Page 85 of Love Me Gently

He glanced at me quickly and then went back to the road. But there was a tic in his unshaven, stubbled jaw. “I want to give you a good afternoon with the girls, first.”

“Then tell me. I won’t break. I can handle it, but not knowing will make it worse.”

He must have heard the pleading in my tone because he pulled off the narrow, two-lane road and into the parking lot of a small shopping area. Five wood peaks all showing the names of different businesses and cafés and a bakery were printed in a scrolling scripts, colors all individualized to their own company’s branding. A financial planner and insurance salesman on one, there was Mellie’s Cakes on another, The Café on another, probably as simple as the coffee and food offerings inside. It was a new part of the town where I didn’t recognize the names or the places.

I faced Cole instead of the unknown. I had enough of that. “Tell me. Was it Jonathan?”

He jerked his jaw up and then worked it back and forth. “He’s here. Somewhere. Chief Lannister is working on figuring that out and we’re getting some extra men in town to keep a close eye on him.”

“He’sstaying?”

“Said he was sticking close until I returned what belonged to him and for you to stop throwing your tantrum.”

“What else?”

Because all that wasbad, and if he thought this was a tantrum, I was in some serious trouble. There could still be a way to get him to believe I hadn’t wanted any of this. It’d involve throwing Kip under the bus, but better Kip go a round with Jonathan’s fists than me.

Wouldn’t it? I’d never asked Valerie for her help. If she had stayed out of this, I’d probably be in Italy, in solitude.

I shook the image out of my head. I’d probably be tucked away in some villa and my bruises and scrapes would be well tended to, but I wouldn’t be healing.

I’d be hiding in a forced seclusion, and not a single second of that time would be peaceful, even if it was quiet.

No…I wouldn’t throw Kip under the bus.

And I would never go back. Valerie and Kip risked their necks to give me freedom for the first time in well over a decade, and I had no plans to squander the gift I’d been given.

No. I wouldn’t do that.

“Tell me,” I said to Cole, when he didn’t answer my question. “There’s more to this, and no offense, but out of the two of us, I’m the one who knows him better. I know how he works.”

His lip curled up. “There were threats of charges, kidnapping, trafficking…” He glanced in my direction, and a smirk twisted his lips. “There was maybe the mention of alienation of affection.”

“Alienation of…is that a thing?”

“It is.”

I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I could figure it out close enough. The fact he was threatening it was absurd, which I blurted out to Cole who chuckled.

“It is. It’s also a bunch of nothing that won’t go anywhere. There’s not a judge in this county, or this part of the state, that doesn’t know you or your family. Or me, frankly, or at least my department. Jonathan might think he has the upper hand up here, with all his money, but if he tries to buy off anyone, I won’t be the only one who puts him out of town with a thirty-two aimed at him. You know that, right? No one would let anything happen to you here, least of all some smug, manipulative stranger who thinks his money’s more important than character.”

“It is, though, Cole. For a lot of people that is what matters.”

“Not here. You know that.”

He had a point, but so did I. He might have wanted to believe that everything would be smoothed over easily if we only believed enough, but life worked differently. Especially life wrapped in Jonathan’s bubble.

There was more Cole was hiding. His hands hadn’t relaxed, and he was no less strung tight despite trying to brush off Jonathan’s threats as a small annoyance.

I shifted in my seat and waited. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

Cole pushed out his lips and dipped his chin. His rich, beautiful brown eyes that had once made me feel like the most special girl in the world swirled with indecision.

“Tell me.”

There was another grimace, curl of his lips, and I figured it was bad because he was having to force them out of his throat. “He said to prepare yourself for him.”

All the blood rushed from my face, and a fierce chill hit my spine. I jerked my gaze back to the storefronts and the pastels on the bakery’s sign blurred and turned ugly in my vision.

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