Chapter Seven #3
“With Sophie,” I add before she can light me on fire. “Or whoever you choose. Not with a prospect. Here. Safe. You don’t take him to the Fire Pit today.”
Sophie nods. “Agreed. August doesn’t need to be part of the performance.”
Amelia breathes out.
Good.
At least we all have that much sense.
She rubs her hands over her arms. “I don’t have anything to wear.”
“You have clothes,” I say.
She gives me a look. “Clothes are not the same as armor.”
That shuts me up.
Sophie smiles softly. “I can help with that.”
Amelia looks wary. “I’m not wearing something that makes me look like I’m trying too hard.”
“Good. We want you to look like yourself.”
“I don’t know what that is right now.”
The honesty sits in the hall.
I feel it more than I want to.
Sophie’s voice gentles. “Then we start with comfortable.”
Amelia nods.
Then she looks at me. “If I go, what do I have to do?”
“Nothing you don’t want,” I say.
“I mean for the story.”
“Walk in with me. Sit with me. Let people see you ain’t scared to be near me.”
“That part may be acting.”
“I know.”
Her mouth twitches, but the fear stays in her eyes.
Sophie watches us closely. “Derby will ask before touching you.”
Amelia looks at me.
I nod once. “Yeah.”
“In public?”
“Especially there.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then I don’t touch you.”
“Will that ruin the act?”
“We’ll work around it.”
She studies me like she is trying to find the trap in the answer.
There ain’t one.
I’m as surprised as anyone.
Sophie steps toward the bedroom. “I’ll stay with August while you two settle the house and talk through boundaries.”
I stiffen. “Why do you make everything sound like a therapy pamphlet with knives?”
“Because you need both.”
She disappears into the bedroom before I can argue.
Now it’s just me and Amelia in the hall.
My hall.
My house.
Her standing barefoot on my floor in jeans and worry, looking at me like I’m a bad idea she may have to trust anyway.
The air changes.
Not sexual exactly.
Not only.
The house is too quiet. The bedroom is too close. The fake relationship sits between us like a match waiting for someone stupid enough to strike it.
I lean against the wall to give her space.
She notices.
Of course she does.
“You do that on purpose,” she says.
“What?”
“Step back.”
I shove my hands in my pockets. “Trying not to spook you.”
“I’m not a horse.”
“You sure? You look ready to bolt.”
She laughs once, sharp and surprised. “That is unfortunately accurate.”
“Then I’ll keep stepping back.”
Her face softens in a way that does dangerous things to my stomach.
“I don’t want to be afraid of every man who moves near me,” she says.
“You ain’t obligated to fix that by tonight.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
At least she is honest.
I look toward the living room because eye contact is becoming a problem. “Boundaries.”
“Yes.”
“You tell me what works for the Fire Pit.”
She takes a breath. “Hand at my back is okay if you ask first.”
The image hits me fast. My hand low on her back. The heat of her through fabric. Her walking beside me, close enough for every bastard in town to know she is with me.
Fake.
Fake.
Fake.
“Okay,” I say.
“Hand-holding…” She pauses, cheeks coloring. “Maybe. If needed.”
“If needed.”
“Arm around me only if Jeremy or one of his people is there.”
I nod.
“No kissing.”
My eyes cut back to hers.
Her cheeks go darker, but she holds my gaze.
“No kissing,” I repeat.
“Not for pretend.”
The last three words land between us.
Not for pretend.
My pulse kicks.
Her lips part slightly, like she realizes what she said at the exact same time I do.
I could make a joke.
Should make a joke.
The old me would. The easy me. The mouthy bastard who keeps everything from getting too close by turning it crude.
I don’t.
“No kissing for pretend,” I say.
Her throat works.
“And if I panic?”
“Then we leave.”
“Even if everyone is watching?”
“Especially then.”
Her eyes shine, and she looks away. “You keep saying the right things.”
“Terrible habit. I’ll try to stop.”
That gets me a small laugh.
Then August yells from the bedroom, “Derby, Sophie says your sheets are scratchy.”
I close my eyes.
Amelia laughs for real this time.
The sound moves through my house like something breaking in instead of out.
“Tell Sophie she’s welcome to buy me new sheets,” I call.
Sophie yells back, “Already on the list.”
“I hate lists.”
“You need several.”
Amelia presses her fingers to her mouth, still smiling.
I stare at her longer than I should.
She catches me.
The smile fades, but not because she is scared.
Because she feels it too.
That little hook.
That inconvenient pull.
