Page 100 of Sworn to Protect

I slide my hand to her face and tuck the unruly strands behind her ear. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me that you know I fully trust you.”

“Thank you.” Her words make my heart swell, and I know I’m not supposed to be anywhere else but here with her. “You know, I came so close to leaving town initially. You seemed like you had everything together, and I thought you were set financially. But the truth is I was fighting my attraction to you.”

“Little did you know how destitute I was.”

“Not until you told me. I wasn’t going to let your brother getaway with it. Nor would I depend on some other jurisdiction to handle the investigation.”

“What happened? I shouldn’t be surprised you have a hero complex, Ranger Boy—or Superman?”

“Please, no. I’m anything but that.” This is what I love about her. She can still make light of a heavy situation. She’s truly remarkable. “Do you really want to hear the details?”

“I think I need to.”

“Okay, but you won’t be impressed after I tell you what happened. This had to be the lamest sting operation ever recorded.”

“I’m surprisingly okay with that. If something had happened to you, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

“Everything turned out fine. All I did was sit outside the prison and wait for your brother to show up. It wasn’t too long after he arrived that your dad walked out. Your brother tried to hug him, but your dad waved him off.”

She huffs. “Typical. He never was one to show affection.”

“Once they got into the car, I followed them to an apartment where they laid low. A few hours later, they came out carrying suitcases. I followed them until they broke the parameter for parole, and I called it in. I also called Stubbs. I tailed them until the cops took them down.”

She blinks back another round of tears. “Thank you.”

“I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, Grace.”

The corners of her mouth lift to a grin. “And I couldn’t be happier.”

“I’m glad, but I know something else that makes you happy.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.” I move on top of her and press our bodies together. I’ll never get used to the way her naked body feels beneath me. “I seem to recall a certain maneuver you liked last night.”

“Encore?”

I don’t try to stop the smirk. “Anytime. I’m all yours.”

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

NATE

I thought comingclean to Mackenzie would be the hardest conversation of my life.

I was wrong.

“You knew my dad?”

Liam’s steel-blue eyes stare up at me, so eerily like Ethan’s that it punches me in the gut. It’s almost comforting, yet it brings the weight of this moment crashing down on me. Mackenzie had suggested telling them the truth. At least a version of it that wouldn’t haunt them. So here we are.

“I did,” I say carefully. “When we first met, your dad talked a lot about you two. He was proud of you.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us?” Liam presses, skepticism etched in his furrowed brow.

I take a slow breath, choosing my words wisely. “Your dad asked me not to. He thought if you knew he sent me, you wouldn’t let me help.”

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