Page 78 of Coast

This wasn’t aboutme.

This was about Lainey.

I could do anything for her.

Run for our lives. Twice.

Run over a man.

Beg her father for help.

Of all of them, though, that last one was the worst.

A chill was making its way down my spine as I carried Lainey toward the towering house. I couldn’t help but wonder if someone was watching me right then. None of the windows in the house had blinds, let alone curtains.

Heaven forbid the ‘perfect light’ wasn’t spilling in at all times.

As I stepped up to the front door, I looked down at Lainey. She was watching me with those big, trusting eyes.

Normally, I was sure I was doing what was best for her, for us. Right then, though, everything in me was saying this was a bad idea.

The problem was, it was my only one.

Sucking in a steadying breath, I pressed my finger into the doorbell.

I listened to it sing through the house, and there were several long moments of silence before the front door slid open.

But it wasn’t Travis.

It was Jake.

Travis’s assistant.

He was everything you would expect a yes-man to be: harried, fast-talking, sleep-deprived, caffeine-addicted. Though, I’d long had suspicions that it was more than caffeine keeping him darting around at Travis’s whim.

He was on the shorter and slighter side, perpetually dressed in brand merch, and always in need of a trim of his sandy hair.

“Zoe. This is dumb,” Jake said, brown eyes moving over me, the baby, then back.

“I need to see him.”

“You two have an agreement.”

“If by ‘agreement’ you mean he kicked me out and refused to have anything to do with me, then, sure, we have anagreement. I still need to talk to him.”

“He’s busy.”

“I don’t care.”

There was a time when I wouldn’t have been able to stand up to Jake. He was who Travis used to deliver bad news to me, to give a list of demands to me. It was just expected for me to follow instructions.

And being so young, so out of my element, so reliant on Travis, I just… did.

That was a different person.

I wasn’t that girl anymore.

A muscle ticked in Jake’s jaw.

---