Page 23 of Let Me Protect You

“Did you end up finishing your business degree?”

She nods.

Spot decides it’s the best time to walk into my office and plop down on Harmony’s feet. He looks up at her, tongue hanging out of his mouth, and she bends down to rub behind his ear.

For once, she has a problem I can solve. “Then I have a proposition for you.”

She narrows her eyes at me.

Well, fuck. “Not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

“Can we start this conversation over? Everything is coming out all wrong.”

“Fine.” She gestures for me to speak, probably waiting for me to make an ass of myself again.

“I have a solution for your job situation. Your degree will definitely help the business.”

Harmony cocks her head, studying me. Her copper eyes study me as I squirm under her watchful gaze. What does she see? Someone still broken because of the way she left? Or a stranger that’s her bodyguard? I pray it’s the latter.

“What’s your solution?”

I blow out a breath. “I can get you a job at Cutesy’s.” The coffee shop is where we had our first kiss, though I’m sure that’s the furthest thing from her mind. “But we have to wait a little. I can’t have you out in public right now.”

She scrunches her eyebrows. “Do you think they’d hire me back?”

I pretend to think for a moment and rub my chin. “Well, they are under new management, and they need someone to figure out their books.”

“Really? I guess it makes sense Sully sold it since he moved to New York.”

“Yes, and I know the new owner well.”

She turns toward the door. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

I reach out and grab her. Her arm tenses under my grip, and I immediately let go. “You can start in a couple of weeks after things around here feel a little more secure and I’m fully healed.”

She sighs but doesn’t argue.

Maybe now I can finally ask. “Can we speak about something? I feel there’s stuff that needs to be talked about so we can be more in sync.”

Harmony faces me, and when our eyes meet, defiance lights up her eyes. “What do you want to talk about?”

“I need to know why you left without a word. But this time, no fighting.”

She stares at me as if waiting for me to say something else. But I want her explanation. I deserve it after all this time.

She places both her hands on her hips, a habit she picked up from Serenity obviously. “I called you at least twice that day and sent about three texts. Then I called you the next two days. Please explain to me how I ‘left without a word.’”

That day was a blur. The hospital and its sterile stench. The glaring fluorescent lights. All the ill patients … including Tía Vicki. “There were no messages or missed phone calls when I turned my phone back on.”

“Why was your phone off?”

I drag in a ragged breath. A vice squeezes my heart and lungs until I’m sure I’ll die from a lack of oxygen and blood. No one outside of my aunt and sister know due to Tía Vicki’s insistence. She didn’t even want to tell her own mother, my abuela, who still lives in México. It was the day I thought I’d lose her—just like I lost my parents in a car crash when I was ten. “My phone wasn’t really off. It died.”

“Okaaay.” She lets the word drag out like she’s prompting me to continue, but my tongue is heavy.

I pushed for this conversation, convinced that she left without saying anything, and now it’s turned around on me like I was the bad guy. Did Harmony actually try to contact me?