Page 18 of Howl Lotta Love

“You posted a guard outside my door.”

“I posted a guard outside your door.”

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“He’s not a babysitter. He’s a deterrent.” Jace kept pouring his coffee without breaking stride, which annoyed her far more than if he’d fought back properly. “Test the theory. I’ll pull him. See how that goes.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then what is?”

“The point is I didn’t agree to this.” She swept a hand at the kitchen, the hallway, the entire fact of waking up inside a stranger’s compound. “I agreed to a tracker and a couple of terms. Nobody mentioned round-the-clock surveillance of my bedroom door.”

“Your bedroom door is the only thing between you and anyone who gets past the perimeter, the cameras, and me. I’m not gambling with the last line.” He finally looked at her properly, and a flash of dark crossed his face at the sight of her bruised cheek—there and gone, replaced by the careful blank he used when choosing words mattered more than usual. “Fewer guards once that bruising fades and you’re back to full strength.”

“That’s emotional blackmail.”

“It’s incentive.” He set a second mug in front of her without asking, a fairly transparent apology in mug form. “The guard’s not there because I don’t trust you to handle yourself. He’s there because I don’t trust anyone else in this city right now. Different thing.”

“That almost qualified as an apology.”

“It wasn’t.”

“Close enough. I’ll take it.” She wrapped both hands around the mug, brace and all, and studied him over the rim. “You look terrible. Did you sleep?”

“Some.”

“Define some.”

“Enough to function.” He turned back to the stove before she could push, and the way he avoided her eyes was answer enough.

Breakfast was an argument in progress.

“You fold the batter, Roman. You don’t beat it as though it personally insulted your mother.”

“I’m building volume.”

“You’re building concrete.” Diesel confiscated the bowl with calm, immovable authority—he’d won this exact fight before and intended to win it permanently this time. “Sit. Watch a professional.”

Roman sat, wounded, and immediately redirected at Emma with the open curiosity of a large dog meeting somebody new. “How’s the arm?”

“Sprained. I’ll live.”

“Unrelated—started a second betting pool. Want the odds on Jace losing his mind before you two make it down the aisle for real?”

“There’s no aisle. This is fake.”

“Sure it is.” Roman didn’t sound remotely convinced, and went back to supervising Diesel’s pancakes, the matter apparently settled in his own private court.

Tucker drifted in, laptop open, and dropped it on the counter without looking up. “Morning. I need your signature on three NDAs and your blood type, in that order of urgency.”

“My blood type isn’t urgent.”

“It is if you get shot again.”

“I didn’t get shot. I got shoved into a pillar.”

“Give it time,” Tucker said, far too cheerfully, and kept typing.