Page 17 of Riordan's Revenge

I clenched my fists and didn’t say a single goddamned word.

Throughout the dark hours,Cassie switched the hockey for a telenovela she claimed was crack-level addictive. She curled up on the sofa under a blanket, her bright-eyed gaze half on me.

I guarded her. Stayed alert.

“If I doze off, feel free to check the cameras on my phone. My PIN is two-two-six-three.”

“I won’t use it.” Still, I committed that number to memory.

By the time morning came and her brother thumped on the door to tell us the cavalry had arrived, I was on the edge of my nerves, waiting for something to happen. Yet it hadn’t.

We exited to the echoing marble hall downstairs, and Cassie hugged her family goodbye. Sinclair took me aside for one last word.

“Something occurred to me in the night. My guess is Cass came here for your sake, not hers. She likes being part of the drama. Lives for it. Right now, she’ll be thinking about the action happening in Deadwater. She might try to go back. I’m counting on ye, Riordan Jones, to keep her safe.”

With a meaningful look and a hard smack on the shoulder, he walked away, hailing the skeleton crew that had just arrived with rumbles of tyres on gravel.

He was wrong about Cassie.

He was also wrong about me. Now she was covered, I was free to go.

Chapter 7

Cassie

He was going to leave.

I wouldn’t blame him either, and I shouldn’t have a problem with it. Last night, I’d gone through hours and hours of therapy notes. The conclusion I’d reached was a logical one, and an exact scenario my therapist had modelled out. She’d described how I might meet someone at a point when my defences were low. That I’d fall hard and convince myself I was in love at first sight.

That it would be a reaction, not a reality.

Sullenly, I stared out the mansion’s front door, the damp breeze ghosting over my skin. My therapy notes told me whatever I thought I felt for Riordan was temporary. It would leave me as quickly as it had arrived, so starting a relationship on those terms was sketchy and unfair.

Next to me, Riordan waited, his hair mussed from guarding me all night and his broad shoulders stretching out the skeletoncrew t-shirt I badly needed to steal so I could wear it to bed once he’d gone.

How could it be fake, the butterflies in my stomach when his green-eyed gaze came to me, or the fizz of attraction at how his muscles moved under his shirt?

“Just a hyperfixation.” My mumbled words were lost to the hails of the men getting out of the cars.

Behind one was a trailer with Riordan’s bike strapped onto it. He spotted it. Smiled.

“Can I ask a question?” I blurted.

Halfway to taking a step, he wheeled around. “No, I’m not taking you on my bike.”

I poked out my tongue. “It wasn’t that.”

Though now it was everything I wanted.

He tilted his head. “Then what? We need to talk to your protection detail.”

My confidence faltered. What did I want? Originally, it was simply him. I wanted to place my palms flat on his chest and gaze up at him. I wanted him to pick me up so I could curl my legs around his waist and our faces would be at the same height. I wanted soft kisses and hard… Other things.

Directly in my eyeline, he’d ordered his ex-girlfriend, who’d never really been a girlfriend and was more like a ghoul, to her knees. I hadn’t stuck around to watch her blow him. The jealousy had been too great. She’d preened, joyful at being allowed to touch him.

I wanted the right to do the same.

If that was the answer to making my feelings go away, I needed more time to frame the question.

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