Page 24 of Defiant
“No,” Jaz said, folding her arms over her stomach as if she was pained to hear this. “Nothing, and when I bring her up, my mom tells me to quit it. She doesn’t want me upsetting Ollie. I think she’s scared he’ll kick us out.”
That made sense, since she and her mother had nowhere to go.
She sighed. “I really just want to know that my mom and I are safe.”
I set my partially-eaten burger down. “I don’t think Oliver would hurt you, or your mother. Now, if his sons were in the house, then I’d be worried for you.”
“But what about the Scotts? When Ollie had his charity event, I heard them talking—”
“The Scotts are another story. Their business is…so well-hidden behind their money, you can’t even walk on their property without their permission. It could be that Oliver is their lawyer on retainer, as he is for most of the families around here.”
Jaz bit her bottom lip. “What do they do?”
I took a sip from my drink before saying, “You’d be hard-pressed to get a straight answer out of anyone. I don’t think anyone in this town knows exactly what they do, so whatever they do, they have to do it well.” I dipped a fry into ketchup. “Do I think the Scotts are capable of hurting someone, someone like Astrid, and making her disappear off the face of the earth?” All I could do was nod.
She looked like she wanted to be sick. “I don’t…I don’t know what to make of that.”
Shrugging, I said, “As long as you stay away from the Scotts, they won’t bother you. They’re not like that. Of course, I’ll try to find out what I can, if you still want me on them, but—”
“It’s going to be hard to stay away from them,” Jaz cut in, her dark eyes heavy on mine. “I might’ve accepted help from one of them earlier today.”
I nearly dropped the burger I was in the process of eating, and it took far too long for me to swallow what was in my mouth. “You what? Help with what?” I did not like the thought of Jaz getting wrapped up with the Scotts. The Scotts…they weren’t good people. They were the worst of the worst. Worse than me, definitely.
“Getting back at everyone for what they did to me at that party,” Jaz muttered, frowning.
Getting revenge? She’d accepted help from a Scott to get revenge on those little pissheads? She was digging herself into her own grave without realizing it, if that was true, and I didn’t like the thought of her getting tangled up in their business.
Shit. I’d have to keep on the Scotts, now.
“Jaz…” I didn’t know what else to say besides her name. That was the literal worst idea I thought I’d ever heard, no joke.
“What? I can’t just sit back and let them get away with it. If you hadn’t shown up, if you weren’t working on another case, I…” Jaz blinked, shaking her head. “What could’ve happened to me instead of passing out in your apartment—I can’t just forget that, Jacob.”
That was the first time she’d said my name in what felt like forever, and I couldn’t help how it sounded to me. To avoid the mushy-gushy shit that my mind and body was feeling, I’d just say this: it sounded good. I liked hearing her say my name.
I shouldn’t.
It took me far too long to say, “I get it. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Jaz’s full lips—lips I stared a tad too hard at—curled upwards in a smile. “I didn’t think you cared. I’m just a job, after all.” She wove her fingers together, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands. The way she stared at me right then, as if she waited with bated breath for whatever I would say next, made my stomach harden.
She was just a job. Just a client. She wasn’t anything more, and she never would be.
Why the fuck couldn’t I open my mouth and say, yes, you are just a job? Why couldn’t I confirm to her what I’d told her in the past, what I’d thought to myself countless of times? I couldn’t. It was like I was physically unable to, and I didn’t know what to make of that.
I would not start to feel things for this girl, this kid. Just because her appearance gave her a more mature look didn’t make it okay. It was wrong to entertain any inappropriate thoughts when Jaz was involved in them.
“Your silence is telling,” Jaz remarked, her grin growing.
Finally I found my tongue, though I didn’t exactly use it well. “It is not.”
“First, you march in and save me like a white knight, keeping your hands to yourself all night, and now you refuse to tell me that I’m just a job after saying you don’t want to see me get hurt,” she rattled away, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary, as if she couldn’t get enough.
I hated it.
“I know I might be wrong,” Jaz paused, “but it sounds to me like you care.” Those full lips puckered. “Grumpy old Jacob, usually prickly and grouchy, letting his guard down to the sweet, innocent girl he somehow got wound up in—”
“Okay,” I cut in, “I take offense to that.”
