Chapter 21
Ford
I went to bed alone, but didn’t really sleep. I hadn’t realized how used I’d gotten to having Violet in my arms until she wasn’t there. It wasn’t even the sex. I just slept better when she was close. When I could feel her beside me, knowing she was safe.
I must have dozed off at some point, because when I woke up, it was to my phone buzzing with texts from my family, expressing delight over Laney’s pregnancy and insisting we all go out to dinner together to celebrate.
Be sure to bring Violet, my mom had texted, complete with a heart emoji.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and groaned softly. Yeah, this was getting complicated. Somewhere between protecting Violet and pretending to date her, I’d let the lines blur too much—and I wasn’t sure I could unblur them, even if I tried.
I got up, ignoring my phone and texts for now, and went to find Violet. She was in the kitchen, rinsing some dishes and already dressed for the day in her casino uniform, which surprised me. She wasn’t due in for her shift for another few hours.
“You’re already dressed for work?” I asked, even though that was obvious.
She nodded without meeting my eyes. “Yeah. I want to run a few errands before my shift.”
“Okay. Let me grab a quick shower and—”
“I already called your firm,” she said, interrupting me.
That stopped me cold. “What?”
She shifted on her feet. “I asked for someone else to cover me today,” she said, setting a mug in the drying rack. “I talked to my boss, and he confirmed it with Sutton. They’re sending someone else.”
I stared at her, every instinct in me wanting to ask what the hell had changed overnight, to remind her that keeping her safe was my job.
But then I really looked at her. The faint shadows under her eyes.
The tension in her jaw. The way her shoulders were drawn tight, like she was holding herself together through sheer force of will.
She wasn’t being stubborn or defiant. She was a woman running on fumes who needed control over something, even if it was just deciding who watched over her for the day.
So, instead of arguing, I forced myself to nod. “All right. That’s fine. I just hope you’ll come back here tonight. Until we close this case.”
She nodded, still refusing to meet my gaze, and not really giving me the verbal reassurance I was hoping for.
I walked her downstairs. It was Chase who picked her up, and I was grateful to see him there. I was sure Chase had insisted on being the one to look after Violet for the day, for Andrea’s sake if nothing else.
Violet gave him a suspicious look as she got into his car, but she didn’t object. Violet liked Chase, and he was possibly the only guy in our firm, other than me, who could truly handle her and took no offense to her sarcasm and prickly attitude.
Now, with the condo quiet again, I had nothing but time to think about what the hell to do with her.
My phone buzzed again. More texts. More cheerful plans to celebrate with dinner that evening. More reminders of what I wanted in my life, and wasn’t sure I’d get with the one woman I wanted it with the most.
Sighing, I hit call and lifted the phone to my ear.
“Ford!” My mom’s voice came through, bright and distracted, the sound of clattering in the background. “Did you get our texts?”
“I did,” I said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “Laney’s pregnancy is great news. I think dinner is a good idea.”
“You’ll bring Violet, right?”
I hesitated. “She’s working this afternoon and evening, Mom. She can’t make it.”
“Well, we can always do it another night,” Mom said without missing a beat. “We’d love to have her there. She seems good for you.”
I smiled faintly, staring at the spot where Violet had been standing just a short while ago. “Yeah,” I said quietly. “She is.”
I rubbed a hand over my face, feeling that familiar pinch of guilt and decided to be honest with my mother. “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course. Anything.”
So I told her everything. The cover story about Violet being my girlfriend, the break-in, the threats, the case—all of it. By the time I was done, I felt like a kid again, standing in front of her after breaking the neighbor’s window with a baseball and waiting for the lecture I knew I deserved.
To my surprise, my mom just laughed softly. “I’m sorry, honey. What’s happening to Violet isn’t funny, but you really expect me to believe you two aren’t dating?”
I groaned. “We’re not. We’re just…” I grimaced as I let the words trail off, realizing how cringe-worthy just sleeping together would sound to my mother. “I need to know what to do.”
“About what?” she asked, sounding confused.
I exhaled a frustrated breath. “About Violet. About how to help someone who keeps pulling away when all I want is to keep her safe. You and Dad…you went through stuff when he was in the military and he’d come home in between tours. How did you handle it when he put up walls between you two?”
