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“Now. What you said was that your businesses are legitimate now. A very important qualifier—and would you slow down? You’re scaring me. Just because a car can go this fast doesn’t mean it should!”
Immediately, he slowed. They were on a long, lonely stretch of road that led to the prison. No houses nearby. No businesses. Because who really wanted to be neighbors with a maximum-security facility that housed the most dangerous criminals in the state?
And Beau knows them. Beau knows so much he didn’t reveal to me. “I trusted you.”
“Did you? Because I thought your trust was a lie. Isn’t that why you kissed me right after saying you trusted me? Our little lie game.” Angry words. Mocking.
Avalon sucked in a shuddering breath. “I fucked you last night. I don’t fuck men that I don’t trust. You know so much about me, so really, shouldn’t you know that?”
“You were just in danger. There were too many of them, and I didn’t think I could get you out. I’m not thinking clearly. I have to get you away from here.” His knuckles whitened around the wheel. He huffed out a breath. “And I’m not a crime boss.”
She could feel his rage in the car, but she could also feel her own fury and Avalon wasn’t about to back down. She wanted the full truth from him. “You’ve been watching me for years. Getting other people to watch me. When I go in prisons, do you have eyes on me then?”
“You don’t get to have sit-down chats with the worst predators out there without me having contingency plans in place. Bad shit happens. Just like today.” He slanted a glance in the rearview mirror. Automatically, Avalon whipped around to make sure they weren’t being followed.
They weren’t.
“I wanted to make sure you were safe,” he gritted from between clenched teeth.
“Because I’m your good thing. Right. Been over that. You’ve been stalking me because I’m good and you are?—”
“I’ve been watching over you because I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen years old! Fuck! Fuck!” A hard shake of his head. “You were just in a prison riot. You could have been ripped apart. Douglas was on the floor. That big, burly bastard was coming at you. My contingencies weren’t going to save you. I had stayed away all this time—thought it was better for you. Thought you deserved better than me. But if I hadn’t been there today, what the hell would have happened to you?”
Her breath exhaled slowly. She opened her fisted hands. Stared down at the small half-moon marks that had been left by her nails. “Simple. I would probably be dead. So, what does that make? The fourth time you’ve saved me? The fifth? Maybe the hundredth? What the hell am I? Lois Lane while you’re some undercover Superman?”
“You’re everything! Everything. And that’s why I’m so absolutely insane where you’re concerned.”
Chapter Fifteen
He’d screwed up. Beau realized that ever so important fact. A major, game-changing screw up. But when the alarm had started blaring in the prison, when chaos had been reigning and that big bastard in orange had turned his attention on Avalon…
Beau may have lost his control.
May?
Okay, dammit, he had. He’d completely lost his control. Thoroughly screwed up. And, yes, he’d even screwed things so badly that he’d admitted a truth that he’d tried to keep from even himself.
I love Avalon.
Sonofabitch.
She hadn’t said anything after his big confession. Dare he hope that she’d somehow missed it? Beau cut her a quick glance. He found her eyes on him.
Nope, she hadn’t missed a thing.
She was going to kick his ass to the curb. Get one major restraining order. And never look back.
“This isn’t the way to the hotel.” The first words she’d spoken in fifteen minutes. Yes, he’d been watching the clock.
“I’m not taking you to the hotel.”
“But if you don’t take me to the hotel, then how will your friends Percy and Dominic be able to keep watch over me?”
He sucked in his left cheek.
“It was the chocolate croissants that tipped me off about Percy. And the fact that the cops were extremely pissed that he’d delayed them from seeing me for so long. Let me guess, you told your buddy Percy I needed rest? That the cops couldn’t see me until at least…oh, eight a.m.?”
Was it wiser to stay silent? Or plead guilty?
