She rolled from him and gathered her discarded clothing.

He touched her back. “Don’t run from me. No more running.” But she wouldn’t face him. Zach sat up and gripped her shoulders, resting his cheek to her back. “Tell me why this frightens you. Tell me why I can’t get close enough to you to love you. Tell me what happened.”

She shook her head and then let out a cry.

“All you need to know is I fell in love with a man I worked for, and he hurt me.”

“Did he hit you?” Every instinct urged him to grip her tightly and hold her, but he didn’t want to scare her. He pulled back his hand.

“I’m not fragile,” she said, but really hadn’t answered his question.

“Regan, you have to open up to me. I love you, and you’re shutting yourself away from me. There is nothing you could tell me that would change how I feel for you.”

She turned to look at him. “I’ve only had three lovers before you. I thought I was in love with each of them. I know now I was wrong. I was young with the first two. But I gave myself to them wholeheartedly. With the last, the one who… well, the one who hurt me, I surrendered completely.” She clenched her jaw and shook her head. The tears had stopped, but he could see she was now angry. “He could say all the right things. Do all the right things and make me believe things I never would have believed in. I left a good job for him. I followed him. He was rich, handsome, and persuasive. I was his assistant. We traveled the world, but I was to stand by his side with my notebook open and my mouth shut, and I knew how it was.”

She looked away and took a deep breath. Her hands had clutched into fists, and she shoved back her shoulders as she turned to look at him. “What I didn’t know was that he was abusing me. Mentally. He was tearing down my defenses and building walls with rules and gifts. In the end the walls were so tall I didn’t see the bulldozer. I didn’t see he was keeping me and loving another. That with his influence, charm, and money he had chosen someone else for his wife. In my insecurities I never noticed that I had even helped plan some of the events.” Tears began to fall, and she wiped them quickly.

“He married his woman. The woman chosen for him by his parents and their money, a woman that he’d been sleeping with as long as he was with me. My heart was ripped in two. He was my boss. He used me, betrayed me, and left me. And yes,” she started, then paused, and swallowed hard. “He hit me.”

Zach’s entire body tensed, and he took her hand and gripped it tight. She covered it with her other hand, which was cold and shaking. “I returned to Nashville, lived on my savings, worked small jobs to keep sane, and I survived. Fate brought me to your door, and now I’m afraid it’ll happen all over again.”

He eased back and looked at her. “I’m sorry, Regan.” He skimmed her hair with his hand. If only he knew who the man was, he’d see to him. He’d make him pay for his mistakes. Every part of him wanted to rip him apart for hurting the woman he loved and keeping her from loving him. “I cannot promise you that through all this I won’t hurt you at some time. It’s human to make mistakes. But I will promise that I will never lie to you. I will never do wrong by you or harm you. If you or I choose to go our separate ways, we do so honestly. And just for the record, I’m not ashamed of what we have. You’re not just my assistant. You are a vital part of my life at the office and away. I meant what I said. I love you.”

She fell into his arms and nestled her face in his neck. “I haven’t decided if you’re the most wonderful man to walk the earth or the craziest.”

“A fine line between the two.” He smiled, but his it felt like his heart was being wrung by the hands of the man who’d hurt Regan and kept her from trusting him. “What I am is crazy about you. And if I have to fire you to love you, I’ll do it.” He pulled back and looked into her eyes. “But I don’t want that. I want us to love each other and to work side by side. I think we make a good team.”

She watched him as she let her shoulders fall, and a smile formed on her lips. “So do I.”

Regan stood to the side and watched Zach, along with twenty others in hard hats and suits, lift dirt with shiny silver shovels in the ground breaking ceremony of the Dallas Empire Building. She couldn’t help but scan the crowd and look for faces that were familiar to her. It wasn’t the first time she’d stood to the side and watched the man she loved bask in the glory of something he was building.

No one looked familiar, except for Rebecca, who still kept an eye on her as though she knew all her secrets.

Among those who attended, there were introductions and handshakes. Zach kept his professionalism, as did Regan. Both wanted the same thing—success for Benson, Benson, and Hart and a speedy trip back to the hotel.

They spent one more day in Dallas as tourists and lovers before returning to work. And work was what they did.

The Dallas project was officially underway. The Kansas City project had almost caught up to schedule without going over budget, and John Forrester was making things easy in Nashville so he could be relocated to Los Angeles for the project there. The build was going to take Zach’s very best man, and that man was John Forrester.

On Thursday, Regan and Zach drove to the Memphis site, holding hands in the car the entire way, and she sang old country songs that made Zach laugh.

“This is a great work day.” Regan smiled as the wind blew through her hair in Audrey's convertible. “I’m glad Audrey thought of this.”

“She likes you. She wants you to like me so she can marry me off,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice, but Regan turned her head. Every time she thought she had the man figured out, something else told her to beware. His mother was planning her future. She was already someone who could be forced to do what the rich and powerful wanted her to.

Zach touched her arm. “Regan, I didn’t mean anything by that. All I meant to say was she really likes you.” Regan looked back at him. The crease between his brows told her he was sorry for hurting her with his words, and it killed her that she was so sensitive to every word he spoke.

“I like her too.”

“She would like to think you would be the one I marry. She’s suddenly desperate for a huge wedding at the house and grandchildren.” The conversation wasn’t getting any better. Why was it she couldn’t accept the fact that Audrey Benson was genuinely kind and liked her for the person she was? Everything inside her said that it was happening again. That she was being controlled. However, if she replayed the past few weeks in her head, there was no evidence to back that up. She was scaring herself and she didn’t know how to stop.