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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.
“I would never hurt her,” I say strongly.
“You’re six-seven.”
“I know.”
“She’s five-seven. And if you choose to prioritize yourself over her during intercourse, she could get hurt in an instant, and I wouldn’t call that an accident.”
Him referring to sex as intercourse doesn’t make this interaction any better. Jane is wincing, but she doesn’t seem surprised. Her family is open about sex.
Common knowledge.
“I know,” I tell him, not shying. “But I’ve been six-seven all of my adult life, and there’s not a single time I don’t think about the power I have in bed. Her safety is always on my mind. In every aspect of our relationship. Especially when we’re sleeping together.”
“This is true,” Jane says like this is a business meeting. “I can confirm, but I’d like to keep the details of it private. Thank you.”
Connor and Rose smile, clearly in admiration of their daughter.
This conversation is easier with Jane here. Maybe because she glances at me and gives me a small, reassuring smile. One that pushes me to say more.
“If something happened to Jane and it were my fault,” I tell them, “I don’t know if I could live with myself.”
And that’s just the honest truth.
Silence blisters.
Rose flips her shiny brown hair off her shoulder. “I’m going to try to believe you, even though you’ve given me no reason to. Which is really your own fault for breaking our trust before you’ve even built it.”
I nod. “I appreciate you hearing me out, Rose.”
She spins on her heels to Jane. “The holidays are going to come and go before you know it, and if you still want a job I might have another assistant position at Calloway Couture—”
“No, no, no.” Jane raises her hands. “I am retired from fashion design. I’m still certain it’s just not in my blood.”
Good call, honey.
“That is both tragic and wonderful all at the same time.” Rose rests a hand on her hip. “What are you going to do then?”
Jane takes a deep, measured breath. “I don’t have a passion. I’ve run out of time to find one, so by the New Year I was thinking…” She turns to her dad. “Is there still an opening in the financial department at Cobalt Inc.?”
Connor cocks his head. “You still think you’re running out of time?”
“Yes, I’m still jobless and twenty-three.”
Connor softens his gaze on his daughter. “I’ll look into it, but I can’t make you any promises, mon coeur.”
She smiles. “I wouldn’t want you to.”
Rose plucks a buzzing phone out of her Chanel purse. “Your Aunt Lily is calling. I have to take this.” She struts off, heels clacking on the floorboards. “No, I’m not doing another bake sale for that school. They’ve insulted my baked goods enough.” She pauses. “Yes, they were from Whole Foods. That’s not the point.”
Connor says a short goodbye to me, and then speaks in French to Jane. Something that downturns her lips before he follows his wife out.
Jane stares dejectedly at the sink.
Maybe I shouldn’t ask—but I do anyway. “What’d your dad say?”
She takes a shallow breath. “He said you’re not invited to Wednesday Night Dinner. Not yet.”
3
JANE COBALT
“Something happened?” Maximoff scrunches his face at me while he enters the townhouse from the garage, a towel around his waist, pool water still dripping from his dark brown hair.
Farrow kicks the door behind them, carrying two bags of Chinese takeout.
I’ve been ever-so-innocently brushing Toodles near the rocking chair. But I must be staring off into space more than usual. Recounting what occurred this morning.
“Is it Tony?” Moffy asks, already glaring at the adjoining townhouse door. Where security lives.
I did give Tony my preference list, but luckily, I skirted out of the interaction before I had to stare at his smug face for long. And Thatcher was with me.
Farrow raises his brows at Moffy. “I thought you didn’t ‘hate’ Tony.” He uses air-quotes.
Moffy gestures to the door. “If he hurts Jane, I’m going to more than hate him.”
I already know that Farrow isn’t a Tony fan.
You see, all of SFO hates Tony after he let Xander Hale participate in a pseudo boxing match at the Halloween party. They believe he should’ve intervened and pulled my fifteen-year-old cousin to safety.
Of course I wish he had, but Moffy and I—we can’t blame bodyguards for our mistakes. There is immense guilt in doing so. The security team is our safety net, but they can’t be our scapegoat or moral conscience.
Xander asked to fight, so we can’t pin fault on Tony for being “hands off” at my cousin’s request. It’s why our parents still believe he’s an asset to the team. He’s just not the right fit for Xander.
Farrow and Thatcher know the complexities behind our feelings—why Moffy can’t hate Tony for those recent events. And why I can’t either.
“It wasn’t Tony,” I tell Moffy. “My mom and dad were here this morning.” I stroke my cat’s tuxedo fur. “It was as frightening as expected.”
Moffy gives me an empathetic wince. “That bad?”
Farrow has a boot on the chair. “Moretti is still alive.” He eyes Thatcher who leaves the kitchen, carrying kibble in little cat bowls. Walrus and Carpenter make a mad dash to him, jumping at his calves.
“It wasn’t that bad,” Thatcher says seriously.
Curiosity pools, and I bow forward like he is gravity, a magnetic pull—all things that wrench me to him. “You really weren’t scared when my dad started talking about how you’re six-seven and could hurt me while we’re having sex?”
Farrow almost chokes on a bite of Lo Mein.
Maximoff laughs like he just beat his fiancé at Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.
The best (and quite frankly, sexiest) part: Thatcher is unperturbed and unflustered by the tiny grenade I flung. “No,” he tells me. “I wasn’t scared.”
I help him fill water bowls for the cats. “You think it went well then?” I wonder.
He glances at me, before wiping up a small spill. “Better than I thought it would.”
But he’s still not invited to Wednesday Night Dinner, and I can only hope my family welcomes him into the fold. I don’t want my boyfriend to feel ostracized.
“Jane,” Farrow says after a swig of water. “Maximoff has something to ask you.”
“You do?” I cap a water jug near the unlit fireplace.
Moffy gives him a tough look. “I thought you said after dinner?”
“Now’s good too.” Farrow is completely at ease.
