Page 62 of Cole

I nodded, my heart in my mouth. I hated to see him go. I wanted to run after him and tell him that I just wanted to protect him from my dickhead dad and his little minion. But Cole turned away, shrugging his cut on, and walked away without a second glance. The crowd parted around him.

He doesn’t need my protection, I reminded myself as I watched him go. He was Cole fucking Bailey, and my father had just embarrassed me in front of him.

“That man looked like absolute trouble. I hope you’re not associating with that type of person, Isabelle,” my father was saying as I turned back.

“That type of person,” I repeated dully. Disappointment hit me hard but my father’s shitty reaction wasn’t surprising in the least.

“Yes, that type of person. Look, Isabelle, you live here on campus because your mother trusts you not to act in a way unbecoming of your station. You need to be careful. You have a reputation to uphold. I won’t allow a man like that to drag you and our family down to his level. I’d see him behind bars first.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded.

Grant put his hand on my arm. “Calm down, Isabelle. Your father means that a man like that likely has a rap sheet a mile long. It wouldn’t be hard to make sure he went back inside for something. Be careful who you associate with.”

“Is that a threat?” I asked, my voice hollow as I shook off his unwelcome touch.

“Damn right,” my father cut in. “If you’re too stupid to understand, then let me lay it out for you. A punk like that will never touch a Lancaster, and if you allow him to, he will bear the consequences. You think he’ll thank you for sending his life down the drain?” His tone was spiked with anger. “You’ve been warned.” Then he turned away and pushed through the crowd, more angry than I’d ever seen him.

“Don’t misunderstand your father. He’s only worried for you. Having a daughter who you can’t⁠—”

“Control?” I supplied.

“Protect,” Grant said instead. “It’s a terrifying thing, I imagine.”

“I don’t need protection from Cole. He wouldn’t hurt me,” I ground out.

Grant shrugged. “Are you sure?”

I nodded immediately. Somehow, despite how little we knew each other, I knew it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Well then, maybe you should worry more about how much you could hurt him.”

With that, Grant turned and followed my father. I watched them go, my heart splitting in two.

twenty

ISABELLE

I let myself into my dorm and locked the door behind me. I felt like the weight of the world had lowered itself onto my shoulders. My dumbass amateur sleuth board mocked me from across the room.

What was I doing?

My father’s threats were still ringing in my ears when I’d realized how fucking stupid I was. I’d tried to get close to Cole to write an exposé on the Harbor Hounds. On his MC. To bring them down so Rosie didn’t need to worry about her son anymore and yes, to finally, selfishly, catch my big break.

That story, as delusional as it might have been, had been dead in the water since the second he’d caught me in his office, and made me scream his name just a little while later. I didn’t need to write a paper for my ethics class to know that boundaries had been crossed, and I’d lost any kind of professional distance from the story.

And when it came to Finn, it seemed like no one was more dedicated to keeping Finn out of the MC than Cole. He wanted him close so he could protect him, but he wasn’t about to let him become a Hound. I had to find a way to tell Rosie that without letting it slip that we’d been skinny-dipping when Cole made the admission.

And now, even without the story, Cole was on my father’s radar. My father had connections in town, and Hade Harbor was the kind of place where the right friends could make things happen. Sure, maybe if Cole was squeaky-clean, there would be nothing that my father could hold over him… but I didn’t believe that was true. In my heart of hearts, I knew that the Harbor Hounds were up to their necks in dangerous, illegal shit.

That meant that no matter how he made my heart race, making me feel things I’d only ever heard my friends talk about, things that went beyond the physical into something else entirely… it was over.

I was probably deluding myself to think that it hadn’t been over before it even started. This was Cole Bailey I was talking about. The Cole Bailey. As my friends had reminded me, he was an in-demand man. The idea that he’d been seriously pursuing me was laughable, really.

Those thoughts should have soothed me; they really should have. I should have felt less cut up, because at the end of the day, it wasn’t going anywhere anyway. They should have made me feel so much better about losing something I’d never really had.

They should have.

Emmit called me just as I bust through the doors of The Chickadee Diner, a kitschy little place in town where Lily liked to meet.