Page 16 of Tamed

Her mouth twitched. “Not wrong.”

Now the tension in the room had dropped, it was time to get back on track.

“You’ll have security tonight at your apartment,” I said. “And tomorrow, you can go to my Central Park penthouse. Not for long, okay? Just until we figure out how to deal with the Hamilton bullshit and perhaps find that other way you wanted.”

For a second, I thought I’d miscalculated, that she was going to blow up anyway despite my best efforts, because the air around her suddenly seethed again with fury.

Then like a door shutting, it was gone.

Her chin lifted and her gaze met mine at last, calm as a frozen pond. “Of course, Caleb. Not a problem.”

5

Isabel

What. A. Dick. What. A.Complete.Asshole.

I left Caleb’s office with a smile on my face, closing his office doors gently and smiling even more brightly at Sally. “Thanks for the tea,” I said. “It was delicious.”

Sally said nothing, only looked at me with deep suspicion.

As well she might.

The moment I got into the elevator and the doors shut, the smile slid straight off my face like a greased-up firefighter sliding down a pole.

My jaw ached, my shoulders ached. Everything ached.

I’d felt like I’d been going to spontaneously combust, while Caleb had lounged behind his desk, casually destroying my life as if it meant nothing to him.

Okay, maybe that was aslightexaggeration.

He wasn’t really destroying my life. But telling me that Mom had been one of the Hamiltons?TheHamiltons? And that she and Dad had gotten married? That her family was now after me and not for me per se, but for Fox?

It wasn’t so much destroying my life as blowing apart what I’d known about it, then leaving me to pick up the pieces. Fuck, I was so done with men and their secrets.

And as for him ‘keeping an eye on me’…

I groaned, leaning back against the elevator wall, and putting my hands over my face, remembering that moment by his desk when I hadn’t been able to look away from him. Then, by the windows, my whole face going red as he told me he was now responsible for my safety….

Gah. I’d never wished so hard for the ground to open up and swallow me whole.

Then arguing with him, letting my fury at my ridiculous reaction to him get to me, when what I should have been thinking about was what he’d told me about Mom…

If I’d had a cup of tea then I’d certainly have flung it in his face, his precious suit and carpet be damned.

I shouldn’t have gotten angry. I shouldn’t have kept interrupting him. I should have kept my cool and asked more questions about the Hamiltons and what they wanted and why they were so dangerous, and what happened to Mom, but no. I’d lost my temper like the dumb kid I apparently still was, giving him ample reason to treat me accordingly.

Jesus. Iknewshouting at him wasn’t going to change things, it never did. Because if there was one thing I’d learned over the years, it was that Caleb Cross was a solid brick wall and that brute force and pushing wouldn’t move him.

Luckily, I’d had some control though, and had managed to force down my rage and swallow my curses. I’d made my face arrange itself into something that vaguely resembled pleasant. And I’d told him ‘no problem’ and even managed to dredge up smile.

He’d been suspicious — I’d seen his eyes narrow — but he’d accepted my ‘not a problem’ without argument.

Of course, I had no intention of doing what he said, and I wasn’t going to be moving into any damn apartment of his. My place was small, but it had been hard won after months of extensive arguing with Dad. Stupid that a woman my age had to argue with her father to be ‘allowed’ to move out of home, but at least now I had context for Dad’s apparent paranoia. The Hamiltons were rich, powerful, and while I didn’t know much about them, I knew enough to understand that yes, me suddenly appearing would be a big deal media-wise and yes, I guess that would make me a target for their enemies.

I just wished there was another way to approach it that wasn’t keep-Isabel-locked-away-in-the-equivalent-of-a-nunnery-for-the-next-hundred-years.

I let out a breath, staring into space.

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