Page 61 of The Reluctant Siren
She was leaving out so much. “And the drug running? Thedeliveries I made that I have no idea what was in the package?”
“Are peanuts compared to what you know about how theorganization runs,” she replied. “You’re not going to jail. You’re not going todie. So it’s time you figured out how to live. You think I don’t know what goeson in your head? You might never have said the words to me because you didn’ttrust me enough to show me your soul, but I still knew.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is,” she insisted. “Or maybe you don’t trust yourself.Either way, there’s a lack of trust, and that will kill any chance at arelationship. What I was trying to say is even though you never said it outloud, I know you think it should have been you. You think Tommy had more tooffer the world, and if anyone could die and have no one notice, it’s you.”
She’d summed him up perfectly. “It never helps to tell thewoman you’re in love with that you’re a worthless piece of shit. One tends towant to hide the fact.”
She laid back, her gaze going to the ceiling. “I can’t fixyou, Jensen. Thinking you love me won’t fix what’s empty inside you.”
He wasn’t letting her off so easy. He’d gotten to know her,too. “Tell me you don’t think your sister is more important than you. Ifsomething happened to your sister, you wouldn’t want to take her place.”
She was silent for a moment, and he worried he’d lost her.“Of course I would. Greer is… Well, she’s ridiculously talented. She got allour mom’s artistic skills. She’s smart.”
“She’s not smarter than you. Maybe she’s better at you inart, but she’s not smarter. I would bet she can’t sit down and figure out apuzzle the way you can. I bet she doesn’t throw her damn body into battle theway you do,” he replied.
“Yeah, and while Tommy might have been smart, he was naïveand he was stubborn,” a familiar voice said. “You told him not to take thoseloans. You sat him down and found a school you could afford for him. Harlow,did you know he offered to pay his brother’s way through college?”
Harlow sat up, the sheet right below her breasts as sheturned to Niall, who stood in the doorway. “No. He only told me his brotherwent to college and took out some predatory loans.”
“Which I wouldn’t have let him sign if I had been around.”He should have kissed her instead of talking. Now he felt weird because he wasnaked and Niall was here.
Did he feel weird? Or was it weird that he didn’t care, andthat’s what he was worried about. Or not worried about. He wasn’t sure, andhonestly, he didn’t want to think about it right now. Fake it ’til you make it.Wasn’t that his motto when it came to becoming walking vengeance? He was such adouche, but it was true. He’d decided to play Punisher and he’d done it bysinking into the role and not coming out of it until he met a gorgeous girlwith electric blue hair and eyes that brought him back to the real world. Orshowed him that there was another, better world. What if he sank into thisrole? What if he tried?
“Like I said,” Niall continued, “Tommy could be stubborn. Hewanted to be a doctor.”
“Yes, I knew that. He was smart,” Harlow agreed. “But hestill got caught by Hamilton.”
“He thought he knew what he was doing,” Niall explained.
Jensen shook his head. “He was ashamed. He knew damn wellsomething was wrong with his new job. It was why he tried to hide it from me.It took me a while to untangle what happened to him. According to my brother,he was just working to save up money for medical school. What I realized was hewas trying to pay off his loans at first, and then he was underwater with thecartel Hamilton was working with. His undergrad degree cost one hundred andtwenty-three thousand dollars. I paid fifty of it. So my brother’s life wasworth seventy-three thousand dollars. I thought my life was worth way less. Imeant to stay in the Army until I retired because it was the only place for me.Lately, I’ve been wondering about that.”
“Lately?” Niall asked, moving to the bed. He sat down butnot before he laid a kiss on Harlow’s forehead.
It was intimate, being in this room alone with them. Itfelt…right. “Well, since last night. I’ll admit that until last night I wasvery focused. I was close, and I didn’t want to think about anything exceptachieving my goal. Now I kind of question the goal. Turns out I don’tparticularly want to go to prison or die.”
Harlow sighed. “Now you decide this.”
“We can talk about this after breakfast. I made somepancakes and bacon and eggs,” Niall announced. “Jensen, there’s some sweats andunderwear and a T-shirt in the bathroom waiting for you.”
There was this piece of him that wanted to tell Niall tofuck off. He wasn’t in charge here. It was the part of him that liked to startfires just to see them burn.
He wasn’t letting that place rule him anymore. “Thank you.”
“What about me?” Harlow asked, her chin tilting up in thatsexy, stubborn expression of hers.
Niall leaned over and brushed a kiss on her lips. “You don’tneed clothes, princess.”
She growled his way. “I am not wearing your shirt all day.Also, I need a laptop.”
Jensen had bad news for her. “Uh, there’s no Internet outhere.”
Harlow fell back on the bed, pulling a pillow over her faceand screaming.
So she was going to be fun today.
Niall looked at him. “She’s going to be fun.”
