“What does that mean?”
He looks toward the dark beyond the fence as if he’s checking the tree line for things I can’t see. When he looks back at me, his expression has gone flatter, harder.
“It means you haven’t been very careful. You may have kicked up a hornet’s nest you don’t know exists, just by coming here and asking questions you shouldn’t be asking.”
The night goes very still around us.
I swallow and hate that he sees it. “That’s vague on purpose.”
“That’s as specific as I’m willing to be tonight.”
“Convenient.”
“Protective.”
I let out a short, disbelieving laugh and hitch the towel tighter over my chest. “This isn’t protection. This is control.”
“That, too.”
No shame. No denial. Just the simple admission that I’m not wrong.
He steps closer, close enough that I have to tilt my chin to keep eye contact. “You think I’m only worried about Deacon.” His voice stays low. “I’m worried about what follows a name like his. Men. Debts. Old loyalties andenough blood to drown a city. The kind of things that don’t care whether you understand them before they close around your throat and end your pretty little life.”
A chill snakes down my spine despite the heat.
I hear the truth in that too, and it makes me angrier because truth is harder to fight than arrogance.
“So what,” I say, “you’re locking me in my room now,Dad?”
His eyes flick to the duffel again, then to my face. “I’m taking your keys so you can’t run.”
My hand jerks toward the towel on reflex, toward the pocket that isn’t there. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am.”
I stare at him. “That’s insane.”
“That’s ensuring your survival.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“No,” he says evenly. “I get to decide what happens under my roof, on my property, and with the woman who just painted a target on herself in my bar.”
The words hit me in a rush—the woman—not employee, not guest, not problem. I don’t know whether to be more offended or more aware of how my pulse kicks at the way he says it.
I decide to go with offended. It’s a hell of a lot safer than anything else I’m feeling.
“You don’t own me.”
His gaze drops once, slow, to where the towel gapes at my throat and then returns to my eyes. “Not yet.”
I don’t have an answer for that. I’m too busy trying to remember how to breathe.
He reaches past me toward the chair. I turn with him, towel clutched shut, and watch him pick up the duffel by the straps like it weighs nothing. He sets it farther back from the pool, out of immediate reach, then extends his hand.
“Keys.”
I laugh in his face. “Absolutely not.”
