Page 39 of Hooked

He sank shoulder-deep into the water and moved a little closer to me. “You’re going to try to leave, aren’t you?”

My heart sank, and I swam a little away from him, maintaining distance. “What do you expect me to do, Falstone? Stay here and wait to see if Captain Death comes back, determined to get his hooks in me?”

“I would hope you could trust that there are people here who will protect you.”

“The only people I trust are Emeline, Marilee and Beatrice.”

I watched him swallow. “There are others.”

“Who?” I challenged. “My family? Shall I trust the criminal father that left me destitute? The uncle that sold me, or the mother that let him?” I pushed a wet hand across my forehead, trying to scatter the resentment that coiled around me. “I only trust my friends.”

“But I am your friend! Can you not trust me?” The hurt was written all over his face.

My shoulders sank. I had hurt him and I hated it. Because I did trust him. “You can’t protect me from the law.”

He pushed his hands through his hair in frustration. “It’s a ridiculous law!”

“I know!” I shouted, and the sound rang cold in the quiet night air. I closed my eyes, running a cool hand over my face. “Believe me, Falstone,” I said more quietly. “I know exactly how ridiculous it is.”

“What if he’s waiting for you to leave? Waiting for you to be unprotected?”

“That’s not—”

“He tried to manipulate you in Tethurn. He paid a man to hurt you in the hopes that you’d go running back to him. Do you really think he’s above lurking in the shadows, waiting for a chance to take you when there’s no one around to object?”

The worry that had been brewing just under the surface bubbled up, making me uncomfortable in my own skin.

“Do you think he’d be audacious and brazen enough to confront a household of people willing to defend you, including a member of Dalthia’s royal family?”

I shook my head, my frame on the verge of trembling. “I don’t know. I don’t know what to think of him. I don’t know what he’s capable of. But I do know he won’t just give up.”

“So don’t give up on us either,” he begged. “Let us protect you.”

My mouth opened, ready to protest, to tell him that I was right, that it was the only logical choice. I had to leave on my own terms, without involving anyone else. But what he’d said made sense. Huckley could very well be biding his time, waiting for me to be alone. I deflated, resigned. “Very well.”

The tension melted from his shoulders.

I huffed a breath, trying once again to push my worries aside. “It’s clear that you all would be very lost without me,” I teased, backing away a little more, needing to separate myself from the emotion and from the draw of him. “Otherwise, you would not be so keen to keep a nobody like me around.”

He scoffed, moving with me so that the space between us never actually increased. “Nobody? I think you meant to say nobility, Lady Cecily.”

“A useless title if ever I heard one.”

He chuckled. “That opinion is certainly not the popular one.”

“Do you know what the difference is between my life in the house of my uncle and my life now?” I sent a splash of water his way. “I didn’t get paid for the work I did in my uncle’s house. Now I do.”

His eyes darkened. “I’m sorry for what you—”

“Don’t feel sorry for me,” I interrupted him. “I told you before, my life here is practically charmed.”

“Except for the shadow that haunts you.”

“A shadow from my old life,” I clarified. “The biggest reason I was happy to leave it all behind.”

“So that you could pursue love on your own terms?” he suggested.

“So that I couldn’t be owned.” By Huckley, or any man.