8. Erik #2
Rowan checks the post-Jeremy entries again. "Maybe the next person doesn't authorize everything. They could alter what reaches final approval."
"That would explain different departments producing the same result." Harper accepts the ledger Makari slides closer, then pauses before opening it. "Thank you."
Makari returns to Aaron's notes. "You were about to put your sleeve in the ink."
Harper checks her cuff and moves her arm. "That information stays here."
"My silence is expensive." Makari gives her another legal pad instead of looking up.
"You've complained about my presence all night and handed me half the evidence." Harper takes the pad from him.
"I adjust to circumstances."
Whatever is developing between them has become productive enough that interrupting would only slow the work. I pass Makari the next post-Jeremy ledger, and he opens it between them while Rowan returns to the account summary beside me.
At twelve-forty, Serena leaves after making Rowan promise to call if the cut changes. Liya takes two ledgers into the kitchen to photograph damaged pages, and Peter follows because he distrusts scanners, software, and most technology developed after his thirtieth birthday.
Harper stays at the table with Makari. They're comparing changes in Aaron's handwriting before certain corrections, and neither needs us.
Rowan walks to the front window.
The safe house sits on six wooded acres north of Ashford, with no visible neighbors and one road approaching from the south. Makari chose it because the property belongs to a holding company with no public Danilov connection.
I leave the dining table and stop several feet behind her. "You should get some sleep."
Rowan looks through the glass. "You lasted almost seven hours."
"Serena recommended it."
"Serena didn't spend the last four days dismantling an accusation against her dead father." She turns toward me and rests her uninjured arm against the window frame. "I need to go back to campus tomorrow."
I don't like the idea, but pretending I can forbid it would put us back where we started. "I don't want you on campus while Rahil knows what you recovered."
"I have classes, access to the clinic, and people who'll talk to me before they talk to you. I'm not disappearing because he showed up at a storage unit."
"You can miss one day." I watch her expression tighten before she answers.
"I can also ignore you for one day."
I stop near the window. "Rahil didn't go there only for the ledgers. He looked at you while three armed men were present and told you your father wasn't innocent."
"He wanted me upset." Rowan folds her arms, careful of the bandage.
"He wanted to learn what moves you. He saw your mother, Callie, and Harper work, which means he knows exactly which people can pull you out of whatever routine we build."
Rowan steps closer. "He already knew where my family lives."
"He knows more now. His next approach will come through one of them because that's what I'd do."
She studies me for a second before shaking her head. "You really know how to make protection sound appealing."
"I'm not trying to make it appealing."
"No. You're deciding the answer before I get one.
" Rowan points toward the dining room. "We just proved somebody inside Blackthorne is still maintaining Orell's system.
I have access you don't. I can work through the legal clinic under my own name, and people will talk around me because I'm a student. "
I glance toward Makari and Harper before returning my attention to her. "Rahil is also watching Fenwick Hall."
"Then I investigate where he can see me instead of hiding while the inside person keeps working." Rowan waits for the automatic refusal I would've given her two days ago.
Instead, I consider what she's saying. Visibility gives her some protection, even if it doesn't make campus safe, and I tell her that.
Rowan gives me a dry look. "You agree with six inches of my argument, then take over the remaining mile."
"I've never measured one of your arguments."
"You'd put it in a spreadsheet if I gave you enough time." Her mouth almost curves.
"I'd have Makari do it."
She loses the almost-smile. "You're not helping."
"No." I move away from the window and give her enough room that the conversation doesn't become another physical standoff. "We can change the arrangement."
Rowan watches me more carefully. "What arrangement?"
"I'll give you a choice."
"That sentence usually becomes worse after the word choice." She glances toward the front hall as if confirming the door still exists.
"This one has two options." I keep my hands at my sides. "You can leave tonight with every document you brought. I'll remove the protection detail. Nobody follows you, and you investigate wherever you want."
Rowan studies me. "You'd actually remove it?"
"Yes."
She looks toward the hall again. "You think that's a terrible idea."
"I do."
"What's the second option?" Rowan turns back to me, still giving nothing away.
