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“Let’s just stick with you, saving me the taxi fees down here for now,” she interrupted, smoothing her hair since we were rounding the bend into the resort.
Tension gripped me as I pulled into the valet area in front of the sprawling, modern building nestled up against some hiking trails. Katie and Nat were waiting in the lobby with some kind of sparkling pink drink in their hands, and I stiffened as I hurried around to open Jenna’s door and let her out.
They descended on her with hugs that she somewhat timidly accepted, but neither one blinked at my presence, accepting my hastily told cover story with ease. Katie must have been so busy at the Christmas party that she just assumed I met Jenna there, and there was no hint in her eyes that she suspected anything.
Now, all I had to do was let them know I’d offered Jenna an internship, and after they were used to that idea, I could spill the beans that we were married. Hopefully, before our first child started kindergarten, it was torture not to put my arm around her and kiss her proprietarily.
“I’ll grab your bag out of the car,” I said, glumly accepting my role as chauffeur that day.
“No, let me get it. You’ve already been too helpful.” She hurried out after me as her sister, and Nat wandered into the dining room to check out the menus.
At the car, we both stared into the wide windows of the luxurious spa resort, but except for the lady absently working behind the reception counter, we were completely alone. Even the valet had taken off to his booth when I told him I wouldn’t be needing to have it parked.
I walked behind a wide pillar ensconced in ivy and grape vines, and she followed with a tense look. I hated to leave her, but she needed the break. The stress in her eyes and the lines dragging her mouth down weren’t new. She’d been much too worried about catching up with the classes she was behind in, and no matter how much I reassured her, she was still distressed about the fight I’d been in last week. My bruises had faded, and my knuckles were already itching to bash someone new, but she was so skittish I hadn’t even been sparring to avoid any new injuries.
It was nice that she was sticking to me like glue, because I had to believe it was because she cared, but it meant she wasn’t taking my advice to take it easy and concentrate on her studies.
“What am I going to do without my little shadow for the next two days?” I asked, looking down at her hungrily. “You know how much I love having you around.”
She glanced behind her to make sure we weren’t being seen by anyone and gripped my jacket. Her mouth opened and then snapped shut, like she wanted to say something but changed her mind. I leaned down to kiss her goodbye soshe could get started on the much-needed relaxation the spa promised.
At first, her mouth was lax under mine, but then her hands tightened and she pulled me close, wrapping her arms around me for a split second before roughly pushing me away.
“Be careful this weekend,” she said, eyes full of something I didn’t understand.
Tenderness flooded me. “Was I wrong about you being my shadow?” I asked. “Have you been my bodyguard all this time?”
Shaking her head, she reached for me again, then let her hand drop, glancing around some more. “Ugh, I’ll be glad when this is over.”
Did she mean the visit with her sister? When she’d been haranguing me to let her go?
“Ah, you’re as sick of the secrecy as I am,” I said, figuring out the source of her frustration. “Then let’s march in there right now and tell Katie everything.”
She went stark white, then forced out a laugh. “Don’t even joke about that.”
I let her shove me toward the car and pretended I was nothing more than an acquaintance as I pulled out of the drive, casually waving goodbye. It hadn’t been a joke, though, and I almost wished I had done it.
Chapter 30 - Jenna
Stop panicking.
No matter how many times I repeated it to myself, I was on the verge of panicking. It was hard enough convincing Lev to let me go on this trip without him, having to pretend I only wanted to reconnect with my sister. Then he offered to drive me down; no matter what I said, he wouldn’t be swayed.
I was positive Katie would see right through his business-like friendliness and ‘just trying to help out’ act. The second I walked back in there, she would surely attack me and demand to know what was happening with Lev and me. Because how could she not see right through it when he kept looking at me like that? With such hunger and longing. It didn’t help me one bit, either, and I’d been on edge so long I wasn’t sure I remembered what it felt like to be calm.
Ever since I overheard him talking about making an example out of someone—and getting rid of them if that didn’t work—I’d been on pins and needles. It was impossible to justify Lev as the fantastic person I mostly saw, compared to the coldhearted killer’s voice that I heard when he gave that order. It scared me how much I wished I could turn my brain off so I could pretend I never heard anything of the sort.
On top of that, I was just about ready to give up on this semester. I was too tense to keep my mind on my studies, and I’d already skipped so many classes that I could follow Lev around as his assistant, desperate to find something useful for my plan. That was more important to me than school right now, putting Lev behind bars and extricating myself from this ruse.
This sisterly weekend couldn’t have come up at a worse time, but it wasn’t like I could flat-out tell Katie I didn’t wantanything to do with her new family anymore. Not when I was stuck in it, as well. Then it turned out to be the perfect excuse to get far enough from Lev to work out a new plan, so I changed my tune and begged to go, promising I’d be perfectly safe.
As I said goodbye to Lev, I was terrified he was going to go through with his rash announcement to march in there and confess everything to Katie. Or worse, find a reason to book a separate room so we could sneakily be together. As if my eagle-eyed sister wouldn’t suspect something immediately.
The best way for me to have as clean a break as possible would be if she never knew about our secret marriage. It was going to devastate her husband when Lev went down for his crimes, and once I exposed him, it would probably trickle down to Aleks and the rest of the siblings as well. It killed me thinking Katie might get swept up in the sting, but she’d made her bed.
It was also killing me to accept Lev’s goodbye kiss; it was so sweet and ferocious at the same time. How could a man be two things at once, both bad and good? Were things really not black and white the way he’d told me? Would he see it that way when my plan was put into motion?
Guilt made me shove him away before I tossed the whole plan to the wayside, got back in the car with him, and demanded we go home. Did he see through me and suspect what was coming once I got the ball rolling on my new plan?
