My hand tightens on my mug. “I can’t calculate an exact number.”
He arches a single brow. “You can’t?”
I hold his gaze.
In my head, Jane and I didn’t wake up one morning and decide that our fake relationship was real. It was gradual, and the feelings inside the fake-dating op were never fabricated. But Jane was slow to let me in, and she’d say that we were “pals who fuck” for most of that time.
The technical answer is two days ago.
The answer I feel is more ambiguous, and both are wrong ones to tell her dad.
Make a decision, Thatcher. Steam billows from my cup and heats my face.
“It’s felt like a long time,” I say.
“Feelings tend to blur rationality.” He rests an elbow back. “Since Jane seems to care a great deal for you, let’s say that you two officially became a couple when you started sleeping together. That would be when?” He takes a sip from his coffee.
“Over a month ago.”
“Four months?”
“No.”
“Three?”
I shake my head. “Less than that. Just…over a month”
He inspects his coffee, then me. “Let’s also consider that you were her bodyguard and around my daughter for longer periods throughout a day. That increases the value of time you’ve spent together. So we’ll round up ‘over one month’ to three months.” He sets his mug on the counter behind him. “So when Jane told us her boyfriend of three months was moving in with her, I thought it was fast. What do you think?”
It’s not slow.
Don’t fucking say that, Thatcher.
“It’s the speed that works for us, sir.”
“But you didn’t think to wait to move in until you met her parents or told her siblings you were dating their sister.”
No.
Because I’m apparently really damn good at moving out of order. I grind down on my teeth. “Respectfully, sir, I’m not going to apologize for following my heart. And Jane was just following hers.”
His unreadable expression puts me on edge. He stands straighter and grabs his coffee. “You remind me of someone.”
Before I can ask who, Rose slips into the kitchen. Black dress. Black nail polish. Diamond earrings and the coldest, piercing glare in her yellow-green eyes. Rose Calloway’s reputation of being an Ice Queen runs throughout the world, but among the security team, bodyguards know the warmest thing about Rose is the love she has for her family.
That extends, most especially, to her oldest daughter.
Jane squeezes into the archway with wide-eyes. No room in the kitchen.
I’d like to believe I’m handling myself fine.
Rose gives me a long once-over. “You’re still alive, so I take it Richard didn’t do a good job annihilating you. Did he tell you that you’re moving too fast?”
Jane’s mouth drops. “Mom.”
I nod. “Yes—” I stop myself from saying “ma’am” because Rose has always requested security not to call her that. “Connor did tell me we’re moving fast.”
Rose eyes me. “Did he tell you that your cock will be on the end of a skewer, if you so much as hurt a hair on her head?”
Jane mutters, “Oh my God.” She mouths to me, I’m so sorry.
I shake my head, telling her it’s okay. I’d be more upset if her parents didn’t love her. To Rose, I say, “We didn’t get to that yet.” That, as in cock-skewering.
“And we never will,” Connor says. “Hyperboles are your affliction, darling.”
Rose purses her lips. “Affliction? I think you mean gift. Talent.”
He grins. “I meant what I said, but if you need more synonyms for talent, I can also provide those.”
She lets out a frustrated growl and her yellow-green eyes land back on me. “Look at these, please.” She passes me the photo album.
“Don’t do it,” Jane tells me. “It’s a terrible, awful trick.”
Rose rolls her eyes. “Gremlin, I’m not tricking your boyfriend.” She waves me on, and Connor extends his coffee to his wife.
Jane puts her hands to her eyes, scissoring her fingers to see me.
Can’t be that bad if she’s not stealing the thing out of my grip.
The title on the photo album reads: The Evolution of Jane Eleanor Cobalt’s Style. I flip open the hefty album and realize it’s a scrapbook. Neatly organized with patterned paper and cursive handwriting.
Each photo is of Jane.
Most when she’s just a toddler. I almost smile. Her style is still as Pepto-Bismol pink, mint-green and mind-boggling eccentric in the past as it is today. Bold. Colorful. But I can’t miss the blatant photos of tear-streaked Jane. Sobbing in the bathroom. Actually…
I keep flipping.
A lot of them are of her crying.
I narrow a look on Jane in the kitchen. Her hands have dropped to her side, and she smiles. “I was a fussy toddler.”
Rose sips her coffee. “You had the loudest cry. It was earsplitting. Look at those photos and remember that all babies cry. They will wake you up at odd hours of the night. They are not cute little squishy things. They are menaces.” Her fiery glare drills into me. “So when you’re thinking about having unprotected sex with my daughter, remember these photos.”
“Oh…God, Mom.” Jane’s eyes are full orbs. “He’s not going to think about me as a four-year-old right before we’re about to have sex!” Not that I need to mention the fucking obvious, but I agree with Jane.
“We don’t need to bring God into this conversation,” Connor says calmly.
Rose skips over Connor’s statement. “If Thatcher wants to keep his life, he will be thinking about that scrapbook.” She points to the album, still in my hands. “Page seventeen.”
I flip to the page. Another crying photo of Jane. This time she’s in her childhood home and at the foot of her bed. Face beet-red and mouth in an opened scream. She was a cute kid—even crying. My lips begin to really lift.
“Why are you smiling?” Rose snaps at me.
My mouth flattens. “Because I think my girlfriend’s baby pictures are cute.”
Jane brightens like radiant sunlight.
Rose nods strongly. “She was a very cute baby.” She squints at me like I’m up to some alleyway, goblin-sniffling plot, and I’m not.
Hopefully one day she’ll see me as a straight shooter.
“Dramatics and props aside,” Connor says, focused on me. “You need to keep our daughter safe. Your job is to protect her from the person she’s sleeping with, and since that man is now you, you have a bigger responsibility to Jane.” He’s talking like I’m still on her detail.
“I’m not her bodyguard anymore, sir.”
“Last time I checked, you also weren’t her bodyguard when she was choked in her own bedroom. But now you are her boyfriend.”
The kitchen sobers at his words.
My jaw tics, muscles flexed, and a blood-red fire burns in my veins. I hate thinking about what happened to Jane. I was just an Epsilon lead at the time of the Chokehold Incident, and I had enough power to erect more protections but not enough to actually talk to Jane, to ensure that she was okay.