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her to deal with? What if she lost it in front of him? Broke down in tears that never ceased?
    “I don’t know about this,” she whispered, her tone husky.
    They were so close, maybe five or six inches apart as they gazed into each other’s eyes. Cerviel slipped a finger beneath her chin and tilted her face up so he could study her wary expression.
    “Tell me what’s bothering you, kitten,” he urged.
    Warmth spread through her at the word, the…endearment, and all her fears and self-doubt eased. “I’m afraid.”
    “Of me?” Something that might have been disappointment flared through his eyes. “I swear on my life I won’t harm you.”
    “Oh no.” She gave a sharp shake of her head. “I’m not afraid of you.”
    The tension lifted from his beautiful face. “Then what?”
    She bit her bottom lip, wishing for one brief second that it was his teeth there, not her own. “I’m just worried… What if…”
    He allowed his thumb to brush the line of her jaw as her words trailed away.
    “What if?” he prompted softly.
    “What if there’s something terrible in my past?”
    She watched as Cerviel’s brows furrowed, his thumb continuing to stroke a tender caress up and down her jaw.
    “ Ma chère , you’ve already endured terrible. You’ve been through hell and it’s only made you stronger,” he said, his eyes so intense on her own, she had to remind herself to breathe. “Like finely tempered steel.”
    She laughed softly. Right now she didn’t feel like finely tempered anything. She felt raw and fragile. As if she might shatter into a million pieces, never to recover. She felt like she never wanted him more than three feet away from her at any given time.
    “I don’t mean something that was done to me.” She struggled to explain her reluctance. “Like you said, I’ve been through hell. But I can deal with that. I’ve made my peace with that.” She felt her eyes prick with tears, and hated herself for them. For the weakness that five years in captivity inflicted on a person.
    Or to a Pantera?
    “Hallie…” he began with gentleness.
    She shook her head. “What if I’ve done something to someone else? Something unforgivable.”
    He stilled, perhaps sensing there was more to her words than some vague, unexplainable fear. “Why would you think that?”
    She licked her dry lips, glancing toward the opening of the cave. Logically she knew there wasn’t a guard hovering just out of sight, but the awareness of being constantly watched was too ingrained to be easily dismissed.
    At last satisfied that they were alone, she returned her attention to the man seated next to her on the hard ground.
    “I overheard Donaldson talking to his boss on the phone,” she said.
    It was as if a switch had been flipped, and Cerviel turned from tender beast to a fierce male on the edge. “What was his boss’s name?”
    She paused, allowing the conversation to rewind in her head. It’d occurred shortly after she’d awakened at the ranch. “I think it was Benton,” she said, only to wrinkle her nose. “Or maybe Benson. Something like that.”
    Cerviel’s breath hissed through his teeth, as if he recognized the name. “Can you tell me what Donaldson said?”
    “Does this Benson person have to do with why you came to get me?”
    “Please, Hallie.”
    The almost desperate tone in his voice had her pressing on. Granted, she wasn’t abandoning her query, just backing off it for a moment. “He said that he was keeping me safe, and promised that nothing bad would ever happen to me.” Her lip curled with utter disgust. Safe. Yeah, right. One day she was going to return to the ranch, and keep Donaldson ‘safe.’ “That piece of shit liar.”
    “Agreed.” Fire crackled in Cerviel’s eyes and he looked murderous. “Anything else?”
    “He said that he understood I was special,” she said on a bitter snarl. “And that I was vital to the success of his boss’s plans. He assured Benson that he would do