“Don’t’ tell me you don’t like parties,” Jackson throws over his shoulder, his grin reflected in the review mirror.
“I don’t like that one,” I mutter, staring out the window.
“Lee glances back at me, reading too much in those steady eyes. “Hudson’s dinners aren’t parties. They’re performances. Everyone’s always on a stage.”
He isn’t wrong. Every smile I forced tonight felt like I line I didn’t want to speak.
Jackson snorts. “So we’ll take her somewhere with no stage.”
“Like where?” I ask, unable to hide the curiosity edging into my voice.
Jackson smirks. “You’ll see.”
The road curves away from the Shaw estate, headlights cutting through the darkness. My shoulders loosen for the first time all night. The air feels cleaner, sharper. I can breathe again.
But then my phone buzzes in my clutch. One. Twice. Again. I don’t have to know who it is.
Colter.
My stomach flips, a strange mix of dread and heat sparking in my chest. I should turn it off, ignore him, pretend his grip on me doesn’t still linger like a bruise. Instead, my hand hovers over the bag, shaking with the effort not to reach inside.
Lee notices. He doesn’t comment, but his gaze lingers a bit too long before looks back at the windshield.
“Wherever we’re going,” I say quickly, forcing brightness into my tone. “it better be worth all the mystery.”
Jackson laughs. “Trust me, it will be. Colter will shit himself when he finds out we stole you.”
Lee mutters under his breath, “He’s already losing it.”
I don’t ask how he knows.
I don’t have to.
The man is obsessive.
The farther we get from the estate, the tighter my chest knots, until the mansion lights finally vanish in the rearview mirror. Only then do my lungs loosen enough to drag in a full breath.
“Relax, darlin’,” Jackson says, tapping the steering wheel to the beat of the music on the radio. “You’re out of the Shaw zoo for the night. No cages, no handlers, no big bad wolf.”
I shoot him a look, but the corner of my mouth betrays me, twitching upward. “You really think I need rescuing?”
“I know you do.” His grin flashes, boyish and dangerous. “The difference is, I won’t lock you back in once I’ve dragged you out.”
“Christ, Jack,” Lee mutters, shaking his head. “You can’t flirt to save your life.”
“I wasn’t flirting,” Jackson says innocently, then glances at me through the mirror again. “I mean, unless she wants me too.”
I roll my eyes, but the tension I’ve been carrying since Colter shoved me against the wall starts to ease. It’s impossible to staywound so tight with Jackson’s reckless energy buzzing through the car.
Lee, on the other hand, is the opposite. Calm. Quiet. Solid in a way that doesn’t demand, but steadies. He turns slightly in his seat, his gaze on me like he’s cataloguing details he’ll never say out loud.
“Where are we going?” I ask again.
Lee smiles. “Somewhere that isn’t dripping in pearls and politics.”
“That narrows it down to…anywhere else in the world.”
Jackson barks a laugh, slamming his palm against the steering wheel. “She’s got bite. I like her.”
