“So,” she said, tucking a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail behind her ear and hoping her fingers didn’t look as trembly as they felt.“Since we’re working together, I figured it’d help if we got to know each other.You know, so I don’t keep calling you ‘hey, you with the muscles.’”
“Cher, I’d answer to that.”His smirk was lazy.Dangerous.“But sure.Ask away.”
She cleared her throat.“Okay.Um.Where are you from?”
“Cajun country.Little town named Breaux Bridge.”
“I hear it in your voice.”
“Yeah, the Cajun, she slips out sometimes,” he agreed, accent dipping just enough to prove the point.“You can take the boy outta Louisiana—”
“But you can’t take the Louisiana out of the boy,” she finished.
Their smiles met in the tiny space between them.It felt like a collision.
He rested his forearm casually on his thigh.“Grew up with my mawmaw.She raised me.Tough, tough woman.Loved hard, worried quiet.”
Something softened in his voice, barely there, but unmistakable.
Chloe tried to picture him younger.Tall, maybe lanky.Green-eyed and stubborn, navigating childhood in a place that smelled like gumbo and river water.“Was it just you and her?”
“Pretty much.”No elaboration.No defensiveness.Just a door gently closed.He tilted his head.“What about you?”
“Oh.Well.”She gave a crooked smile.“My family is complicated, like one of those genealogy charts that looks normal until you peer closer and realize each branch is hiding a landmine.”
He lifted a brow.“That bad?”
“Not bad.Just messy.”She tapped her pen, a steady rhythm betraying her nerves.“Mom died when I was six.Dad married the woman he’d been cheating with.Surprise half-sister.Surprise abandonment.Bonus therapy sessions.”
His eyes warmed, deepening into understanding.“That’s a lot for a kid.”
“It was,” she admitted quietly.“But my aunt and uncle saved me.Leo too.They gave me a family when I thought I’d lost mine.”
“Good people,” Kayne murmured.
“The best.”Her throat tightened a fraction before she nudged herself forward.“Okay, next question.How’d you go from Louisiana to becoming a ...whatever you are now?”
He chuckled.“Security specialist.”A pause.“I enlisted young after my mawmaw passed away.Had a lot of anger and energy to unload somewhere.Military gave me a place to put all the things I didn’t know what to do with.I became a SEAL.Then, eventually, COBRA Securities.”
“SEAL?”Chloe blinked at him.“As in the dangerous kind?Underwater demolitions and jumping from airplanes?National heroes?”
“That’s the one.”
“Oh.”She swallowed.Well.That escalated.“So you’re ...very good at this.”
“Protecting people?”His gaze locked onto hers, steady and unflinching.“Yeah,cher.I’m real good at this.”
The way he said it made something deep inside her go warm and unsteady.
“Okay,” she said quickly, needing a subject change before she melted into her ergonomic chair.“Favorite food?”
“Crawfish étouffée,” he answered instantly.“C’est bon.”Then, a beat later, “Or anything my mawmaw cooked in a cast-iron pot older than Louisiana itself.”
She laughed.“That tracks.I’m more of a protein shake and sweet potato fries girl.”
“Sweet potato fries are holy,” he said with solemn conviction.
“I knew you were trustworthy,” she deadpanned.
