Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110360 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 552(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
I nodded. “You told me I was off the grid.”
His lips thinned, understanding—and, wait, was that humor—dawning on him. “Babe, if we were trying to hide you, we’d have you holed up in a cabin in the woods, not crashing at your parents’ place. Anyone with half a brain cell, including that dumbass ex of yours, already had a pretty good guess where you were.” He gave me a pointed squeeze. “You were off the grid at the beach house. Before we had everything locked down. But now you’ve got more security, active cameras, a secure perimeter in a location we can control. People finding out where you are is not an issue. We accounted for exposure risks before you ever stepped foot on a plane to come here.”
It was my turn to be confused. “I don’t understand. You told Sebastian that he was handing out maps to my location.”
“Yeah, because he did, and that was seriously fucked. It should have been your call to make when you felt comfortable stepping back out into the world. Maybe ease into it by doing dinner and drinks with your old friends, or visiting your old high school rather than going viral because that asshat stopped at that café. It was a publicity stunt—I knew it then, know it even more after hearing you say you’ve been keeping his secrets. He wanted people to see him rushing to your side, hoping to make himself look like a knight in shining armor. Probably hoping you’d think that too and fall back into his bed.”
I scoffed. “Oh, please. He could get any woman he wants.”
“Maybe. But any woman is not you, Lofton.”
Warmth washed over me, partly because of what he’d said, but mainly because, as he’d said it, he’d gathered me in his arms, shifting me impossibly closer.
“So we don’t have to leave?” I all but squeaked.
The corner of his mouth hitched. “No, babe. We do not have to leave.”
“And I can go to dinner with my old friends? I mean, I haven’t even told Brittany or Francine that I’m back. But it’d be really great to finally have a night out, to relax and forget for a little while.
“Absolutely. I’ll set it up with Chris and Matt, take one of them with us. When I said you weren’t a prisoner, I meant it. You don’t have to be invisible for me to keep you safe.”
Heat filled my cheeks. I may not have known Devon long, certainly not as long as Marty, but I believed with my whole heart that he would never let anything happen to me.
But more, as his hands came up, framing my face as he used his thumbs to dry my tears, I believed Devon would never let anything happen to me, and it had nothing to do with the job.
14
DEVON
The Doodle Bug Café was as fine dining as Dollton got. The scent of fried every-fucking-thing filled the air as I paced the black and white checkerboard tile just inside the front door. Lofton sat tucked into a corner booth across from a petite blonde and a towering redhead. Chris was only a few yards behind them, covering the back entrance.
We’d been there for hours and the table was scattered with red baskets of half-eaten food and an empty bottle of wine.
On the surface, it was just a casual dinner between old friends. But that didn’t account for the time and money spent renting out the entire restaurant, running background checks on the staff, the additional security cameras we’d mounted, or that every chair had been subtly repositioned, giving me and Chris clean sightlines to her table from every angle without a single blind spot.
And we’d pulled it off in just over forty-eight hours.
Lofton had been eager to relax and forget. Though she’d spent most of the drive over twisting her hands into knots and toying with the diamond that hung at her neck. I’d asked her a dozen times if she wanted to cancel. Each time, she lied about how excited she was to see her old friends. Once we’d arrived, she’d relaxed to a degree.
I’d done my homework on both women before they’d ever stepped through the door. Background checks, social media, employment history, all the standard protocol.
Brittany Walsh was a force of nature bottled into five feet of blonde energy. She’d grown up three houses down from the Beck farm, which by the sound of things meant she’d practically been raised at their dining room table. She taught third grade at Dollton Elementary now, drove a minivan, and carried a giant water bottle roughly the same size as her body.
Francine Holloway was significantly more laid back. She’d married her high school sweetheart and taught yoga out of a gym she ran with her husband on the edge of town.