Page 56 of Boss Level

“As long as my ancestors don’t claim my soul and chain me to the land.” Xander seemed to be his normal, joking, handsome self.

A nice change, since last night he’d been as wound up and angry as I was, when I told him about how dinner went. That combined with his request to not bring Judith home, which I was apparently still thinking about, had me on edge.

“Are you all right?” I didn’t know where the question came from. “Areweall right?”

Xander frowned. “I think so? Aren’t we?” His reply was smooth. A little confused.

Except I caught the hitch in his voice. That catch that I doubted anyone else would hear… aside from probably Judith. “I hope we are.”

“We are.” That sounded more like Xander. He gripped the back of my neck, holding me in place, and pressed his mouth to mine. The kiss was tender, sweet, and stole my breath. There was nothing fake about that. “If you can’t reach me, I’ll call you back. Good luck with Roger.”

“Okay. I love you.”

Xander gave me another quick kiss. “I love you too. I wouldn’t do any of this if I didn’t.” With that, he was gone.

Not exactly the sweet note I wanted to end the conversation on.

I finished getting ready for my own day and tried not to replay the conversation as I headed to work.

The lawyer in me was looking for every single double meaning in what Xander said. I was replaying his body language, his tone, his specific word choices.

I needed to stop or it would drive me nuts.

Judith called me when I was on my way to the office. Good. Something new to focus on. I answered and let her come through the car speakers.

“You should know, Claire stayed with me last night,” she said.

Nope. I didn’t want to focus on this. Though, “That’s good news. Isn’t it?” It meant Claire was safe. “Is she safe?”

“I don’t know. Rather, right now she is, but overall… Apparently Dale dumped her in the middle of nowhere and told her to whore herself out if she wanted it so badly.”

Fury raced through my veins. This wasn’t the kind of distraction I wanted, but I certainly wasn’t letting it go. I already planned on telling Roger this morning that we were done with Dale, but this was another nail in that coffin.

Something else occurred to me. “Dale doesn’t know she’s there, does he? At your place?”

“No. I made her promise not to tell anyone where she’s staying. And that we’d figure more out after work today.”

“Did you ever figure out how she got your number?” I asked.

Judith gave a short, unamused laugh. “She picked up my business card at RinCon.”

Of course. Why did we ever think we could hide who Judith was? Why did I think it was acceptable to ask her to? Why did I agree to Roger’s plan?

Because I respected him. Because he was like a father to me. Because he should be the one person I could trust aside from my husband.

“But she does believe we’re engaged.” Judith’s comment knocked my thoughts off-track.

For some reason that one little tidbit soothed me. “We should keep it that way for a while.”

“I agree.”

I liked her compliance a lot more than I should, especially since I couldn’t explain why I’d made the request. “Call me if you needanything,” I said.

“I will. Good luck with Roger today.” Her voice softened.

“Good luck without Elliot.” I meant it kindly. To be encouragement.

She sighed. “Thanks.”

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