Page 90 of Lennox Lane

“Me too.”

Her eyes opened as she turned to look in his.

“What are you afraid of?” She asked softly.

The room was dark, but she could feel him choosing the right words to answer her question.

“Not being good enough for you. Someone that doesn’t hold my value by my wallet but rather my actions.”

The hope. The nervousness. The way he tried to make it sound casual and failed. He was smitten with her.

Lane should’ve responded.

Instead, she kissed his chest and let silence pretend to be enough. Lennox held her tighter. Eventually, his breathing changed, deepening into sleep.

Lane stayed awake. Not all night but long enough for the softness to become too loud.

Long enough for her phone, silent at last on the nightstand, to feel like a clock counting down. Long enough for Jeanette’s messages to crawl back into the corners of her mind. Long enough for the old instinct to rise, the one that said help was temporary, safety was borrowed, and any problem involving Jeanette Sanders needed to be handled before it infected everyone Lane loved.

Lennox had asked her not to handle it alone, and she agreed. She had meant it when she said it, but Morning made cowards of some promises. Or maybe morning simply reminded survivors that trusting someone else with the worst parts of their life felt too much like leaving a door unlocked.

When dawn softened the edges of Lennox’s bedroom, Lane eased out of his arms carefully.

He shifted once, hand searching the empty space where her body had been. The sight almost broke her.

Almost.

She stood beside the bed, holding her breath until he settled again. His face was softer in sleep, the hard lines eased, one arm thrown across the pillow she’d used. Robot offline. Menace temporarily deactivated. A beautiful problem who had made her feel cherished and therefore had become very dangerous to her common sense.

Lane dressed quietly.

She found her clothes from the night before, put everything back on piece by piece, and left his room with her sneakers in one hand so they wouldn’t squeak against the floor.

Downstairs, the house was still.

She paused in the foyer and looked back toward the staircase.

For one second, she imagined staying.

Walking back up. Crawling into bed. Letting Lennox wake and find her there. Letting him make breakfast without eggs and probably be smug about it. Letting the day begin with them instead of strategy.

The image was so sweet it hurt.

Lane opened the front door and left before sweetness talked her into something reckless.

Her car was parked in Lennox’s driveway, clean, untouched, and pointed toward the road like his man had known she might need an exit.

That made her pause too.

Then she got in and drove home.

At her townhouse, Lane moved on autopilot. She locked the door behind her, dropped her bag on the entry bench, and went straight upstairs. The bathwater ran hot enough to fog the mirror, and she sank into it with her knees drawn up, letting the heat wrap around her while the night replayed in pieces. Lane was able to let her guard down last night, and Lennox hadn’t made her regret a moment of it.

“Get it together,” she whispered.

By the time she got out, her skin was warm, and her decision had cooled into something sharp enough to carry.

She dressed simply. Black jeans. Black tank. Oversized denim jacket. Sneakers. Gold hoops. Lavender pixie finger-styled into place. Light makeup. No softness on display.