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Charlie crying in my arms. Her bruised face. The look in her eyes. That piece of shit slinging insults at her. And her voice, so small and defeated, saying, “I don’t want to call the police, Ry. There’s no point.”
“I know.” Leo sighs heavily, his features like granite. A muscle works at his jaw—he’s almost as angry as I am, but he has better control over it.
I feel like a lit firework seconds from exploding.
“It’s wrong, Leo. If you heard what he said to her, the smug look on his face—” I pause to glance at Charlie’s bedroom door, making sure it’s still closed. “He attacked her. Kissed her. Grabbed her breast; then when she tried to fight back, he hit her. He should be in jail.”
“He should,” Leo agrees, his tone pacifying. After working together for so long, Leo knows I’m usually the patient guy, not letting my emotions get the best of me, but with Charlie… Only knowing that she might need me is keeping my control from breaking.
“As much as I hate to say it,” Leo says, “she has a point. Filing charges against him will bring more attention to Charlie. And without video evidence—he’s an attorney, he’ll figure out a way to spin it so everything goes back on her.”
My voice lowers dangerously. “So it’s okay that Charlie was attacked?”
Leo pins me with a stern glare. “You know I don’t think that. After Georgia, do you ever think I would believe that?”
Shit. I take a few steadying breaths, then dip my head at him. “No. Of course not. I’m just so angry.”
“We need to do what’s best for Charlie,” Leo says, glancing at her bedroom door again. “She doesn’t want to do it; we have to respect her wishes.”
“I feel guilty,” I admit, gritting my jaw. “Before we came here, I swore I’d keep Charlie safe. And now she’s hurt a second time, on my watch.”
“That’s not your fault. It was an interview. You couldn’t go in there with her. You were right outside the office. What could you have done differently?”
I exhale, sighing out my frustration. “We need to bring her back to B and A. It’s time.”
Leo meets my gaze, lifting his chin at me. “I agree. We’ve been here for over three weeks, and it’s only gotten more dangerous for her to be here. And we can’t stay here indefinitely—we have other cases, jobs—but if we bring her back with us, she’ll be protected for the duration.”
“Did you talk to Cole about it?”
“Yeah, once you texted me from the office. He thinks it’s a good idea. If you talk to Charlie about it today, we can head there tomorrow.”
“She’s going to be worried about money,” I remind him. “She let it slip the other day that her savings are running out. With rent, loans for law school, insurance, and her parents flat out refusing to help her…”
“We’ll work something out.” Leo’s brows pull into a V as he thinks. “Get her set up with a job online, give her a loan, maybe she can even do some legal work for us.”
“I’ll talk to her.” Crossing the kitchen, I open the freezer and pull out an ice pack, wrapping a towel around it. “I’ll make sure she understands why we need to go back to Sleepy Hollow. Call Cole and tell him to make sure the client apartment is all ready.”
At her bedroom door, I tap lightly and call out, “Charlie. Can I come in?”
There’s a pause, and then a soft, “Okay, Ry.”
I’m not sure what I was expecting when I walked into her room, but when I see Charlie sitting hunched up against the headboard, a blanket pulled around her shoulders, so sad and forlorn and her cheek all swollen…
This need to protect her. It’s like nothing I’ve felt before. Stronger than even at the restaurant. Because I know—right at this moment, a train smashing into me, shattering all my reasons to stay away—I don’t want to protect Charlie as my client.
I want to protect the woman I’m falling for.
What am I accomplishing by holding back? I can’t comfort Charlie the way I want to. Can’t kiss away her tears, hold her in times that aren’t crisis. I can’t sleep beside her, making sure she feels safe in her dreams.
The sun piercing through a stormy sky, I realize—why am I not trusting Charlie to make her own decision about me?
I won’t bring it up now, not today, not after everything that happened. But soon. Soon I’ll lay myself bare to her, let her decide if she’s willing to take what I can offer her.
“Ry?” Her delicate brows pull down in concern, watching me stalled in the doorway, silent revelations hitting me.
“Sorry, hun. I was just thinking.” I walk over to the bed, but don’t sit down right away—I may be all in when it comes to Charlie, but she’s just been through another traumatic experience and I’m not going to assume anything is okay until she tells me.
“You can sit,” she tells me, patting the mattress next to her. Once I’m seated, she looks at me with those gray eyes, dark and storm-tossed and sad.
