.

To the right, the long checkout desk.

From a door behind it at the back left, Faye came out.

“Hey,” she greeted in her sweet voice. “Did you see where he went?”

Chace didn’t reply, he stalked to her.

When he started moving, she dipped her ear to her shoulder, her head jutting slightly forward, her face going from curiosity to scrutiny.

“Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

Chace rounded the side of the counter.

Cute, tight skirt that skimmed her hips, cupped her ass and hit her knees. Her low-heeled, brown boots. A scoop-necked tee under a cardigan. Skin displayed above the neckline of the tee highlighting an unusual and attractive three-tiered necklace. Auburn hair falling in sheets over her shoulders and down her chest, a hank of it at the top, right of her forehead pulled to the side in a cute bobby pin. Makeup subtle and appealing.

She looked like a librarian who had good taste in clothes and a light but expert hand with makeup. Her own style, a style that did nothing to emphasize the obviously attractive features of her face or frame and because of that, they contradictorily accentuated them. It was a style that worked for her in a huge way.

And it had been working for Chace the same way for a long f**king time.

“Chace,” she said, still talking quietly, “did something –?”

She stopped talking abruptly when it came clear to her that he wasn’t going to stop coming at her.

She took a step back.

Too late.

He was on her, he rounded her waist with an arm and twisted them so he was moving her backwards toward the door she’d come out.

“Oh God,” she whispered, hands coming up to rest light on his chest, eyes wide and staring in his. “Is the boy okay?”

He didn’t answer.

He moved her through the door, reached out a hand, grabbed it, slammed it, turned her sharply then moved in so she was pressed to it.

“What are you –?”

She stopped talking abruptly this time because he tightened his arm around her waist and yanked it up, yanking her into his body. His other hand drove into her silken hair at the back of her head. Then his fingers cupped her head and tipped it to the side. He slanted his head to the other side and slammed his mouth down on hers.

She made a noise of surprise, her body tense against his and he thrust his tongue between her lips. Without a choice, they opened, another noise of surprise filled his mouth but he ignored that one too, carried on with what he was doing and took her mouth.

She tasted like bubblemint again. This time he knew why since his tongue encountered the gum.

Sweet, fresh, clean. Fucking clean. Beautiful.

God, nothing more beautiful.

He deepened an already deep kiss, needing it and she gave it to him. The tension flowed from her body, it melted into his, her hands slid up his chest, one curving around the back of his neck, fingers going into his hair. The other one slid around his shoulders and held on tight.

Then she gave more, pressing deeper, her tongue timidly sparring with his, her fingers flexing into his scalp, her arm holding tighter. He took it, pulling her close even as he pressed her back into the door, forcing her soft curves to mold to his frame.

When he felt it start to take over, when he knew he’d lose control if he didn’t stop, he stopped.

Tearing his mouth from hers, he tipped his head to rest his forehead on hers, his eyes opening to see, up close, hers drifting open in a cute, sexy flutter and he whispered, “Bubblemint.”

She blinked slowly. No, languidly. Like she was shaking off a dream she didn’t want to let go.

Then she whispered back, “I’m addicted to it.”

Chace couldn’t bury the groan that escaped his throat as he slid his cheek down hers and buried his face in her neck.