Page 42 of Boss with Benefits

After several minutes driving in silence, it finally got to me, and I spoke.

"I'm sorry?—"

"Don't," Derrick snapped. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. That's when I looked at him. A muscle ticked under his skin where his jaw hinged together. His gaze blazed ahead.

"Don't ever do that again," he gritted through his teeth. "Do you know how many women—how many cases I've had where…"

His voice faltered, and my gut clenched. He wasn't angry, he was scared.

"I shouldn't have run out like that," I said softly, reaching for his arm.

He flinched at my touch, and I shoved my hand back into my lap.

"You don't think, Rachel. That's your problem. It's late. You turned your phone off. I wouldn't even be able to track you if something happened. Half of the cases I worked...they were crimes of opportunity. That was really dumb."

Fear bubbled into my chest. "I'm not dumb."

"You're careless. You react without thinking."

I crossed my arms over the icky feeling in my chest as he berated me. "I know. I know. I'm a fucking mess and childish."

He whipped his gaze to me, alarmed. "You heard that?" Understanding washed over his features. "That's why you were upset."

"Partly," I admitted. We turned down the winding drive to the lake house. "Your mom's beliefs are fucked up, and I'm not okay with how y'all enable her, but"—I put my hand up before he could interrupt—"it's Valeria's business. Not mine."

Derrick's shoulders relaxed, the tendon in his jaw softening. "I'm sorry you heard all that stuff I said. Do you want to talk about it?"

He stopped the car behind the black F-150 his parents drove. Leave it to Derrick to be all reasonable and want to talk it out.

"You made yourself clear." I hugged my arms tighter around my chest. "You think I'm manipulating you."

Derrick ran his hand over his bearded cheeks. "You're not conniving, Rachel. It's a defense mechanism. To keep people at arm's length."

"So I don't get hurt, right?"

"It sounds like you're close with your mother and have a loving relationship with your family, but being abandoned as an infant will mess with you. Psychologically."

I waved my hand at him. "I don't have abandonment issues and I never cared about knowing my birth parents. I don't take life so seriously. It's about having fun. And teasing the people I care about is part of that. I went too far with you, obviously. And I won't talk about your issue again. Not that it's an issue,” I quickly added. “I won't try and fix you if you don't try and fix me. Deal?"

I put my hand out and he turned in his seat and looked at me. I thought he was going to leave me hanging, but then he gripped my palm and we shook.

"What do you want to do now?" he asked.

I furrowed my eyebrows together, unsure what he meant. "Go to bed," I ventured.

"I mean, with the job. You ran away in the middle of the night. I assume you weren't planning to come back to work with me. But I'd like you to stay on." Derrick rubbed his jaw and swung his gaze at me. Actually, I hadn't thought that far forward. "Too many good people have left."

I shifted in my seat. "You mean like Eva?"

Derrick exhaled. "And Isaac."

"Oh, right. Your partner," I said. Derrick had never talked about his partner, and I knew little about their relationship. I had only met him in passing. "I thought he was only gone temporarily."

Derrick stared out the window into the black night, and I looked over his shoulder at the moonbeams casting shadows through the trees around the lake. The darkness brought a quiet melancholy into the car.

"Isaac never wanted this. The podcast was originally meant to be a side gig, a way to market and get the word out about the book he'd been writing on the Guereza case. That was the case we worked on solving together after I retired. And we did it." A small smile appeared on Derrick's lips. "After twenty years, we brought peace to that family. As much peace as you can have when your child’s been viciously murdered."

Derrick shook his head, lost in his thoughts.

---