Page 33 of The Heiress

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“I’ll walkyou to your room,” Jace murmured as we left the library.

I had three books in my arms. One about the house we were in, another about the Stromans in the Keys, and one about a mansion in the Appalachian Mountains. “You don’t have to babysit me.” He probably had work waiting for him. I was grateful for my sabbatical. I didn’t think I could focus on work if I tried.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked slowly toward the grand central staircase. “I’ll feel better if I see you go into your room safely. It’s a bodyguard thing. Part of the job.”

I paused at the stairs. “Do you have experience at this? Should I have conducted an interview before hiring you?”

“I’m getting paid?” he laughed.

“In gratefulness.” I joked back.

But Jace’s face fell. “No, Sam. There are no columns here. No checking boxes on who owes what. I’m here because you need me. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

My heart fluttered again. When he said things like that it was like the floor fell away and we were floating on air. “Are you avoiding the question?”

“What question?”

“You’re pretty good with the security stuff.”

“Ah.” He shuffled his feet, going a little tense but looking like he was fighting it. “You know Devil’s Wrath isn’t a book club.”

“So you do know this stuff.”

He nodded at the stairs. “If you want to talk we should go to your room.”

I glanced around the foyer wondering how many cameras and microphones were picking up this conversation. “Of course. Is my room any better?”

As I started up the stairs, Jace moved in behind me. “Yes. Your room is safe. I checked it myself.”

Well at least there was that.

“Bourbon?” My room had a small cocktail cart with bourbon, wine, vodka, brandy. The ice bucket even had fresh ice. It was a little like staying in a fancy hotel, except this was a home.

“Yeah, I’ll take some.” He shuffled over to the windows and looked out over the lawn. “The drones have night vision so they can fly any time of day.”

I handed him the glass and took a sip from my own. “What do they call you?” Not that long ago I didn’t even want to think about Jace, let alone his life with Devil’s Wrath, but now...well now I wanted to know everything about him. Including the scary parts.

“Red.” He kept staring out the window.

“Red? Why?”

He took a long sip and swallowed it down slowly. “It’s good. Expensive.” Then he sighed. “Red is short for the Red Right Hand.”

An involuntary shiver coursed down my spine. “Paradise Lost.” The vengeful hand of God. A tool against anyone who dares contest the power of Todd Malone and Devil’s Wrath.

Is that who Jace was as Red? I hoped being the treasurer meant he was on the sidelines, watching the bad stuff, not part of it. I knew it was a long shot, a naive hope the girl I used to be still clung to. It wasn’t reality. It certainly wasn’t Jace’s.

I swallowed down the lump in my throat and took his hand in mine. “Hey.”

He gasped, looking down in surprise. Then he squeezed back. “Hey.”

“Thank you for keeping me safe.” I hated that life made him the most experienced person I knew to do so, but I was also grateful he was here with me now.

His gaze traveled up my arm and over my face, every excruciating second slowing even more, merging into the next. I heard his breath catch, saw his jaw tick. “I never want you to see that side of me, but if anyone fucks with you...they’ll regret it. I won’t.”

That should scare me. Horrify me. I should be repelled and disgusted and a thousand other things, but instead I felt loved. My brain hurt trying to reconcile those two opposing thoughts so I pushed it all aside. I chose to forget my beliefs on good versus evil, right and wrong. Maybe those ideals didn’t hold up in the real world where people made choices about survival.

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