Page 22 of Watch Me Burn
“I wouldn’t have been close enough to run into her on the street.”
Silence stretches between us. I can feel him staring at the back of my head, processing what I just admitted.
“So, you rent an entire house for what, a few hours?”
“What do you care? It’s my money. Why did you follow me here anyway?”
“Because we need to go over the last details for the gala, and trying to nail you down since the good doctor came into your life is like herding cats. If I’m not in the same room as you, I’ll never get the answers I need.” He opens the laptop again, fingers already moving across the keys. “Let’s do this. I have to get back to the office.”
The video call with Tiffany takes forty-three minutes. She runs through the guest list, seating charts, and menu selections. Cade chimes in occasionally about security protocols.
I give the required responses while half my attention stays on Luna, who’s moved to a different store.
“The mayor’s office confirmed.” Tiffany looks over a list on her desk. “Along with both senators.”
“What about the Governor?”
Luna tries on a pair of fuzzy mittens, holding her hands up to examine them.
“He RSVP’d last week.”
“Good. Are we done?”
The call wraps up. Cade closes his laptop and begins packing up, which means I can stop dividing my focus. I can just watch Luna browse without pretending to care about hors d’oeuvres versus canapés.
“I asked Luna to go with me.”
The words tumble out of my mouth before I even realize I’m speaking. Cade goes very still, the kind of stillness that precedes rare explosive action.
“What? Is that why you wanted to run into her?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.” Cade moves to stand in front of the dining table where I’ve spread out my equipment. His expression hardens. I’m tempted to tell him his face will freeze that way, but given his current mood, I doubt he’d appreciate my humor.
“You’re introducing her to your world? To Denver’s high society, while there’s an active murder investigation, of your making, by the way, tied to her sanctuary? You don’t want that kind of scandal anywhere near the foundation.”
“I want her there.” The words come out just as possessively as I intend. The truth is carved into my bones now. “She belongs with me.”
Cade runs a hand down his face, his frustration with me bleeding through. “You’re dragging her deeper into your life even as she drowns in your secrets. If the truth ever comes out about your other life, she’ll be caught in the blast radius. It’ll get her arrested as an accessory. If she means as much to you as you say she does, then you need to make protecting her a priority.”
Blood roars in my ears, and my hands curl into fists.
“Protecting her is all that matters.”
What I do puts everyone in my life at risk. Cade and I are both damned already, and we agreed long ago that drawing others into our twisted world was a mistake. It’s the reason neither of us has maintained a permanent relationship. Cade avoids them for the same reason he didn’t fight harder for MJ when his ex took her. Keeping his daughter close would taint her life if our actions ever came to light. The scandal, the investigation, the media circus—she'd be buried under it all.
My avoidance is different. My parents didn’t just damage me. They demolished my capacity to connect with people in any meaningful way. It’s the reason I never intended Luna to be more than a physical release. I wouldn’t even consider the possibility at the start. But she worked her way inside me like water finding cracks in stone. That light of hers reached something I thought had died long ago and coaxed it back into beating.
“This isn’t just obsession anymore. You’re in love with her.”
“Yes.” The snarl rips from my throat. “I told you the other day that she’s everything.”
“You’ve been saying that for a while, almost since the beginning. I didn’t realize that meant you were in love with her.”
“Neither did I.” The confession feels like swallowing acid. I’ve spent weeks trying to understand these new feelings, this overwhelming need that goes beyond possession into something vulnerable and terrifying.
“What are you going to do? You don’t know how to have a normal relationship.” His tone is matter-of-fact, not cruel, but it still cuts. “And you’re deceiving her about who you are. You’ll have to tell her the truth if there’s any chance for the two of you to have a relationship.”
