It didn't take long until Gabriel wrote, Chase's here.

A knock on the door announced his presence a few seconds later.

Can you unlock the door? I asked. I couldn't exactly go and open since I had a mountain of a man half lying on top of me.

There was a click, and Chase walked in. "If this is a booty call, I'll really feel silly for alerting—" His eyes landed on me. "Oh, God…" He dropped the bag he was carrying and ran over to kneel by my side. "Where are you hurt?"

"It's mostly his blood, not mine," I told him.

"What happened?" Chase reached to check Gabriel's pulse.

"He's not dead. I hit him with a vase, but he's not dead. How badly is he hurt?"

Chase inspected the head wound. "The bleeding has almost stopped, but it's hard to tell. He'll need X-rays to see if the skull is cracked."

"Can you get him off me?" I asked. "My leg has gone to sleep."

He pulled on Gabriel's shoulder, but the arms wouldn't let go. "This is odd. The muscles should be relaxed when he's passed out."

"He's not exactly passed out," I said. "He locked himself in so he wouldn't hurt me."

Chase stared at me. "You mean he's awake right now?"

"Sort of…"

Shaking his head, Chase retrieved his bag and pulled out a syringe. He filled it from a small bottle and shot Gabriel with it. In a few seconds, Gabriel's arms loosen up enough for Chase to roll his body off me.

"What did you give him?" I asked while Chase helped me get up from the floor. I limped to the bed as needles shot up and down my leg.

"Something to keep him out for a couple of hours," he said.

The door that had remained open was slammed against the wall, and Preston and Robbins burst in.

"What happened?" Robbins asked.

"Gabriel attacked her," Chase said, making a grimace.

"Not quite," I muttered. "I hurt him."

Chase ignored me. He put a bandage on Gabriel's head and told the others, "Take him home and restrain him. Watch the head. We'll be home soon too."

Robbins grumbled something about "ungrateful bastards" while he and Preston picked up Gabriel and carried him out of the room.

I got up to follow them, but Chase stopped me. "Show me your hands."

"It's nothing…"

"I'll be the judge of that." He steered me towards the table and made me sit on a chair.

He frowned at my hands and disappeared into the bathroom only to return with a wet towel. As he wiped away the blood, it became clear that my fingers were untouched, but two cuts crossed my right palm and one my left.

"Can we do this at home? I want to get out of here." I glanced warily at the pieces of broken glass and blood stains on the carpet.

"You will when I'm done here," he muttered. "This will sting a little." He sprayed something over the cuts from a can he'd brought in the bag.

I winced and gritted my teeth. He was still glaring as he wrapped my hands in clean bandages.

"Are you mad at me or something?" I asked, flexing my fingers.

He tossed the rest of the bandages in the bag and snapped it shut. "I'm so mad I could throttle you," he gritted between clenched teeth.

I stared at him, startled by his outburst.

"Do you have any idea how it feels to run all the way here after receiving that cryptic message and then find you lying on the floor, covered in blood?" His eyes shot daggers at me.

"I-I'm sorry. I couldn't think of anyone else to call. My guys would have taken it badly … and he needed a doctor," I finished lamely.

"I don't care what he needs! This isn't about him!"

"Then what is it about?" I asked in a little voice, cowering in my chair. I had never seen Chase so furious.

"You." He put his hands on his hips and drew in a long breath. "I can't do this."

I gaze up at him, not knowing what he meant but having a bad feeling about it. Since he just stared at me for a long moment, I squeezed my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.

Then he shook his head and sighed. "What do you want from me? Do you want to break me? Well, here I am. Broken. I hope you're happy." He turned his back on me and stared out the window into the square.

"Robert, I…"

Chase's shoulders tensed as people rarely called him by his first name.

I tried again. "I never meant to hurt you, or scare you … I didn't think." I bit my lip. It was hard to talk to his back, but somehow easier than when his blue eyes fixated me. "You're always so calm and collected … I didn't think it would affect you this much. I just thought that, no matter what it was, you'd fix it." I winced, realizing how much I trusted him and relied on him.

"You thought I didn't care." He glanced pensively at me over his shoulder.

I put on a sad smile. "I know you like me, but you don't want me. Or you don't want to want me, which is pretty much the same thing."

"It's not the same thing."

"Okay, it's not, but the fact remains that you resent me for being a Mistress."

He didn't deny it.

"We've been at this game for what—two years? You'll never accept me for what I am, and I don't want to force you. I know when I'm beaten." I lowered my eyes to the floor and rolled a shoulder. "It's why I tried so many times to stay away from you." I hadn't quite succeeded, but I had tried because I wanted the best for him and I knew I wasn't what he wanted. "I don't know what your Mistress did to you to make you hate us all so much, but this is one thing about me that I can't change."

"I never had a Mistress."

The words fell like a bomb, and I had to quickly recompose my face before he turned around to face me.

"This old lady had a bad heart and needed constant supervision. Somehow having her personal doctor on call 24/7 made sense, so there I was." Chase ran a hand through his blond hair. "There was nothing going on between us. I had a fling with her granddaughter, but when the old lady died, she didn't want to assume responsibility. Ever since, I've been meeting with their lawyer once a month and assured him over lunch that I had a job, a roof over my head, and I stayed out of trouble."

"That's when you took the job at the hospital," I said, and he nodded.

"I never had a Mistress. I don't know how it feels to have one. Maybe there's something wrong with me, but no one ever wanted me." His hands fell defeated by his side.

My heart ached to see this vulnerable side of him. I had never understood his reasons for keeping his distance, but now I did. Underneath it all, he was afraid of being discarded when he wasn't needed anymore. I cursed his old Mistress for ingraining those insecurities into him. "Someone does," I said quietly. "And there's always be one door open for you. But I can't make that decision for you." I stood up on shaky legs and walked towards him.

Chase took my bandaged hands and held them gently in his. "I told you I'm already broken. I never stood a chance from the first moment you set foot into my office. Do whatever you want with me."

Encouraged by the twinkle in his eyes, I stepped on my toes and kissed him. His arms circled my waist, pulling me closer, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, my fingers finding their way into his hair.

"Are you sure you're not going to change your mind?" I whispered against his lips, convinced that it would break my heart if he did.

"No. I don't know about you, but I think two years are enough of courtship and drama. It's time for some peace."

I held him tighter, happy to hear him say that.

We stayed like that a while longer, kissing and holding each other, until Chase said, "How about we go home now and fix that poor bastard?"

"Uh, well, I'm not sure I can fix him," I said, reluctant to leave his arms. "And he's not a bastard. It was the chip that—"

"Do you want to argue or go home to find a bed?"

"Home it is," I said after the slightest hesitation.

Chase grinned. "I thought so."