Page 62 of Wild Thorns

"If he comes back," I said, and my voice was steadier than I felt, "don't tell him anything. Don't confirm that I work here. Don't—" I stopped. "Just don't talk to him."

"Who is he?"

"Someone I used to know. Someone I don't want to know anymore."

Understanding dawned in Lila's eyes, not the full picture, but enough. She reached out and squeezed my hand.

"Got it," she said simply. "He won't get anything from me."

I made it home on autopilot.

The familiar route, design studio to Main Street to the quiet residential roads to Thornwood Drive, passed in a blur. My body moved while my mind spiraled, caught in the grip of a fear I thought I'd left behind.

He's here. He's actually here.

All the blocked numbers. The new town. The anonymity. And he'd walked through it all like it was tissue paper.

Marcus had found me.

I kept walking. I counted my footsteps because it was something to count. The magnolia trees along the road blurred in my peripheral vision; all that golden afternoon light that I'd been loving was doing nothing now but making everything feel too exposed, too visible. I wanted walls. I wanted dark. I wanted to be something that didn't cast a shadow.

Old instinct. Three years old, at least.

I recognized it. That didn't make it easier to stop.

I was sitting on my porch, shaking, when Jasper found me.

He took one look at my face and sat down beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched but not so close that I felt trapped. He didn't say anything. Didn't ask questions. Just sat with me, steady and present, while I tried to remember how to be okay.

The sun was finishing its descent behind the treeline, pulling the gold out of the sky and leaving something cooler, blue-edged. The preserve was going dark. Below, in the main house, someone was moving around in the kitchen, I could hear the low percussion of cabinet doors, the muffled sound of water running. The normalcy of it helped, distantly, the way knowing a light is on in the next room helps when you're afraid of the dark.

"He's here," I said finally. My voice sounded strange, far away. "My ex. He came to the studio. He's looking for me."

Jasper didn't react. Didn't flinch, didn't exclaim, didn't do anything to add to the chaos in my head. He just nodded slowly, absorbing the information.

"Tell me about him," he said.

So I did.

Not everything; I couldn't bring myself to say everything, but enough. The controlling behavior, the jealousy, the way he'd made my world smaller until I was living in a prison of his design. The texts that never stopped, the blocked numbers that kept multiplying, the certainty that he was always watching, always waiting. The rose on my pillow that had finally made me run… again.

Jasper listened without interrupting. When I finished, his face had gone hard, all the warmth stripped away.

"Okay," he said. His voice was calm, controlled, but I could hear something dangerous underneath. "Here's what we're going to do."

"We?"

"You're not alone in this. Not anymore." He met my eyes, and in his gaze was a fierce protectiveness that made my throat tight. "My brothers and I, we have resources. Connections. Ways of handling people who don't understand the word 'no.'

"I don't want you to—"

"I know you don't want to need help. I know you've been handling this alone for a long time. But you're not alone anymore, Serena." He reached out, took my hand. His fingers were warm around mine. "Let us help. Please."

I should have said no. Should have protected my independence, maintained my boundaries, continued fighting my battles alone.

Instead, I said: "Okay."

Jasper stayed until the light was gone. He didn't push. Didn't make promises he couldn't keep or say things like he won't get near you in the hollow, blustery way some people had, as if certainty was protective in itself. He just sat with me until I stopped shaking, and then he made me a cup of tea I didn't ask for, and set it on the rail beside me without comment. Eventually, he said he'd be downstairs if I needed anything.