Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jo
By the time we got back from town and parked outside the house, I was dangerously close to calling the whole day . . . nice.
Which was unacceptable.
Nice didn’t fit with being a fugitive, or a hostage, or being shadowed by a private security detail while my father rotted in prison. Nice was for people with matching dishware and clean consciences.
Nate cut the engine, but neither of us made a move to leave the car. After a moment, I said, “I talked to Frank today.”
Nate’s eyes sharpened. “Frank the caretaker?”
“Yeah.” I tapped my fingers on my knee. “Apparently my reputation is taking a hit. Rumor has it I’m holed up here like Snow White with a bunch of men.”
His mouth twitched like he wasn’t sure if he was allowed to find that funny. “I can see how our situation might be . . . misinterpreted,” he said.
“You think? We have a lot eyes on us.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him the truth,” I said. “Or . . . a version of it. We need to be careful if we don’t want people asking the wrong questions.”
“Right.”
“Frank doesn’t know everything,” I said. “But he knows enough. And not knowing the rest? That’s what keeps him safe.”
That seemed to land. His expression softened around the edges.
“Is that why you feel like you can’t tell me everything?” he asked. “To protect me?”
I looked down at my hand. That was part of it, but also, could I trust him with the truth? I didn’t know what to think anymore. “I want my stuff moved back into the garage.”
His brows knit. “Your stuff?”
“The lab. My equipment. My notes. Everything. I want it back where it was in the garage. There’s a hidden space there that Silas designed for me. And I don’t want to explain myself every time I walk in there.”
He turned toward me, studying me like a puzzle with too many variables. “Let’s compromise,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m already doing that by not leaving.”
“You can work in the lab,” he said. “No questions, no one in your way.”
“Good,” I said slowly.
“As long as you let me work in there with you.”
My head snapped up. “So you can watch me?”
“So I can be part of whatever is happening under my roof. And so my team doesn’t have to panic every time you disappear into a hidden space they can’t see into.”
“It’s not a meth lab,” I said. “I’m not building a bomb. And don’t you have better things to do? Don’t you have to go back to the city and be obscene levels of important?”
“The great thing about being my own boss,” he said, that dry note slipping into his voice, “is that when something important comes up, I can delegate.” He held my gaze. “And this is important.”
My frustration flared hot. “Why? Because we had sex once?”
“Technically twice,” he murmured, mouth curving. “But who’s counting?”
I glared so hard I nearly sprained something.
I also really wanted to laugh.
I hated him for that.
“I’m serious,” I said.
“So am I.” His tone shifted, quiet and grounded. “Jo, I’m old enough to have had my share of women.”
“Congratulations?”
“A few of them even liked me,” he continued, ignoring me. “Not once have I asked my security team to secure a property so one of them couldn’t leave—and so we could protect her if we needed to.”
Everything inside me stilled. “Wait,” I said. “Protect me?”
He frowned as if that should’ve been obvious. “Of course.”
“They have orders to protect me?”
“Of course they do, Jo.”
The air left my lungs in one sharp exhale. My fingers twisted together.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I said quietly. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt because of me.”
“They understand the risk,” he said. Not a flicker of doubt.
“I doubt that.” My throat burned. “I don’t want to worry about you or them. All I want to do,” I said steadily, “is clear my father’s name and get him out of prison.”
He watched me for a long moment. Something in his eyes—something that wasn’t pity or condescension—made it hard to breathe.
“Is that really all you want?” he asked.
“Yes.” Too fast. I swallowed. “That’s all I’m allowing myself to want right now.”
“Why?”
“Because,” I snapped, then forced myself to slow down, “if your father was wrongfully imprisoned, would you just . . . relax? Hang out in the country like everything’s fine?”
He opened his mouth, but I pushed through.
“Would you sit around, sleeping with some gorgeous guy, pretending that’s enough while your father dies in a cage?”
The words hit the air too hard, too loud.
His brows lifted. Then the corner of his mouth tugged upward. “You think I’m gorgeous?”
I stared. “That’s what you pulled out of that?”
He shrugged. “I take my compliments where I can get them.”
Against my will, my lips twitched. “Don’t push it,” I muttered.
But the tension in the car had shifted—just slightly. The sharp edges dulled. The fear was still there, the urgency, the impossible knot of everything I hadn’t told him.
But there was something else now too.
Something warm. Something steady
And as much as I hated admitting it, even in my own head . . . it wasn’t just the town that was starting to feel hard to leave.