Page 105 of Lennox Lane

There was no judgment in him when it came to that part of her. No flinch. No pity dressed as tenderness. He had seen her mother’s apartment, heard her sob in Cadence’s kitchen, held her while she asked questions no daughter should have to ask, and he had not looked at her afterward like she was broken beyond beauty.

He looked at her like he wanted to learn every crack so he could stop stepping on them, and then there was Jeanette. Lane had known Lennox was helping in the broad sense. She had permitted him to assist with finding safe resources, and he had sent her names of programs and treatment centers like a man determined to stay within the lines she drew.

But she hadn’t known he paid for the inpatient facility. Not until Jeanette told her. It happened during a call Lane almost ignored. Jeanette had been in treatment for three weeks by then. Her voice sounded different. Still shaky. Still carrying years of damage. But clearer. Less soaked in panic.

Jeanette had thanked Lane for the rehab center. Lane was confused, but Jeanette told her Lennox had paid for her stay. She knew Lane had given Lennox her blessing to help her mother, even if she was too hurt and stubborn to admit it. Her favorite fine-ass cybercriminal with hero-complex tendencies had footed the bill for her mother’s treatment. What’s more, he made sure to ask Lane and get her input before making the decision—no soft speech over candlelight about how generous he was.

Nothing.

Jeanette had kept talking, voice softer. “He came to see me too.”

Lane’s heart did something uncomfortable. “He did what?”

“He visited me.”

“When?”

“Last week.” Jeanette paused. “He didn’t threaten me.”

“That’s surprising.”

“He looked like he wanted to.”

“That’s less surprising.”

Jeanette’s laugh had been small, fragile, unused.

“He told me if my heart wasn’t in the right place, if I wasn’t ready to work and fight for you, then I needed to get clean and go start a new life somewhere else. No strings attached. He said he’d still pay if I stayed away from you, if that was what gave you peace.”

Lane had sat down slowly.

Jeanette’s voice broke. “He said loving you couldn’t be about what I wanted from you. It had to be about what I was willing to repair without being promised a reward.”

Lane had closed her eyes. That had pulled at her heart in a way she didn’t know how to defend against. Because Lennox hadn’t done it to impress her, he had done it because he understood something about love Lane still struggled to believe.

Sometimes protection meant helping someone else become safe enough to approach or strong enough to stay away. After that, falling for him became less of an accident and more of a daily occurrence.

He let his guard down in pieces. Told her about his mother, Mielle. About the outside siblings. About the old council and the power he never wanted but learned to wield because leaving it to men like Jason Jackson felt worse. He told her he missed basketball some days, not in a way that made him regret who he became, but in a way that honored the boy who once believed a court was freedom.

Lane learned him.

His favorite colors. Black and deep green. His favorite food when he was exhausted. Oxtails, seafood pasta, sweet potato pie. His hatred of breakfast eggs, which still warmed some ridiculous corner of her heart. The way he pouted when she sat too far away. The way he pretended not to need affection while acting like a man physically wounded by the absence of her knee touching his. The way he kissed the inside of her wrist during phone calls like punctuation.

She was falling deeper every day, and because the universe loved humbling women who thought they had emotional range, there had been one small hiccup.

A tiny hiccup.

A minor emotional detonation.

Really, who among them hadn’t stripped a luxury vehicle to its frame after a misunderstanding?

It started with lunch.

Lane had been leaving a meeting near the arts district when she decided to grab food from a new restaurant everybody kept raving about. The kind of place with plants hanging from the ceiling, cocktails named after affirmations, and a host who said “Do you have a reservation?” like he was asking whether she had a passport to enter the kingdom.

She’d been standing near the bar waiting for her to-go order when she saw him.

Lennox.