Page 74 of Beyond Rosy Irish Twilight

“I don’t need—”

“Yes, you fucking do, if you want to live,” he snapped. “You can still go back to work, but you have to realize, this is going to take a while to get over. You can’t just shove this aside.”

“I get it.”

“You’d better fucking get it, because there are other guys relying on you to do your fucking job. You’re not exactly in the position to get a replacement. Rafe trusted you to take this job. If you fail, it’s not just your life.”

“I know,” I bit out. I was well aware of what was riding on me succeeding in this job.

“Good, then don’t fuck it up.”

“I don’t plan on it.”

28

JADE

I checked on Chase and then headed outside. I had a few minutes to myself since Lock was in with Asher. I hadn’t left his side since he collapsed on the ground chasing me down. I was stupid, watching over a man who really didn’t care about me. But no matter how much I wanted to walk away from him, I couldn’t forget the way he held me when I was scared, how he soothed me when I woke up from my nightmares.

It was like there were two different men hiding inside that sexy body. I never knew who I was getting with him, if he was going to be kind to me or accuse me of working for my father. I knew he was hiding something from me. They all were. Asher did a good job of pretending to be as evil as my father, but I saw something else inside him, something that resembled kindness. And all of them walked around like their job was life and death, like there was some greater purpose they were working toward.

None of it made sense, but until Asher decided to be honest with me, there was no way I could fully trust him. I’d put my faith in the wrong man once before and that hadn’t ended so well for me.

“Jade?”

I spun around, nearly jumping out of my skin when I saw Patrick lingering. He was always there, always watching over me, and it wasn’t just because he was my bodyguard. It was like he was always looking right through me, seeing just how tormented I was inside. There were times over the past few days that I snuck downstairs in the middle of the night to escape the dark bedrooms, and he was always there waiting for me.

“Patrick,” I said, holding my hand to my chest. When I realized I looked way too terrified for being snuck up on, I smiled at him and tried to cover my reaction, but he wasn’t buying it. “Hey.”

“Lock is asking for you.”

“Me?” That was a surprise. Usually, he was trying everything possible to keep me away from Asher. He didn’t want me disturbing his rest. I had been a bit of a bully, worming my way into Asher’s room when I had no real right to be there.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked, changing topics.

“I’m not the one lying in a bed.”

“That doesn’t mean you’re okay.”

I hated that he saw through me. Every time I ran into him, his eyes watched me like I was about to jump off a cliff. It was as if he could see the demons in my head and he was waiting for them to take over. He’d done everything he could to distract me lately. He disguised it well, but during the day when I sat in Asher’s room, he was always asking for a rematch of chess. And when I told him I was going to see if Chase needed anything, he always said he would come too, that he was hungry. And I hated that I was that obvious, that I was doing anything I could to distract myself from the memories that pushed their way into my mind at any given time.

“Now that Asher’s awake, things can go back to the way they were.”

“Can they?”

I cocked my head at him. “What’s with the third degree?”

He shrugged casually. “I’m just making sure you’re doing okay. You’ve been under a lot of stress lately.”

“And you’re just my bodyguard, not my therapist,” I shot back. “I don’t need you watching my every move.”

“I was actually thinking we were more like friends.”

When he first became my bodyguard, there was always an easy nature between us. He was friendly and fun, almost to the point of annoyance, but right now, he was looking at me like I was someone who was on the verge of losing my mind.

“Friends? Is that what this is? You’re not acting like my friend.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing. Friends look out for each other when they’re struggling.”

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