Page 71 of The Rebel Billionaire

"No. He loves you and you love him. That doesn't mean you don't have a right to be pissed. I wanted to beat the shit out of Gunner half the time. We didn't agree on anything. Doesn't mean I didn'tlovehim."

"That pretty much describes my relationship with all of my malerelatives."

"I figured," Lucas said, laughter still in hisvoice.

"Does he know we're . . . involved?" I askedcarefully.

"He does. Does thatbotheryou?"

Without thinking first, I reached out and lay my hand over Lucas's where it rested on the center console. His fingers curled around mine with a lightsqueeze.

"No, of course not," I said. "Does he know we're not . . . that itisn't. . ."

I stopped talking, feeling childish for being unable to articulate our relationship. Calling usfuck buddiesout loud sounded so much cheaper than it did when I said it in my head. Lucas squeezed my fingers between his and let out a lowchuckle.

"You mean, did I tell him I wasn't your new boyfriend, and that we're just fuckingforfun?"

My cheeks burned. "Yeah.That."

"No. We didn't get intospecifics."

I let out the breath I'd been holding and relaxed, absently stroking my thumb over Lucas'sfingers.

Were we holdinghands?

I looked down at the center console and Lucas's much bigger hand wrapped around mine, his fingers curved over mineprotectively.

This wasweird.

So far, we'd had a lot of sex, a few arguments, two major crises, and he’d helped me strip some paint. The closest we'd come to doing normal couple stuff was the night we went out and got dinnertogether.

Holding hands was a tiny, unimportant thing. It should be. Shouldn't sex be the thing that made thedifference?

It wasn't with us. Sex had been easy. If I were lucky, it would continue to be easy, because God knew, sex with Lucas Jackson was fuckingphenomenal.

Butthis?

Holding hands was something entirely new. He wasn't comforting me after I was attacked or got a threatening note. This wasn't a crisis. This was just Lucas picking me up at my brother’s house and driving me home while we talked aboutourdays.

Normal stuff. Couplestuff.

I should put the brakes on right now. I should pull my hand back into my lap. We weren't a couple. Lucas wasn't myboyfriend.

The fact that I was kind of sort of starting to hope that he might be . . . that wasn't optimism. That was me heading straight for a brokenheart.

As if that weren't bad enough, the next thing Lucas said told me that if I thought I was headed for a broken heart now, it was about to get so muchworse.

"Aiden and I didn't talk about you and me," he said, glancing at me as if to gauge my mood. "But we did talk about your security. After that note, you've got two options. Everyone agrees you need someone with you twenty-four seven until this is resolved. Your choices are someone from the Sinclair teamorme."

"What if I choose not to have anyone watching me at all?" I asked, already knowing what hewouldsay.

"Don't go there, Princess," Lucas said calmly. "Be smart. My guess is that Hayward hired someone to go after you. The FBI is watching him too closely for him to be doing this himself. He's alibied for everything. Brennan's theory is that whoever was leaving those pictures has escalated. He could be right, but my gut tells me this isn't about your family. This isaboutyou."

"And you're sure I need to be watched around-the-clock?" Iasked.

I wanted to be safe. I really, really didn't want to get hurt. Still, constant supervision sounded extreme. Andannoying.

Lucas shot me another quick sidewaysglance.