Page 134 of Lethal Danger

The way she said the last word made his muscles clench. And made him think Nevaeh had been exactly right about Jazz misunderstanding his intentions.

He needed to put a stop to this right now. “It’s a great discovery.” He forced himself to meet her gaze, though his gut clenched at what he might see there next. “But I really need to focus on solving Sam’s murder, so I can fulfill my promise to my sister and get out of here next week.” There. He couldn’t have been plainer and clearer that he was leaving, so of course she would know he didn’t intend to date her or anything close to that.

But the disappointment he’d braced to see on her face didn’t show.

Her closed lips shaped into a small smile. Almost a satisfied smile. Did she want him to go?

“I knew you’d have to leave, and I completely understand that.” She reached over and covered his hand, resting on the table, with hers. “You’re a brilliant writer. You need to travel wherever the ideas take you and do your research like you’ve always done it. I won’t make you choose or pressure you to stay.” Her smile beamed full and wide. “That’s why I quit the agency. So whenever you need to leave, I’ll be ready to go with you.”

Go with him? His throat started to close, and her hand felt like the warning alarm for the walls closing in around him from all sides. The walls of a cage.

“You can’t.” The protest popped out louder than he intended as he yanked his hand away and pulled his legs free to stand behind the bench.

She blinked up at him. “But I can. I’ll just finish up my two weeks. If you need to leave before then, I’ll follow you right after I’m done.”

“No, you don’t get it.” He tried to tamp down the panicked edge to his voice. “I don’t want you.”

A visible wince pinched her features.

That had come out harsher than he’d meant. He tried for a calmer tone, but still firm enough that she’d know he was sincere. “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea about my interest in you. I never meant to mislead you.”

She stared at him without moving, as if she was in shock.

“I tried to be clear that I wanted to get to know you only for the purpose of basing my heroine on you. I never meant to imply anything else. And I was always clear I was leaving.”

With every word he said, more pain clouded her beautiful eyes.

Guilt pressed hard against his ribs. But it wasn’t his fault. “I told you marriage and a family wouldn’t fit with my lifestyle.”

“But I wouldn’t stop you from traveling and moving whenever you want.” Her eyebrows scrunched together, her voice taking on a strangled, pleading quality. “We’d do it together.”

She would stop him. Stop him from having the freedom to live his life on his terms, without anyone controlling him or owning him.

“I have to do what’s best for my life, and you’ll see someday that this wouldn’t be best for you either.”

Moisture shimmered in her eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He whirled away and stalked out from under the canopy, into the hot sunlight. If only it would burn away the memory of wreaking pain and devastation on the most amazing woman he’d ever met.

Thirty-Eight

Jazz stared out the windshield of her SUV parked in the dark lot of some diner. She was living out the dramatic heartbreak scene in a rom com. But knowing that didn’t stop Jazz’s heart from feeling like it was breaking into a million tiny shards that cut her inside as they fell.

Flash whined from the back seat, either worried about Jazz or wondering why they were sitting there instead of going home after their patrol shift at the fair.

Home. Like she really had one.

She looked at the dashboard clock. 12:45 a.m.

There was no way she’d go back to Nevaeh’s. They were pretty much finished. That much was clear.

And Jazz didn’t feel up to going to her apartment where thugs or other such surprises could be waiting for her. Awfully suspicious how Phoenix and the agency had been able to help everyone else when they were in danger, but when it was Jazz—nothing. The attempts on her life just kept coming and Cora and Phoenix—the whole team—didn’t do a thing to stop them.

Whatever. She would move on from them, too. Enough of trying to please people who didn’t want her.

“You don’t get it. I don’t want you.” Hawthorne’s words cut deeper every time they echoed in her memory.

Tears tumbled down her cheeks, and she blotted them with a tissue, soaked from all those that had come before.

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