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But I knew I’d fallen when I least expected it or wanted to. I knew I was in so deep with a guy I hardly knew.
A guy who embraced and lived in my nightmares...
Wasn’t life a funny bitch.
“On that note,” I began as I turned in the barstool to stand, “I have to get to work. But it was great getting another chance to meet y’all.”
“We’ll see you again,” Sutton said with a knowing smile, even as a tinge of worry lined her eyes that hadn’t been there earlier.
“Right,” I said as an uneasy laugh danced across my lips, my head bobbing quickly. “Right, I guess I’ll see you tonight. Will Alexis be at school today?” I’d directed the last to Sutton but tipped my head back to meet her decidedly handsome husband’s gaze when he responded for her.
“You wouldn’t be going if Lexi wasn’t.”
I glanced in the direction he’d nodded in and found Kieran and his wife at a table with their young kids, talking in hushed tones.
“Jess will be there,” Diggs reminded me softly, then placed his hand on the small of my back to lead me away.
My gaze caught on the woman who somehow looked wildly seductive, even with her head tipped close to her husband as she held her baby close. Wondering how she managed to stay hidden in the school yesterday and how she planned to do it again today.
“She has ways,” Diggs had told me this morning. “Same as I can get into your apartment. Kieran, Jess, and I have that in common. Hard to keep us out of places. All you need to know is you’ll be safe.”
“Crazy,” I said under my breath, my head shaking as Diggs led me out of the large, industrial-sized kitchen that was tucked away on the far side of the mansion. “This is all so crazy. Everything felt normal in there. People are just eating with their children.”
“What do you want them to do, Tree?” Diggs asked as he held up his other hand, showing the two scones from before. “Stay hidden away in fear the entire time?”
My eyes rolled as I took one of the pastries from him. “I dunno, it’s just...”
“Crazy?” he offered when I didn’t go on.
“Yeah. Speaking of...this.” I held up the scone. “Honestly, what the hell?”
One of those wicked smirks that had the power to undo me slowly curled at his mouth. His eyes dancing with mischief as he wove us through the long halls. “I don’t even remember how it started; it’s just always been that way when it comes to those scones. Always intense. Always over-the-top. When Einstein was pregnant, she pulled one of Mav’s guns on me when she realized I had a box.”
I stopped walking so abruptly that Diggs staggered forward a couple of steps without me.
A rasping laugh left him when he came back for me, his large hand pressing against my back and urging me forward as he repeated, “Intense.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
His head slanted in acknowledgment and then lifted in hesitant greeting when we turned a corner and found Dare coming our way with a toddler. “You’re not at Brooks Street with Lily?”
“Maverick is,” Dare answered as he set the boy down, letting him run over to me.
In the second before Diggs responded, I felt the shift in him.
The worry that bled from him and into me as his grip on me tightened. The alertness and intensity that made the wide hallway feel so small and suffocating.
From the darkness that passed over Dare’s face, he felt it too.
“Maverick’s here.”
Dare’s jaw flexed as he reached into his pocket and took a few steps away, pointing at the boy I assumed was his son as he did, as if in command.
From the way Diggs immediately reached for the boy, I presumed it was.
“Who’s Lily?” I asked as I forced a smile at the boy since he was watching me with the cheesiest smile.
“His wife,” Diggs said under his breath. “She manages the diner we own and likes to be there in the mornings.”