Mom was quiet for a long moment. I could hear faint kitchen noises on her end, probably her using her mixer while thinking through her answer.
When she spoke, her tone was thoughtful.
“Honestly? I didn’t handle it. Not at first. There were days I wanted to shake him, force him to open up and talk to me.
But you can’t make someone do anything. You can only meet them halfway. ”
“That’s not exactly a satisfying answer,” I muttered.
“I know.” I could hear her smile. “But it’s the truth. A relationship is a two-way street. You take care of your half. You show up, you work on your relationship in good faith, and then you wait for them to do the same.”
I wanted to growl. “I hate that. I hate not being able to fix things.”
Mom chuckled softly. “You sound just like your father. You men in this family, always wanting to problem-solve everything.”
“Yeah, well, it’s worked for me so far.”
“Has it?” she countered lightly. “Because it sounds to me like you’re trying to control the outcome instead of trusting her to meet you there.”
That landed like a punch to the gut, and she continued before I could respond.
“I love everything about your father,” she went on.
“I had to remember that during the times we were apart and when I worried about our marriage. I had to trust that he was committed when he was gone for months to a year at a time because of the military, and if I put the work in, so would your father when he was present and on leave. And for the most part, he did.”
I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “You make it sound easy.”
“Oh, it’s not,” she said with a laugh. “Your father and I spent years figuring it out. There were arguments, and even fighting about issues we had to resolve in order to make our marriage work. But I loved him and that meant trusting that he’d show up, even when I was scared he wouldn’t.
You can’t demand faith without offering it first.”
I huffed out a quiet, reluctant laugh. “Don’t take this the wrong way, Mom, but sometimes I hate how right you are.”
“I know you, honey,” she said, her tone soft with understanding. “I know what a protective person you are. You’re a man who likes to take care of people. And I’m so proud of who you are. But you can’t dance a tango by dragging your partner around the floor.”
I almost laughed at her analogy, but she was right. I’d been treating Violet like every other client, like someone who needed me to manage the danger for her instead of trusting her to walk beside me through it.
“There’s that saying,” Mom added thoughtfully.
“If you love something, let it go. If it was meant to be, it will come back. It sounds like you’ve clearly shown Violet how much you care, but maybe it’s time to show her that you believe in her, too.
That you trust her to come back because love isn’t about holding on tight.
It’s about giving someone the space to choose you. ”
I closed my eyes for a moment, exhaling slowly. “Thanks, Mom.”
“Anytime, honey.”
We said our goodbyes, and after we hung up, I stood there for a while, the phone still in my hand, thinking about what she’d said.
I’d done everything to make Violet feel safe.
But now, maybe the bravest thing I could do for her was…
nothing at all. I had to trust her the way I was asking her to trust me.
My phone rang and when I glanced at the screen, I saw it was Sutton. I connected the call and put the phone back to my ear. “Hey, Sutton. What’s up?”
“I just received a call from my contact at LVPD. They found Brian Halpert and have him in custody,” Sutton said of the man who’d threatened Violet after losing his money at her poker table.
“He was arrested at another casino. He was drunk, belligerent, and causing a scene. They ran his ID and saw he was part of an active investigation. They have him in a hold tank at the precinct and I figured since you have the day off from watching Violet, you can head down there and see what Halpert has to say.”
They fucking caught the guy. Sutton’s words landed like a punch and then a weight lifted all at once.
“Let your contact know to wait on the interrogation if they can until I get there. I’m on my way,” I said, already heading out the door to my car, hoping and praying this would finally be over.
That maybe Violet could finally relax and live her life normally again.
At the precinct, Paul Miller, the sergeant who’d been liaising on Violet’s case, met me in the hall and walked me toward the holding area.
I’d spoken to him a few times, and although he hadn’t been one of the officers to respond to Violet’s home being broken into, he’d been apprised of the situation.
“We’ll get Halpert put into an interrogation room,” Paul said, indicating an empty room with a one way mirror. “You’re welcome to watch from the observation room.”
“That would be great. Thank you.”