Page 142 of Full Mountie

“Ships passing in the night…” he trails off as my phone rings, and we switch spots.

It’s an unknown number, so I answer it with the formal Office of the Prime Minister of Canada spiel.

“That’s quite a mouthful,” a warm, rich voice says in my ear. “Jack Benton. Is this Beth?”

“It is. Hey Jack,” I say as I hold up my finger for Lachlan to wait. He glowers at me, and I mouth,I love youbefore continuing. “Did you get my email? I just happened to see the For Sale sign go up on my walk to work this morning, and I thought of you.”

In my ear, Jack laughs. “You walk to work?”

“Of course, it’s great exercise. We can walk together, if you’d like.” I’m teasing, and mostly for Lachlan’s benefit. He looks like steam is going to shoot out of his ears any second.

On the phone, Jack makes a noncommittal noise. “I think your Mountie might object.”

“Quite possibly.” I press my lips together to keep from smiling.

Lachlan’s not going to like that Jack’s figured it out. I do, though.

“Would it be presumptuous to ask you to go and do a walk through of the house with a real estate agent? I can’t get back to Ottawa for a few weeks. But if you like it…”

“You would buy a house sight unseen?”

“You’d see it for me. And if it doesn’t suit my purposes, then it’s an investment property.”

If Sasha Brewster’s shopping habits ever shocked me in the past, this has just blown that out of the water. “Uh…sure? Yes, I could do that for you.”

“Great. I’ll set something up and have the agent contact you directly.”

He hangs up without another word, and I set the phone back in the cradle.

Lachlan crosses his arms and frowns again. “Date with Jack?”

I don’t like how he says that. And I don’t like that he’s said it here. I give him a warning look which he totally ignores, so I get up and gesture for him to follow me into the copier room.

“What are you doing?” I whisper when we’re around the corner.

“What was that little smile about?”

Damn it, he didn’t miss that. “Well…” Shit. No secrets, and we agreed to talk about things. “Jack guessed that I’m yours. When I said we could walk to work together—which was a joke, by the way—he said my Mountie might object.”

“I do,” he growls. “But what the fuck is he doing asking about your personal life?”

“It just happened in the course of the conversation. Is it a big deal if he knows we’re together?”

Lachlan shakes his head in disbelief. “He doesn’t know about Hugh.”

Oh. Shit. But… “I get that you’re wanting to be protective of Hugh—I do, too—but deniability only goes so far.”

“Deniability? You didn’t even try. You were too busy flirting with Jack Benton to think about the impact of this.”

Oh, he didn’t just say that. Fuming, I twist away from him.

He catches my arm and spins me around, pressing me against the wall. “That was a jerky thing to say,” he says quietly, then takes a deep breath. “I just…”

I nod. Yeah. “Lots of minefields to navigate in a secret relationship.”

He touches my cheek, a light brush of his fingertips that still lights me up inside. His gaze drops to my mouth.

“Not here,” I whisper.

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