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6
EMERY
“What are you doing up in the middle of the night, girl?” Jasmine asks when she answers the phone. “I thought I was the night owl in this friendship.”
“Usually, you are, but I need a favor.”
“Uh-oh. Let’s hear it.”
I worked in Jasmine’s bakery for a few months before it became clear I was a hazard to baked goods everywhere. I quit—though Jasmine likes to insist she fired me with prejudice—but we stayed friends.
Exactly how good of friends remains to be seen.
“Well, I need to go take care of something, and I need a place for Isabella to sleep tonight.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah, everything is, uh…” I glance over at Adrik and completely lose my train of thought.
He’s intoxicating. Overpowering. It’s the reason I insisted on this detour at all: if he takes us back to his house, there’s no telling what I’ll agree to. Because I’ll be wrapped up in him—in his world, his scent, the white-hot spotlight of his attention.
But right now, while I’m still clear-headed and free, I need to sort out the details of what my “marriage” to Adrik will entail.
And I don’t want Isabella anywhere near that discussion. Her six years on earth have been difficult enough without adding in even more thorny layers of confusion and fuckery.
“Look, Jaz,” I say, “I know it’s last minute. I’m just in a bind, and—”
At the word “bind,” Adrik’s words flash through my head. You’d look delicious in a collar.
I shudder. A hot flush creeps over my skin, but I try to focus. “I’m in a bind, and I just need a place for her to crash for the night. She’s basically asleep already.”
Isabella has been dozing in her wheelchair for the last hour, but it’s not good for her to stay there all night long. She always wakes up sore and stiff.
I need her to stay with Jasmine. This is my only chance. Adrik won't allow another detour. Even now, he could change his mind, snap his fingers, and have us speeding towards his house and I’d be powerless to stop him. He's being oddly patient—suspiciously so—but I can feel it wearing thin.
“Um… there are stairs up to my loft,” Jasmine says. “And no elevator. This building is old and God knows it’s not up to code.”
“I can carry her. She’s gonna go right to sleep, so she won’t need the chair upstairs, anyway.”
“Okay, well… sure,” she says finally. “Can do. When will you be here?”
I wince. “I’m actually here right now. Parked outside.”
Through the plate glass windows, I see the curtain pull to the side. Light from the kitchen comes streaming out into the front lobby, and then Jasmine whistles in my ear. “Are you in that SUV with the tinted windows? Since when did you become a drug dealer?”
I force a laugh, but the thing is, she might not be entirely wrong. I try to focus on literally anything else.
“It’s been an interesting night,” I say, clumsily dodging an explanation. “We’ll be inside in a minute.”
I hang up. Adrik fixes me with a silent glare.
“Don’t say a word,” I snap. “You have your one condition, and I have mine. This is it.”
I expect pushback. I’ve spent a total of maybe twenty minutes with the man and I already know that he always claws his way to the lion’s share of power.
But again—nothing.
Weirdly patient. Weirdly agreeable.
I’m not entirely sure I like it.
“I’m just going to carry Isabella upstairs, and then—”
He brushes past me and opens the door. “No, you won’t.”
“Excuse me?”
“I will.”
I stumble out after him. “No! Wait. You have to carry her in a certain way so that—”
He unclips the harnesses over her shoulders and starts to scoop her out of the seat.
“She can’t reposition herself, so you have to grab her under her arms and then—”
Adrik turns to me, holding a still-sleeping Isabella against his chest. “I’ve carried a limp body before.”
My face twists up. “That’s not nearly as comforting as you think it is.”
The sight of someone else cradling my baby is… bizarre. There’s no other way to put it. For Bella’s entire life, it has been me and her against the world. There’s never been anyone else there to help. Anyone there to lift the literal and emotional weight.
Just me.
But now, Adrik is carrying her across the sidewalk like he’s done it a thousand times before. Like it’s nothing special.
When he reaches the door, it opens. It’s the middle of the night, but Jasmine is in a white dress and a bright orange apron that perfectly complements her brown skin.
As Adrik walks into the building, her wide eyes track his movements. She’s awestruck, just like I was. Can’t really blame the poor girl.
“Where?” he grunts.
Jasmine blinks. “Oh, um… down the hall to the right. That’s where you’ll find the staircase,” she says. “My loft is upstairs.”
“Most lofts are,” Adrik drawls. He turns and strides down the hall.
Jasmine giggles—a weird, high-pitched sound I’ve never heard from her before. I try to follow him, but she grabs my arm and yanks me to a stop.
“Who in the hell is that?”