Down the driveway, tires crunch over gravel.
I straighten immediately.
Amelia’s eyes go wide.
I move past her before she can ask, heading for the front window. I pull the curtain back just enough to see Lottie’s car coming up the drive with Brittany in the passenger seat and enough grocery bags in the back to feed a youth camp.
“Groceries,” I say.
Amelia exhales.
I hate that relief has to come so hard.
Sophie comes out of the bedroom with August behind her. “Good. We’ll get the kitchen handled, then clothes.”
“No one handles my kitchen,” I say.
Sophie walks past me. “Your kitchen currently contains beer, bacon, mustard, and emotional neglect.”
“Sounds balanced to me.”
Amelia laughs again under her breath.
This house is doomed.
The next hour is the strangest damn hour of my adult life.
Lottie and Brittany invade with groceries, curtains, kid snacks, actual cereal, fresh sheets, paper towels, and a dinosaur coloring book that makes August look like someone handed him a title deed to happiness.
Sophie directs traffic. Wildcat keeps working on the truck.
Oaks checks the tree line twice. Whiskey calls with updates I don’t like and refuses to share over speaker because Amelia is close enough to hear fear in his pauses.
My kitchen fills with women.
My cabinets get opened.
My fridge gets judged.
My couch gets covered with a throw blanket because Brittany says tape ain’t a design choice.
August sits on the floor with Blue Rex and the coloring book, explaining dinosaur combat strategies to Oaks, who listens like he is receiving a military briefing.
Amelia moves through all of it like someone trying not to be swept away by kindness.
Every time a bag is unpacked, she says thank you.
Every time someone gives August something, she looks pained.
Every time Sophie says, “It’s handled,” Amelia looks like handled might mean trapped.
I watch from the edge of the kitchen, useless in my own house.
No.
Not useless.
Outnumbered.
Legend texts once.
House secure. Fire Pit at six if she agrees. Vale’s people watching town. Let them see what we want.
I stare at the message.
Fire Pit at six.
Hell.
Amelia is kneeling beside August, helping him choose a crayon. Her hair has come loose around her face. She looks tired enough to fall over and stubborn enough to refuse the floor if it offered.
At six, I have to walk her into the Fire Pit and make half the town believe she chose me.
The worst part is that I want her to.
Not for the plan.
Not because of Jeremy.
Because when she looks at me like I might be safer than I look, I want to earn it.
That is a dangerous thought.
I put my phone away.
Sophie catches my eye from across the kitchen.
She knows.
Of course she knows.
I scowl.
She smiles.
Then she claps her hands once. “All right. Amelia, after lunch, we get you ready.”
Amelia goes still. “For the Fire Pit?”
“Yes.”
August looks up. “Can I go?”
“No,” every adult in the room says at once.
He frowns. “Rude.”
Derby Jr. in training. God help us all.
Amelia looks at me.
Not Sophie.
Me.
Fear is there. So is trust, thin as thread but real enough to see.
“You really think this is the best thing?” she asks.
I think the best thing would be Jeremy Vale tied to a chair in a room with no windows.
I think the second-best thing would be putting Amelia and August somewhere no one could find them until the world got tired of hunting women who run.
I think taking her to a bar so gossip can chew on her name sounds cruel.
But I also know men like Jeremy thrive in silence. They grow teeth in private. They turn hiding into proof.
So I tell her the truth.
“I think if he wants to make you look scared and trapped, we show him you can walk into town with your head up.”
Her eyes hold mine.
“What if I can’t?”
“Then I walk beside you while you fake it.”
“And if I fall apart?”
“Then I get you out.”
“And if people talk?”
I smile a little. “Darlin’, they live in Hell. Let them burn their tongues.”
Her lips curve.
Small.
Brave.
Sophie steps beside her and says the words that seal the day.
“If Jeremy wants to tell a story, we tell one louder.”
The room goes quiet around that.
Amelia looks at the women, the groceries, the kid on my floor, the brothers outside, then me.
I watch her decide to be terrified and do it anyway.
“Okay,” she says.
And there it is.
The next bad idea.
The public one.
The one where I put my hand on her back only if she says yes.
The one where half the town sees Amelia Welles walk into the Fire Pit beside me.
The one where Jeremy Vale hears the story we choose.
I should hate it.
Instead, standing in my kitchen with cereal in my cabinets, dinosaurs on my floor, and a woman I barely know looking at me like I might keep my word, all I can think is that tonight somebody is going to learn the difference between a man who cages a woman and a man who stands beside her while she burns the cage down.