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“I know. Me too.”
She couldn’t resist needling him. “Because you like her,” she said in a singsong voice.
“Because I love you.”
“Bryant, this isn’t about me.”
“Don’t be stupid, Olivia.”
She twisted out of his arms and jumped to her feet, glaring at him. “I’m not stupid.”
“You are if you don’t see this is about you. If you haven’t figured it out yet you’re the grand fucking prize.” Fury unlike anything she’d seen in him before blazed in his eyes.
“You think I haven’t?” She didn’t care that she was shouting. “I’m not a fucking moron! You think I don’t know, for whatever reason, I’m the end game? That I’m the reason my best friend is lying in a hospital bed after someone tried to kill her? You really think I don’t know that, you arrogant asshole?”
“Shit.” All of the fight left him and he scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sweetheart, that’s not what I meant. This isn’t your fault.”
“I want to believe that. Detective Rogers told me it wasn’t. But it’s hard. And I’m so scared.”
Bryant easily plucked her off her feet and cradled her on his lap again. “Your daddy and I would never let anything happen to you. Understand me? We’re going to keep you safe. I swear it.”
“What if you can’t?”
It was, selfishly, her greatest fear. One she hadn’t even voiced to James.
“We will. You just have to be an obedient little girl, and we won’t let anything happen to you.”
A shadow fell over them and she looked up to see James standing next to them. He crouched to look her in the eye. “Bryant is right, baby. We would never let anyone hurt you.”
Though she still wasn’t convinced, she nodded. “Okay. Can we go home, Daddy?”
“You still want to see Shannon first?”
“Yeah.”
He held out a hand, and she accepted his help up. Flanked once again by the two men she loved most in the world, she summoned every ounce of her strength and walked back down the hall.
