Page 26 of When It Reins
“Exactly.” I nod at her, thanking her silently, and she smiles back.
Annmarie looks between the two of us and sighs, letting her shoulders drop. “Fine. But if he so much as steps a toe out of line, I get the first punch.”
I laugh at her, but she doesn’t smile back. I calm my laughter, giving her a swift nod. “Thank you. I needed to tell someone.”
“We’ve got your back,” Shelly says, pulling me into a hug. “Just promise you’ll be safe.”
“Oh, I plan to cry cramps for a while.”
“I’m worried about you being alone with him at all. What if he figures it out?” Annmarie demands, and I see what she’s thinking. We’ve been through a hell of a lot the last few years. Our sister’s story is probably running through her mind. I get it because I think of it frequently myself.
I give her a tight hug. “I swear I’ll be careful. I’m going to be needed at work a lot, saving me from having to be with him. Not to mention I’m supposed to go with Felicity to the studio next week.” I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage to do that with everything else going on, but I would make it work. I promised.
“Good. Stay down there. Say you have to work forever,” Annmarie says, a bit of a grumble to her voice.
“We’ll see,” I say as we step out into the hall. They go ahead of me, and I’m right behind them when a hand grasps my arm and yanks me into another room.
A bathroom.
“What—” A hand clamps over my mouth before the light is turned on, though it’s dim and doesn’t do much for being able to see well.
But I can smell him.
Mitch.
Then he growls. “What the hell are you thinking?”
14
mitch
I was pissed.I was so beyond pissed, actually, that I think I felt real steam seeping out of my ears.
She can’t be this stupid.
“What are you talking about?”
Juniper screws up her face in confusion, but I can see right through her. I grab her wrists and push her back against the vanity. “Don’t play dumb, Starling. This isn’t a game.”
She furrows her brows. “I’m not playing any game, Mitch. I was having a private conversation with my sister.”
“Not that private.” Do I admit that I had seen her walking down the hall with her sister and Shelly, and I followed them? No. “I was coming to go to the bathroom and overheard you telling your sister everything you conveniently decided to not tell me.”
She arches a brow, getting close enough that our breath becomes one. “And why would I tell you anything? You don’t tell me stuff.”
“For your own good.”
Juniper huffs and rolls her eyes, shifting enough that I remember I’m holding her wrists still. But I don’t let go. “Right. Well, then, this is for your own good.” She bats her eyelashes and adds in a fake voice. “I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
I growl, leaning closer until there’s no space between our bodies. I inhale her scent and watch her eyes drop to my lips more than once. “Little Starling, this is not the kind of game you need to be playing.”
Her eyes finally snatch up to mine. Anger burns in them as she says, “This is my life, Mitch. I’m not sitting it out to appease your male ego.”
I scoff, and I shake my head, looking back at her. “This has nothing to do with my ego, and everything to do with?—”
“What?” she challenges, and I see we’re about to tip into dangerous territory. “Protecting your sister-in-law’s sister? Well, don’t worry about me. I’m not your problem.”
“That’s not what you are,” I say before I can stop the words. At least I held back the “to me” part.
