CHAPTER 6 #2
It’s the home-cooked part that gets me. It’s not that I can’t cook for myself, but her invitation suggests a level of family intimacy I find appealing.
I didn’t have that growing up. My mom was single with a horrible addiction to horrible men.
For the first time in my life, I got the sense of what family is all about when Cole and I fell in love.
We celebrated holidays and dinners with his parents and siblings, who welcomed me into the fold.
It hurt to let all that go as much as it did to lose him.
“I’d like that,” I find myself saying, committing to the event tonight. Not sure how Cole will feel about that, though.
Anna studies me for a second, then nods toward the hallway I came from. “You and Cole were together before, right?”
I blink. So much for small talk and secrecy. “Yes,” I admit, deciding it’s not an awful secret. It’s not like we had a horrible breakup. More like a mutual but painful decision.
“And now you’re here,” she says, as if stating a fact she’s decided to weigh. “Working a case together. Living under the same roof.”
“Except I’m going back to my house today,” I remind her, because it feels necessary, like a guardrail.
Anna chuckles. “If you think you’re going to be there alone, you better think again. Malik assigned Cole to protection, which means he doesn’t leave your side. Hope you have a spare bedroom set up.” Her eyes twinkle mischievously. “Bet it’s weird after being apart. How long were you together?”
She makes it easy to pause, and I end up sliding onto a backed stool at the island while she puts groceries away. I tell myself it’s a brief rest before the gym. “We split up about five years ago and were together just over two before that.”
Anna glances back from the open refrigerator. “How did it end?” she asks, her tone gentle rather than intrusive.
My first instinct is to deflect. To joke. To brush it off. But in the quiet of this communal space, with the sound of bags crinkling and her kind eyes, I relax.
“We broke up because of my job,” I say, and I hear how clinical it sounds even as my chest tightens. “He couldn’t handle the danger, and I couldn’t promise to stop walking into it.”
Anna’s hands pause on a carton of eggs. She looks at me then, really looks. “And what was your part in it?”
I swallow. “I chose my career.”
“Do you regret it?” she asks bluntly, but not with any censure.
No. That’s the answer I want to give. Sharp and clean. But the truth is more complicated.
“I don’t regret my career,” I say carefully. “I love what I do and I’m good at it. I’ve helped people by what I do and that fulfills me. But I… I didn’t understand what it cost him to love someone like me back then.”
Anna nods, as if she already knows that kind of love. “And now?”
I exhale slowly, letting my gaze drift to the hallway that leads to Cole’s apartment, and the fact that my eyes go there without thinking tells me everything.
“Now I understand why he drew the line,” I admit. “Especially since I’ve found myself in a very dangerous situation.” I blow out a sigh. “It feels surreal, looking back, that we were perfect in every other way and we still couldn’t compromise on the one thing that mattered most.”
“Sounds like you still care,” Anna says simply.
My throat tightens again, and I hate it. I hate how easily his name rearranges me. “He was the love of my life and I let him go.”
Anna’s expression softens. “Maybe you didn’t let him go. Maybe you both needed to become different people first.”
I shake my head faintly, because hope is a dangerous drug. “I don’t think this is some second-chance romance, Anna. I intend to keep my career, and Cole… Cole is still Cole. He still frets over me.”
“That was five years ago,” she says, not unkindly. “You’re different now. He’s different too. People don’t go through life in this line of work and stay the same.”
I want to argue. I want to insist I know how this ends, because control is safer than possibility. But before I can, movement shifts my attention.
Cole walks into the community area from the gym corridor and for a second, everything in me stills like my body has recognized him before my mind can do anything about it.
He’s sweaty, shirt clinging to him, forearms corded as he drags a towel across the back of his neck.
His hair is damp, his face scruffy with the kind of roughness that makes him look less polished and more dangerous, and the sight of him hits me with a jolt I refuse to name as anything other than irritation.
He stops when he sees me seated at the counter, and surprise flickers across his face before it hardens into alertness. “You’re up,” he says, voice low, eyes scanning me like he’s making sure I’m intact.
“I found something,” I say immediately, because if I don’t lead with work, I’ll lead with feelings, and I’m not ready to be that exposed.
“In the financials. RainVest has repeated payments to an outfit called Strategic Asset Protection Group, and the dates line up exactly with the red flag advisories and ignition windows. It’s too precise to be coincidence. ”
His entire demeanor shifts, his expression alert but hardening. “Show me.”
“I will,” I promise. “And I also need to go into my office today. I need to meet with my editor and bring him up to date. He’s going to want to know why I’ve vanished.”
“Just a visit,” he says with a level of high-handedness I don’t bother arguing against. “Gather whatever you need to continue working here.”
“Agreed,” I say, hoping to appease him. “I won’t be gone more than an hour.”
“I’ll drive you,” Cole corrects me.
“I figured you’d say that,” I mutter.
He ignores it. “Let me shower.”
“I need one too,” I blurt, because my brain chooses idiocy when I’m flustered. The words register as the corner of Cole’s mouth lifts and heat floods my face. “I mean—separately. Not together. Obviously.”
Anna makes a quiet sound that might be a laugh, but she covers it by turning back to the pantry.
Cole’s mouth curves fully, slow and satisfied, like he’s enjoying watching me trip over myself. “Be ready in thirty,” he says, already turning away.
I blink. “Thirty?”
He glances back over his shoulder, smirk deepening. “You’ve got thirty.”
“I need an hour!” I call after him, panic and indignation tangling.
He doesn’t stop walking, but his voice carries back, warm with amusement. “Make it a quick hour.”
He disappears down the hall toward his apartment, and I stand there for a moment, cheeks hot, pulse entirely unhelpful. When I look back at Anna, she’s leaning on the counter, eyes bright with knowing. It makes me want to both laugh and flee.
“Second chances,” she says lightly.
I shake my head, but the denial feels thin even to me. “This isn’t—”
“Sure,” she says again, the same gentle skepticism she had earlier. “Go shower, Tessa. Try not to overthink everything.”
Overthinking is my profession, but I don’t say that.
Instead, I head back toward Cole’s apartment, mind already splitting into compartments the way it does when I’m under pressure—one labeled evidence, one labeled risk, one labeled Cole.
The first two I can handle.
It’s the third one that’s starting to feel like the most dangerous part of this entire case, because I realize with a clarity that makes my stomach dip that I never stopped loving him.
I just learned how to build discipline around it, how to keep it in a locked room inside myself where it couldn’t interfere with my work or my choices.
Being this close to Cole again—sleeping in his home, drinking coffee from his mug, watching him walk into a room like he still owns a piece of me, makes that discipline feel less like strength and more like a bad choice.