Page 280 of Hide and Keep

“It’s over now. We’re fine. We’re good.” My heart’s still racing, but as long as hers is under control, I can manage.

“Crue, I can’t—”

“Hey.” I carefully cradle her face between my hands. “You’re okay. I got you. There’s nothing else that matters right now. Nothing.” Not even what is quite clearly a handprint on my girl’s cheek.

Grabbing the sides of my face with just as much intensity, Ever presses her lips to mine, melting into me, and I take that as a good sign, thebestsign. Ever Munreaux’s alive and she’s coming home with me. Everything else can wait.

Being back in Crue’s neighborhood feels more like coming home than when I return to the manor. It’s cozy here. Cramped, but cozy. There’s a palpable community, full of different dynamics, styles, personalities. At the manor, it’s just us. It’s bleak and impersonal.

I’m never going back there.

That’s why I opened the ceiling windows in the atrium before I left, to give us all a chance to fly away.

I never could’ve anticipated being caught by Crue yet again.

“How did you know where I was?” I ask him.

“I just…” He shrugs. “…know you.”

He knows me better than most people, but he doesn’t know all of me.

“You knew I’d be out there at that exact moment?”

“I saw you went out your window.”

The sensor he installed. I forgot all about that.

One-handed, he pulls over to park along the front yard of his parents’ house.

“And I got worried after…everything…”

Everything. Me. I unpinned a grenade right in his face and didn’t even have the decency to look him in the eyes before releasing the spoon.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I said to you, how I treated you. I thought my father was suspicious of us and I was trying to throw him off. For your sake. You don’t know him like I do. He can be relentless toward those he feels wronged by.”

His eyes fall to my left cheek and I pull his signature move—smoothing out my eyebrow.

Crue pulls my hand down, kisses it, then thumbs my cheek.

“Is that why he did that?”

“He slapped me because I mouthed off.”

Crue takes a heavy breath, his chest expanding and contracting considerably before he says, “He’s going to pay for that.”

“He’s got the money.”

“Not financially.” His green eyes lift to mine. “Me falling for you isn’t wronging your father.”

“It is from his standpoint.”

“Because of how much I make?”

“That…among other things.”

He scoffs, already aware my father’s a top-tier snob.

“You didn’t know he was gonna fire me?”

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