Page 59 of Ballrooms & Blackmail

I can’t finish the rest.

Because suddenly, I feel like an idiot with him staring at me like this—his eyes soft, his face gentle, his body close, his tone sincere.

“No,” he says quietly.

“I asked you to sleep with me,” I go on, unable to stop the flow of words, “and used all your flour and messed up your kitchen and took over the TV.”

“Did I complain about any of those?”

No.

He’d watched the movie and ate the cookies and…slept beside me.

But he didn’t try to kiss me again, didn’t?—

Need you to give me the words, little hen.

A sharp little laugh scrapes out of me as I realize what a mess I’ve made of this in my head. “Why are we here, Thorn?”

He studies me for a long moment. “So you can get more of your things.”

“No,” I murmur. “Why are we really here?”

“So you can get more of your things,” he repeats, and a blip of disappointment curls through me. At least until he adds, “And so we can check on the security we installed.”

I blink.

“And also to see if it will encourage the Lyons to do something stupid.”

Now my eyes go wide.

He touches my cheek. “Don’t worry. Pascal’s monitoring the feeds and has a whole team in the parking lot. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

“The f-feeds?”

He turns and points to a camera I’d missed that’s mounted above the door, to another that’s perched on top of the kitchen cabinets. “There’s one in your sleeping area too, but not pointed at the bed, and nothing in the bathroom of course.”

“Oh,” I whisper.

“And sensors on the windows, a doorbell camera, and…” A shrug. “Several placed in the corridors and near your parking space. It may not be safe for you to move back in until we can get you clear of the Lyons, but you’re safe right now, little hen. I promise.”

That’s all well and good.

But it doesn’t explain why he’s been acting so strangely this morning.

“Did something happen after I feel asleep last night to prompt this?”

“Yes,” he murmurs. “And no.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that things are still complicated and messy and dangerous, but that we’re getting closer to figuring it out.”

“Because of your connection with the Lyons?”

Any gentleness in his expression, in his deep green eyes, disappears between one heartbeat and the next. Then he looks away, clenching his jaw. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Because of my connection with them.”

I open my mouth to ask him what the connection is, why it seems to weigh on him so heavily, but the tension in his frame, the careful way he holds himself, as though bracing for my judgment…