Scarred (Book 1, #1) by Kylie Walker Page A

were undone, leaving just a tiny peek-a-boo look at his chest. His jeans probably cost as much as she makes in a month but Chloe could plainly see by the way they fit his sexy hips and thighs that they were well worth it.
    “Hi,” he said with a smile.
    “Hey,” she said. She had her purse and keys in hand. He glanced down at them, getting the hint that he wasn’t invited in and said, “Are you ready?”
    “Yep.” She locked the door behind them and then shivered as his hand once again found the small of her back and he led her over to the SUV he’d been driving earlier in the day. He opened her door and helped her up inside and she took three deep breaths and let them out slowly before he made it around to his side and got in.
    “At the risk of sounding like a nerd here, have you seen the new Planet of the Apes movie?” Chloe laughed, she couldn’t help it. This man was gorgeous, he was rich and successful and obviously intelligent. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was the last movie that she would have expected him to want to see.
    “You’re laughing at me?” He said in a mock wounded voice.
    “No, I’m not, really. I just...I mean I would never have imagined...”
    “That I’m human?” he said.
    He said it so seriously that Chloe wasn’t sure what to say. He was absolutely right, just as Lexi had been when she said it at the park. Him being human was not a good thing for Chloe; it made her want him that much more.
    “Let’s start over,” she said. “I would love to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes, thank you.”
    “You’re a terrible liar,” he said with another grin, “But I’m going to pretend you’re serious because I really want to see it.”
    They drove through the city towards the movie theatre and he said, “Just so you’re not surprised next time, I asked Liz to let me know when the next project day was happening. I really enjoyed that today.”
    “Good, Liz can use all the help she can get. You did a good job.”
    “Tell me something though, why is it called Hannah’s heart? Liz didn’t want her own name on it?”
    “Hannah was her daughter,” Chloe said, sadly.
    “Was? She died?”
    “Yeah. She was killed three years ago. She was only twenty-three.”
    “Awful, poor Liz. Did you know her?”
    “No. It was before I came here. Liz talks about her a lot though. She sounds like someone I would have liked to know.”
    “What happened to her?”
    “Her husband killed her,”
    Chloe said. Her stomach was suddenly churning and she didn’t want to go on. If she didn’t though Derek would wonder why. “He beat her to death with his bare hands.” She looked at Derek when she said that. He winced and looked like he would be sick.
    They were both quiet for a while after that and when he finally spoke he said, “I can’t even imagine how you could profess to love someone and then do that to them. It’s more criminal to me than a random beating. To hurt someone who trusts you not to is despicable.”
    Chloe surprised them both by reaching over and taking his hand into hers. She wound her fingers through his and squeezed his hand. Without knowing it, he had said exactly what she needed him to.
    Derek held her hand on the way into the movie and instead of feeling nervous or tense about it, it made her feel safe and that was a strange, new feeling for her. Her entire life, even before Jessie, she had feared men. When she was a teenager she went out of her way to look frumpy and as unattractive as she possibly could, hoping that men wouldn’t notice her. Back then, they rarely did...except for the one at home that she couldn’t get to leave her alone. The scars on her back were reminders of what a man who professed to love her would do as far as she had been concerned her entire life.
    It was why she hadn’t left the first time Jesse hit her...or the second. She wasn’t even aware that it could be any different. When the old man tired of picking on her, he would beat up her