Holly
He already knows.
I can tell because for the last couple of weeks he’s been looking at me like I’m someone he might want to keep. But his gaze is shuttered again, and I feel it slicing into me. He’s aware the Labelles know about us, and he’s worried about it. Is he worried enough to push me away?
This feeling of uncertainty, of animal fear, is fucking terrible. Is this what I’ve been helping push for other people?
“Brittany, can you watch Jane for a minute?” Cole says, his voice gruff.
Jane scowls at him. “Dad, I’m eight. I don’t need someone to watch me.”
“Yes, exactly. You’re only eight. I’m legally required to have someone watch over you.”
Short Stack doesn’t seem appeased. “Holly and I were talking about something, Dad. It’s rude to interrupt.”
“And now Holly and I need to talk about something.”
Jane gives me a private look, but I can tell she senses what I do—this is nothing good. Cole’s in a dark mood. I find myself thinking about what she said to me a little while back.
“Sure,” Brittany says, coming forward. She gives me a speculative look, but then again, she did see me in her boss’s sweatpants a week and a half ago.
I send both her and Jane a salute and then follow Cole into his office.
Lately, he’s always finding a way to touch me—the small of my back, my arm—but he keeps his distance today, like we’re back to a month ago, when he felt there always needed to be a minimum distance separating us.
“Does this mean I’ve been bad?” I ask Cole. “It’s been a while since I’ve been taken back to the teacher’s office.”
“You’re the teacher,” he says wryly, pulling me through the door and shutting it behind me. It closes with a resounding click. He doesn’t sit. I don’t sit.
“Did Deacon already come over? Horacio’s good news was that he was coming.”
Cole paces a couple of steps in the cramped office, being careful not to come closer to me. “And his bad news was that he told the Labelles about us?”
I nod to confirm what he already knows. “He says he needed to give them something to get their trust, but I think he just cracked like an egg. How that guy earned his PI license in the first place is a mystery. I’m thinking he must have bribed someone.”
Cole doesn’t look amused. “This is bad, Holly. They want to take my daughter away from me, and Evelyn called me just now. She knows—”
“Why’s it so fucking bad?” I ask, my heart thumping. “I’m not a prostitute or a drug dealer or a murderer. What does it matter if they know we’re together? Is this because you don’t want Jane to know? Because, spoiler alert, she already does.”
His face goes from shuttered to pissed in half a second. “You told her?”
I scoff. “You think I had to tell her anything? Have you met your own daughter? She probably knew before we did. She’s the one who toldme. She pulled me into the hall earlier and asked me about my intentions toward you.”
I want him to ask what I told her. I want him to pull me to him and kiss it better—or bend me over the desk and claim me.
But he stays put, his fingers drumming against his leg. There’s a war on his face, like he can’t decide how to feel or what to feel, or even if he’d like to feel.
Hot and cold.
“But Jane’s not the problem at all, is she?” I ask, my throat suddenly tight. Shit, I am not going to cry in front of him. I’m not going to cry. Once is enough for two lifetimes. “You don’t want anyone to know because you’d prefer to be Cole Garrison, town bachelor. You don’t want anyone to know because you’re not sure you want this to be anything more than a couple of weeks of fucking.”
He starts to say something, then stops, and when he does speak, his words come right out of left field.
“Did you know Millie?”
“What?” I ask, thrown. More than thrown.
“Did you know her?” he asks from between gritted teeth.