"You stay and work the investigation as my partner. Everything I find reaches you within an hour. Makari reports material changes to both of us, and you decide where you work unless we can identify an immediate threat."
Rowan shifts her weight onto one leg. "Define immediate."
"A known person, a weapon, a breach, active surveillance, or documented movement against you. My concern by itself doesn't qualify."
"You've been thinking about this." She studies my face.
"Since you accused me of using recused authority to end your conversation with Tyler."
"That was two days ago."
"I take longer when I dislike the correct answer." I let her look toward the hallway without filling the silence.
Nothing stands between her and the door, and every document she brought can leave with her. When Rowan faces me again, she doesn't hesitate.
"I'll stay, but I have a condition."
"You usually do."
"You don't issue orders and rename them concern." Rowan uncrosses her arms and keeps her attention on me. "If you want something from me, you ask. If there's a real emergency, you can give an order and explain it afterward. You don't manufacture emergencies because you dislike my answer."
I consider the terms before answering. "I agree."
Rowan narrows her eyes. "You said that too quickly."
"I understood the condition."
"You usually argue first." Her suspicion doesn't ease.
"I'm improving."
"That sounds unlikely." She says it without moving away.
I close some of the distance between us and stop. "You stayed."
"I did." Rowan's answer is quieter than the argument that led to it.
For days, I've controlled every contact with her because control is the only response I've ever trusted. She has now chosen to stay after I made the exit real, and I don't want to turn that choice into another thing I manage.
I lift one hand toward her waist and stop before touching her.
Rowan catches the front of my shirt and pulls me down.
The kiss has none of the anger from the library. She chose to remain in the same building with me, and neither of us has anything to prove with it. I put one hand at her hip, careful of her bandaged arm, while Rowan presses closer and catches my lower lip between her teeth before letting it go.
"You're thinking too much." She keeps hold of my shirt.
"I've been accused of worse."
"Recently?" Rowan asks with enough amusement to change the kiss before I answer.
"Repeatedly." I kiss her again before she can add to the list.
She starts backing toward the hallway while keeping me with her. Before she reaches the doorway, I stop and glance at the bandage Serena just replaced. "She told you not to make that worse."
"She didn't ban sex."
"I know what she said." I keep my hand at Rowan's waist instead of using it to move her anywhere.
She laughs against my mouth. "You're already trying to turn concern into policy."
"I'm trying to ask whether your arm hurts."
"That was much better." Rowan draws me closer with her uninjured arm. "It doesn't."
I slide one arm beneath her knees but wait before lifting her. "Do you want to walk?"
Rowan looks down at my arm, then back at me. "No. Since you managed to ask, you can carry me."
I lift her, and she immediately studies my face. "Don't look pleased with yourself."
"I haven't said anything."
"Your face is doing enough." Rowan settles her arm around my shoulders while I carry her toward the bedroom.
The room is at the end of the hall. I carry her because she asked me to, and she makes the distinction clear by pulling me back down as soon as her feet touch the floor.
I kiss her while she works my shirt free. This time she gets it off without sacrificing buttons, then runs her fingers over my shoulders while I lift the hem of her shirt and slow near the dressing on her arm.
Rowan catches my wrist. "You can ask again."
"Does this hurt?"
"No." She releases my wrist but keeps watching me.
"Do you want me careful with it?"
"Yes." Her mouth curves. "See how well this partnership is going?"
I kiss her before she can grade the question.
The anger from our first night is gone, and the difference changes everything.
I have time to pay attention instead of using sex as another argument.
I take off her shirt without disturbing the dressing, unhook her bra, and let both fall before I kiss down her neck.
She leans into me with a sound that has nothing strategic in it.
When I close my mouth around her nipple, her breath catches and her hand goes to my belt.
She gets it open while I move to the other breast, sucking until the peak hardens against my tongue and she arches closer.
I trace my mouth along the underside of each breast while she pulls my belt free and drops it on the floor.
I slide my hand beneath her underwear and find her clit. She's already wet, slick enough that my fingers move easily when I circle the swollen nub. She shifts closer without hesitation, hooking her uninjured arm around my shoulders and pressing her hips forward.
"More." Rowan's mouth finds my jaw.