Page 509 of Lodestar

He was leaving.

Fuck, he was leaving.

When his chair rolled back, and he got to his feet and walked out of the room, I didn’t chase after him, didn’t try to defend myself when he knewwhoI was and what I was capable of.

Instead of justifying myself, I closed my eyes and sought calm.

He had every right to be angry, to be disappointed even.

I just…

I likedthis.

Us.

The idea of breaking it was paralyzing.

That was why, an hour later, I hadn’t moved away from his desk. I just remained in that spot, fixed in place, staring out onto the cityscape ahead.

He probably wanted me to leave.

It was his place, after all.

Yet movement was beyond me.

When he returned, I half-expected him to rail at me for still being there. Only, he didn’t. He said nothing. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t touch me.

I sucked in a breath, taking note that it was easier to do that now he was here.

Without a word, he logged back onto his computer, hit his mouse a few times, and the sound of his fingers tapping on the keyboard let me know he was going to work and he wasn’t going to talk to me.

Then, however long later, the annoying bubble sound from a Skype call rang and I turned around even though it was the last thing I wanted, knowing the meeting had started.

Even that was hard.

My hips felt stiff, and my waist too. God, it was like I’d aged twenty years.

Spying a bunch of people on the monitor, I knew I needed to concentrate when I couldn’t put faces to names, but I didn’t have it in me to give a damn.

My grandfather was there, as was the head of the ‘Anti-Human Trafficking’ Department and his top-ranking detectives. Six of whom had already helped agencies the world over make dozens of arrests.

The meeting went on around me, and I didn’t even care that I spaced out. Conor’s anger was a living entity. It went deeper than disappointment. It was worse—this was tangled with hurt.

I’d often sought ways to push people away in my life. That I’d done this without him in mind, when the last thing I wanted was for him not to be my partner, hell, my penguin, was the ultimate of ironies.

I probably deserved it too.

I was a terrible human being and?—

“Star? What do you think?”

I jerked at my grandfather’s question and studied him blankly.

“I don’t understand why we’re getting them involved anyway, Anton,” a woman called Hoyt retorted, simultaneously covering up my hesitancy and infuriating me enough to break me out of my stupor.

“And who the hell are you to dictate whether or not weshouldbe involved,” I snapped, “when you were all sitting on your asses while this trafficking bullshit went ahead under most law enforcement agencies’ noses?”

Anton sent me an amused look. “Whatever your thoughts, you can’t deny it’s unusual to confer with people such as yourself and Conor, Star.”

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