Page 64 of Lennox Lane

Lane looked down at her plate, blinking fast. He’d seen her furious. He knew what to do with furious. Furious gave him something to spar with. This softness. This shimmer of emotion she didn’t want him to see made him feel clumsy and careful.

“You’ve had to make ice into protection,” he said, voice lower now. “I understand why. That ice kept people out when people were dangerous. It kept you moving when nobody came for you. It kept you alive.”

Lane’s eyes lifted again, wet now.

His own voice roughened. “But I’m asking for the chance to melt it slowly. Not break it. Not take it. Melt it—day by day. Let me take over the job of protecting you, at least sometimes. Let me be somewhere you can rest without having to prove you deserved it first.”

A tear slipped free before she could catch it.

Lane looked offended by it.

That made him love her more, which was a dangerous realization to have over risotto.

She wiped beneath her eye quickly. “Robot, all I ask is to be kept in the loop when you do stuff on my behalf, please.”

Lennox blinked.

The words had not landed the way he expected.

Mostly because one of them had been new.

“Robot?”

Lane picked up her napkin and dabbed carefully beneath her other eye, still glaring like her tear ducts had betrayed her personally. “Yes. Robot.”

“That’s my nickname now?”

“It is.”

He sat back, trying not to smile because she was still teary-eyed and clearly armed. “Why?”

“Because you calculate everything. Collect data like it’s oxygen. Execute commands nobody gave you and keep trying to run my life like a software update I never agreed to install.”

“Then learn this.” Her voice softened beneath the bite. “I’m not asking you not to care. I’m asking you not to turn care into control. Tell me, ask me, keep me in the loop. Let me have a say when it’s my life, my past, my food bank, my people.”

He nodded slowly. “You’re right.”

Lane stared at him for a long moment, then shook her head and looked away so he couldn’t see her smiling. Relief moved through him so fast it almost embarrassed him.

“So,” she said, picking up her wine again, “is this the whole date? You feeding me my favorite meal, making me cry against my will, and hoping I forget you’re on probation?”

“No. This is just part one.”

Her eyes narrowed over the rim of her glass. “Part one?”

He took another sip of wine. “Yep. We’re heading out after we eat.”

“Heading out where?”

“Somewhere casual.”

She glanced down at her outfit. “I am casual.”

“You are. You’re beautiful as fuck, too.”

“That was not the question.”

“It was the answer I preferred.”