Page 119 of Cash

“I don’t work here.”

“You don’t?”

Stella looked to the wall of windows. Once he had her in profile, he took her in.

Blair McKnight.

Stella Eloise.

Lore.

Stella Phillips.

A woman who had been forced down a path she had no business traveling.

A pawn.

Now a woman who lived life on her terms.

The Queen to Cash’s King.

When her gaze came back to his, he saw it, everything she’d never say.

Gratitude.

With a nod, she walked out.

Zane didn’t look up. He didn’t have to, he knew the feel of his woman when she was close. The change in the air when she was near, her smell, the sound of her footsteps. The peace she brought.

Before she rounded his desk, he’d already pushed back and swiveled, ready for her.

Every day, multiple times a day, Ivy came to him and sat on his lap, for no other reason than to check his pulse.

He knew the moment she saw it, though she didn’t know exactly what she saw.

“Why do you have Eric’s bullet out?” Ivy whispered.

Zane’s gaze went from the thumb drive to the .308 bullet with Wheeler etched on the brass. The one that was normally tucked into the flag that was folded and displayed—not proudly but with honor—behind his desk. He’d long ago explained the meaning of that bullet. As far as he knew, all of his men carried one—a round with your name engraved on it. A superstition that was nothing more than a delusion. A fallacy, that if a man carried the bullet with his name on it, he wouldn’t catch one from the enemy.

Not that a round had ended Eric Wheeler.

He’d given his life.

Freely, selflessly, to save the lives of the men he called brothers.

“I’ve kept a lot of secrets,” Zane started. “All of them out of obligation. But this one feels wrong.”

Not a flinch. No stiffness. No shifting. Nothing but trust. That was what Ivy gave him. She wasn’t worried—whatever secrets he was protecting wouldn’t harm her.

“Whatever it is, you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

“How do you know?”

Ivy lowered her head to her husband’s shoulder, kissed the underside of his jaw, and whispered, “Because I know you. You are a man who protects those he loves no matter the cost. Even when the price chips at your soul, you don’t back down.”

Zane Lewis sat with his beautiful wife on his lap. The mother of his children. The woman who had given him everything, and he waited for the harmony only she could provide to come.

But for the first time since he’d laid eyes on her, that peace never came.