Could you imagine?
Just last night I’d wanted to punch him in the throat, but now… well, now I still wanted to do it. Not as hard though. It wasn’t like it would actually hurt him.
A snicker from the stove where Selene was busy frying up breakfast sausages had me glancing toward her. The other woman had tongs in her hand as she stood at an angle, facing the table. She’d already been in the kitchen by the time I’d made it downstairs.
“What do you mean? With what?” I asked him as innocently as I could.
He kind of got squinty. “I meant with your life. What do you need? You said you were waiting for your cell phone.”
Oh, that. I’d thought about it the day before when I’d hid in the bedroom after Agatha’s visit. I had made a vague plan for the future that involved a lot of illegal things I would need to atone for in the future.
But now, I had somewhere to be. A place I hoped could buy me some much-needed time to get my life sorted. I finished eating the rest of my bacon, ignoring the too-watchful purple eyes across the table while I thought about it. Then I said, “Well, I need to figure out what to do about the ‘fire’ that burned the house down. I don’t know if I’m going to be in trouble with the police since I kind of went missing.”
“I’ve been thinking about that.” It was Selene who spoke up.
We both looked at her.
“Get Legal in on it. They’ll know what to do,” she said.
Legal?
Even Alex nodded like that was a good idea.
“What does that mean?”
“The family,” Selene answered, “has a legal department. There’s a whole team of lawyers that sort out that kind of thing.”
Their family had a legal department? How was that possible? Because of the Trinity?
“She’s right. They would be the easiest way to deal with most of your issues. They have contacts in a lot of places.”
I’d bet they fucking did. “Okay…,” I told him, wondering just… so many things. Were they run like a corporation? Did they have presidents and prime ministers on speed dial that owed them favors?
Alex ate some eggs. “We’ll go talk to them today and see what they think about your situation. What else?”
Okayyy. “I need a laptop,” I told him. “I have to try to get back to work.”
His features went very still. “Do you need anything else?”
“That’s all I can think of for now,” I told him, hopeful. I thought about my words for a moment. “I still can’t get into my checking account until I get my phone, but I promise I can pay you back once I get it.”
He made a dismissive sound as he finished off the rest of his breakfast like we hadn’t gotten into an argument over money a few days ago. “When you’re ready, we’ll leave.”
Here I’d thought he’d let me borrow his credit card and buy everything online, but to actuallyleavethe house?
I didn’t get a chance to think about it too much because Alex turned to the other woman. “Selene, I’m fine. You can go home now. Tell everybody to mind their own business. I’m set for the week; you can work from the office again.”
She gave him a thumbs-up.
I blinked and finished my cooling eggs, ate my last piece of bacon, and watched Alex’s face before glancing toward Selene and wondering what she did for a living.
Did he work?
I got up, rinsed my plate, and headed upstairs, taking note of their silence. I breathed heavily through a shower and got dressed in the clothes I’d bought a couple days ago. They were a lot nicer than just about everything I usually wore—just about everything was since I lived in sweats. I took a mental note to give my new clothes a wash since I wasn’t leaving after all. I hoped more than I should that stayed the case.
Selene was nowhere to be found when I went back downstairs half an hour later, but Alex was there, hair damp and in jeans that hugged all the right places—which was all of them because there wasn’t a spot on him that wasn’t one—and a dark red, button-down shirt with a black coat.
I’d forgotten to buy a coat, dammit. The day I’d gone shopping, it had been kind of cool, and it hadn’t occurred to me that winter was coming.
