“But kidnapping is?” she cried.
“Under the right circumstances.” Also, North had already been punished.
“What about these circumstances make it right?” she asked.
“I thought you were in danger,” North pointed out.
“I wasn’t!”
“You were living alone, walking around the streets of that town without protection, of course you were in danger,” Jared said, getting upset all over again. “You weren’t being taken care of properly. North was right to take you.”
“You . . . you can’t just steal people who you think might and I stress the word, ‘might’, be in danger.”
“Not people,” Jared said. “Just you.”
“Lucky me,” she replied sarcastically.
God. This was the most alive he’d felt in years.
Could he keep her? The more time he spent with her, the more he didn’t want to let her go.
“You guys can’t keep me. No matter what you think.”
He begged to differ, but he wasn’t going to argue.
“What if you wanted to stay?” he asked.
“What? Why would I want to do that?” she asked as she leaned against the doorway.
Shit.
She needed that IV.
“Because I can keep you safe.”
“Um, that’s rather arrogant to assume, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Have we met before?” he retorted.
She snorted. “Good point. Arrogance is something you wear like a cloak. That doesn’t mean that your supposition is true. I can keep myself safe just fine.”
“Sure you can,” North said. “That’s why you managed to fight your way free when I kidnapped you. Oh, wait . . .”
She frowned at him.
But Jared could see that she didn’t know how to reply.
“What do you have to go home to?” North asked. “What was really there for you?”
She glanced away from them both, swallowing heavily. “Freedom.”
Fuck.
“Freedom is something not everyone in this life gets,” Jared told her gently.
He thought he’d had it, but he’d always been a puppet on the end of a string for his father to manipulate. Sure, you could say he was free from his father now, but the truth was that he was loaded down with responsibilities.
“No one is truly ever free from their responsibilities,” Jared told her. “And what if you could trade your so-called freedom for happiness?”
