“I know,” I say quietly, looking down. “I don’t need you to tell me.”

She shrugs and pauses at the door. “Just because you’re forced to work together doesn’t mean you can’t have his second date is all I’m sayin’.”

But it does, doesn’t it? It means our relationship is way more professional than personal, and that’s dangerous. I don’t want that to get in the way of him doing his job. He’s the best damn detective I’ve ever met. Even better than my brothers, honestly. And I don’t want to be his liability. If we work together as more than detective and investigator, we’re risking something. We’re risking safety. We’re risking answers. We’re risking lives.

I know why Sheriff put us together. In his eyes, I’m far less of a liability with someone I’ve been on one date with than I am with people I share DNA with. Equally, I’m far safer with Drake than I am with detectives I last spoke to in the line at Rosie’s weeks ago.

And I get it. I’m a woman. I’m automatically weaker than a man—I need someone who cares about me to protect me. Which is exactly why, in Sheriff Bates’s eyes, Drake is the perfect partner in this.

But…damn.

He’s wrong. He’s not my perfect partner. How can I work with that man, constantly thinking about what has been and what could be and what might never be? How the heck does that make any sense?

I fold my arms across the table and bury my face in the nest they make. Good God. This whole thing is so screwed that I can’t even stand it.

Another client murdered. A seriously tumultuous relationship with the lead detective. A contract that binds me to them both.

I just can’t catch a break.

“Noelle?” Grecia says hesitantly, opening the door. “The mayor has the contract here.”

I hold my arm out, my eyes still closed. I’ve been lying back on my chaise longue for two hours now, waiting for my phone to ring.

Spoiler alert: It hasn’t.

A welcome reprieve but a hellish one at the same time. I know that Drake will be working. He’ll be getting it done without me because that’s the kind of asshole he is. This contract I’m holding right now be freakin’ damned, right?

I open my eyes and scan over the amendments scrawled in red. “Fine,” I say, handing it back to Grecia. “Can you type it up with the additions and send it back over?”

“Absolutely.” She takes the stapled-together sheets and leaves my office.

I rest my hands on my stomach and stare at the ceiling.

Why did I walk out of his office earlier? I should have given him the file and then forced him to work with me.

No. I should have called him and warned him what was happening.

I should have called him and talked about it before I agreed with the mayor.

Actually, no. I shouldn’t have. This is my job, my business, and the mayor is simply paying me to do that. And he’s paying me a lot. The only person who should make business decisions with me is the reflection in my mirror.

But I still should have warned him.

Damn. Now, I feel guilty.

I’m not the one who lost my shit though. He is. I’ll apologize to him when he does to me. If he does. Which he won’t. Because he’s male and can’t possibly be wrong ever. And I’m far too stubborn to apologize without getting one in return, so we’re at an impasse.

Both professionally and personally.

I get up, grabbing my shoes by their heels, and set my office phone to the answering service. Then I grab my copy of Natalie’s file and my purse and head downstairs.

“I’m out for the rest of the day,” I tell Grecia. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be at home.”

“Sure. Are you all right?” She looks at me with worry in her dark-brown eyes.

“Crap day.” I smile wanly and head out, still holding my shoes.

The concrete parking lot is hot beneath my bare feet, so I run across to my car while I dig my keys out. Mercifully, I find them quickly, and I unlock my car and drop my butt to my seat, swinging my feet in before the soles of them burn off.

I dump my things on the passenger’s side, barely glancing as my shoes roll off the seat and hit the floor with a thud. Instead of picking them up like a responsible adult, I pssh at them, shut the door, and start the engine.

My phone buzzes somewhere in the depths of my purse, so I turn the radio up to drown it out. It’s not like I can answer it, but I’m pretty fed up with that damn buzzing noise.

The only thing that should buzz as much as my phone is a vibrator.

And there’s no way a Samsung is fitting there.

And it’s still buzzing when I kill the engine outside my house.

Lord help the little piece of crap or my heel might go straight through its screen.

I’ll answer it—once I’ve had a chance to pee. My bladder has been seriously neglected in the last two days, and given that I hate cranberry juice, I’m not in the market for an infection right now. Or medical bills.

If I get the medical bills, I don’t get the shoes. And I want the shoes.

I unlock the door then throw my purse to the side, dumping my shoes with them. I unbutton my jeans as I run up the stairs, sighing happily when it pops open and relieves the pressure on my bladder.

Jeans. They’re the work of the devil, and I’m probably five pounds too heavy to be wearing this pair. Oh well.

I peel my pants off my legs while I’m on the toilet and leave them in a heap on the floor. Two mental online-shopping lists later, I pull my panties up, flush, and walk into my bedroom for some comfy shorts.

My front door opens. Loudly.

I finish tugging the neon-orange shorts over my butt and grab my gun from the nightstand. What the fuck?

And did I forget to turn my alarm on again this morning? ‘Cause I sure as hell didn’t disable it when I walked in a moment ago.

Wait—fuck that. Someone’s in my damn house. Why am I contemplating the alarm?

Oh yeah. Because someone’s in my damn house.

I hold my gun in front of me and slowly tiptoe down the stairs, my finger resting lightly on the trigger. If this keeps happening, I’m gonna have to go door-to-door to remind the residents of his town that I will shoot them if they come into my house uninvited.

Still, my confidence in my ability to use this weapon doesn’t change the fact that my heart rate has picked up considerably and my body is flushing with uncertain, anxious heat.

A shadow moves in the doorway to my living room, and I stop on the bottom step.

It creaks.

I freeze.

“Fuck!” Drake steps back. “Put the damn gun down, Noelle!”

I drop it. “What the fuck are you doin’ in my house?”

“You weren’t answering your phone, and when I called the office, Grecia said you were here.”

“So you decided to storm in and not knock? And you’re surprised I had a gun pulled on you? Sweet Jesus!” I sweep past him, safely depositing my gun on the sofa. “Again: What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk.”

“Ugh, you say those words far too much.” I walk into the kitchen through the connecting door and pull a bottle of Pepsi from the fridge. “I don’t have anything to say to you, but if you have that much to say, spit it out.”

He stares me harshly as I unscrew the cap of the bottle and bring it to my mouth. Shivers waltz across my skin in waves, each one more intense than the last, because his eyes… God.

I hate his eyes.

I wish he would never look at me again.

They say everything he doesn’t. They say everything he’s said before and what he wants to say, and it’s terrifying. Thrilling, but terrifying. I feel like I need to spill every sin I’ve ever committed even down to stealing a lollipop from the general store when I was four.

After three steps toward me, he takes the bottle from my hand, retrieves the cap from the other, screws it back on, and places it on the counter behind me. “Contrary to what you believe, cupcake”—he rests his hands on the edges of the counter on either side of me and leans in—“we have a lot to say.”