“Oh, and I’ll have Xander set it up for you when we go into the office later this morning.”
I dropped the tiny pamphlet back into the box and turned to him. “Sorry. What?”
“I have to take care of some things in the office today, so we have to go in.”
Panic started clutching my chest, squeezing the air out of my lungs like a wet towel being rung out. I tried to sound calm and casual as I said, “Okay, well then you go ahead and go, and I’ll just hang here with Rollie.”
“That’s not going to work.”
“Of course it will. I feel a million times better,” I told him, leaving out the fact I was still nowhere near normal. I hopped off the stool and rounded the island, taking my bowl to the sink and giving it a rinse before depositing it in the dishwasher beside me. “I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.”
I could feel his shrewd gaze on me the whole time. “It has nothing to do with you being able to take care of yourself, grift.”
It had gotten to the point that I didn’t really mind the nickname anymore. In fact, every time he used the endearment, I felt a little excited flutter in my belly. Grabbing the dish towel draped over the handle of the oven door, I dried my hands and returned my attention to him. “If it’s not about me being able to take care of myself like a grownup, what’s it about?”
“It’s about you not being safe,” he answered, the words bringing back to mind everything I’d been putting on the back burner for the past couple days. The threat of O’Brien was always in the back of my mind, but at least when I was here with West, I’d been able to pretend for a little while that my life wasn’t a complete and total clusterfuck. “As long as O’Brien’s out there, I’m not leaving you alone. At least not until I can be sure you’re safe.”
“I’m perfectly safe here,” I insisted. It was like the two of us had been living in a bubble the past two days. A bubble in which I easily forgot that my face looked like it had been in a fight with a brick wall and lost terribly. The last thing I wanted to do was go out in public looking like this. “O’Brien doesn’t even know you. He’s got no clue I’m staying here, so this is the absolute safest place I could be.”
“That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. You’re coming with me.”
Crossing my arms over my chest, I gave him a hard look that would usually have Spencer or my dad quickly changing their tune. That look was what won me almost every argument in the Ryan household. “Am not.”
Humor danced in his gold and fire eyes, his brows raised close to his hairline. Clearly my look had no effect on him whatsoever. “Are too.”
My sister hadn’t been wrong when she called me stubborn, and the more someone tried to get me to do something I didn’t want to do, the harder I dug my heels in. Poor Rollie was sitting off to the side now, his head swiveling back and forth as he watched our childish little exchange like it was a tennis match. “No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are,” he replied, sounding almost as stubborn as I did. “Your safety isn’t up for discussion. You’re coming. End of story.”
Oh, the story wasn’t even close to being finished. I lifted my chin smugly. “No, I’m not. And you can’t make me.”
“Come on, stop pouting. It’s not like I didn’t warn you.”
I refused to look at West, and I did not, in fact, stop pouting. I’d been in the passenger seat of his truck for five minutes so far, on the way to Alpha Omega, and I hadn’t broken my pout for a single second. I was also in the middle of a pretty damn good silent treatment, if I did say so myself.
“I just want to keep you safe,” he continued. “It’s not like I’m trying to be a bully.”
I knew that. I wasn’t completely irrational. At least not all the time. But Serenity had been right a few nights ago when she told him I won every argument by being stubborn and totally unbending, so the fact I’d lost this one to the only person on the planet who’d ever caught me lifting a wallet stung my pride a bit, and I wasn’t quite finished nursing my grudge yet.
“It won’t be all day. Just long enough for me to handle some shit I haven’t had a chance to do the past couple days.”
“What shit?” I asked before I could catch myself. Damn it. Looked like the silent treatment ended before it had a chance to get really good. This man was throwing me way off my game. He had me acting like a newbie, for crying out loud. The handsome bastard.
“Work shit,” he answered.
“Well that’s not vague or anything,” I grumbled. “Is this some of the super-secret spy stuff you do?”
I could see one corner of his mouth hook upward. “You could say that.”
Guess that was all I was getting on that subject. “I still wish you would have let me stay at your place.”
“You have nothing to worry about,” he assured. “You’re going to like everyone there. You’ll see.”
And that right there was the problem. Liking them wasn’t what I was worried about. It was them liking me, or more to the point, not liking me, that had me so stressed. He’d talked about the guys he worked with enough for me to get the distinct impression they were tight in a way that was more than just co-workers. The way he sounded, it was as if the bond he had with them was the same kind of bond he formed with the men he served with in the Marines. They were family in a way that was thicker than blood.
As much as West and I seemed to be drawn together, I was under no illusion that I was good enough for him; I absolutely wasn’t. And I was afraid that would be obvious to all the people he worked with the moment I walked through the door.
“What’s going on in that head of yours?” he asked, breaking the silence that had filled the truck. “Usually what you’re feeling is written all over your face, but I’m having trouble reading you right now.”
Shifting in my seat to face him better, I asked, “You’ve been so concerned with my safety, did you ever stop to think that maybe the guys you work with won’t exactly be thrilled to have a criminal hanging around the offices?”
He cast me a look I couldn’t quite read. “You really think I’d bring you with me if I thought that was going to be an issue?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to throw back at him that he was still a stranger, and I couldn’t make that assumption, but the words wouldn’t come. I might have only known West for a handful of days, but claiming that neither of us knew the other was a lie I could no longer tell myself. Our situation might not have been typical, but there was no denying I felt like I knew this man better than I had any of the ones I’d been in steady, long-term relationships with. And because of that, I trusted that I wasn’t about to walk into anything bad. Because I knew down to my bones he’d never put me in a situation like that.
Seventeen
Stella
Despite West’s assurances, I was still nervous as hell as I walked through the glass doors and into the sleek, modern reception area of Alpha Omega, hand-in-hand with West. I hadn’t thought anything of it at first, aside from acknowledging that it felt really nice, until the woman sitting behind the front desk glanced down at our interlaced fingers and raised her penciled brows, a curious expression on her heavily made-up face.