Taken by Chance by Chloe Cox

on.”
    “Are you seriously
justifying this to me?”
    “Whatever. I’m
saying you should take a page from my playbook. Seize the day and all that. Go
out and get some auditions or something,” Richie said with a sneer.
    How? How had she
dated this morally bankrupt pretty boy for a year ? The very worst part about realizing that Richie wasn’t a good
guy with some problems, but was instead a bad guy with some charm, was that it
made her think about how lonely she must have been to fall for his act. He had
always been using her, and she’d bought it because she wanted to. Now that he
was done, Richie wasn’t even looking at her. Lena didn’t think he could see
her, could see the damage he had done to her, if he tried.
    This was the guy
who had ruined her career. She wouldn’t let him ruin her life.
    “Lena, are you all
right?”
    Warm gravel. There
wasn’t a better sound in the universe. She turned, even though she knew what
she would see. Chance was standing by her side, his blue eyes softened for her,
his hand on her arm. Without making a big deal of it he pivoted to put himself
between her and Richie.
    “Is everything
ok?” he asked her again.
    Lena was
momentarily…not herself. Richie had knocked her off balance, and she wasn’t
prepared for Chance, or Chance’s body. She was thrown by his scent, his
closeness, the mile of exposed chest in front of her.
Thrown enough that she had only a moment to dread what happened next.
    “Hey, you’re
Chance Dalton, right?” Richie said. “I’m Richie Kerns. This is a great—”
    Lena saw the anger
flash on Chance’s face as he turned, followed by the spark of recognition as he
looked at Richie. People usually did that. No one could ever figure out where
they’d seen him before; it used to drive Richie crazy, being a “former child
star.”
    But the worst
part, in that split second, was figuring out that Chance knew about her and
Richie. Which means he must have known about those photos. About
what she was doing in the photos. About what Richie was doing to her.
    Lena thought she
had become thoroughly, exhaustingly acquainted with anger and shame in the past
few days. But nope. This topped it. Thinking about
Chance seeing her like that, knowing that she had been used?
    So
much worse.
    “Mr. Kerns,”
Chance said, once more making sure he placed himself between her and Richie.
His voice was still gravel, but it was anything but warm. “You are about to be
escorted off the premises. If I ever see you here again, I won’t tell security.
I’ll deal with it myself. And I swear to God, if you say one more word, I’ll
take your goddamn head off right now.”
    Lena almost wished she could see Richie’s
face through the enormous wall of Chance that was blocking her view. Almost.
    Instead she looked
around and saw that, despite Chance’s best efforts, they were making a bit of a
scene. Two giant security guys walked a petulant Richie out of the room, and she
wished, desperately, that there wasn’t a hush. That everyone would just start
talking again, and she could go back to pretending that everyone didn’t know
about her and Richie and what had just happened.
    Instead Chance
turned around and did his best to guard her with his huge body. It was, without
words, one of the sweetest things anyone had done for her in recent memory. The
only thing sweeter had been when he’d rescued her in his car.
    “Lena,” he said.
    “Chance, I am so,
so embarrassed, I can’t—”
    “No,” he said, and
put one finger on her lips. Startled, she looked up and saw that same
fierceness in his eyes. “That will never, ever happen again. This place will be
safe for you, even if I have to vet the list myself from now on.”
    “You don’t have to
do that,” she whispered. “It’s your club, I’m just—”
    “I’m glad you
came,” he said.
    Lena’s mouth went
dry. He had his arms almost wrapped around her, his hands right at her waist,
drawing her abs up tight with just