Page 39 of Sheltered By Love

I try to keep my breathing slow and even as I get up off the chair. “I need to make a sauce for the pasta. I’ll be ten minutes or so if you want to go set up.”

Praying he’ll give up, I turn my back on him, and with shaky hands drain the pasta.

I should have made the sauce while the pasta was cooking, but now it’s a welcome distraction from Zane’s probing questions.

Rather than get the hint, he leans against the counter. “Just so you know plenty of women think I’m a catch,” he says.

My eyes meet his and at the humor in his, a little of my worry melts. “So why aren’t you with one of them?”

His smile falters before he steals an olive out of the jar and tosses it in his mouth. “Why did you move here?”

Ah. So, I’ve found a sore spot. Well, I’m not above playing dirty.

“I saw your ad, fell in love with the house, and I wanted a change in scenery. Your turn.”

He steals another olive and pushes off the counter. “All the women I’ve been with weren’t who I thought they were.”

My stomach flips and I feel as if all the air has been sucked out of the room.

I can’t look at him, if I do, I’ll undo everything I’ve worked for since arriving here.

The silence stretches painfully with nothing but the sound of me chopping olives, capers, onions, and dicing tomatoes.

With every slice of my knife, I can feel his unspoken questions.

I keep chopping, reminding myself to breathe, that Arizona is none of his concern until blessedly he sighs.

“I need to check in with Levi and Jax. I’ll be upstairs,” he says.

Zane

As I climb the stairs, my gut is sounding a warning I know I shouldn’t ignore.

I've had way too much experience with beautiful women who lie.

Garrett might not be bothered, but I am.

I’m the one who’s living here with her. And I’m the one trying not to feel things I don’t want to. She’s working her way under my skin, like an itch I can’t scratch.

I pull out my phone and connect to Levi and Jax. After confirming they’re both where they’re supposed to be, I open my laptop and pull up the feed from the cameras.

I have them all on screen and am setting up when I hear Felicity on the stairs and catch a whiff of the pasta she’s made.

I spin around, ready to tell her not to switch the lights on while I’m visible from the street, but she just places a bowl in front of me. “This is where you’ll be staying? Not the spare room?”

I shake my head. “Until I go to bed and Levi takes over. Better view from here.”

She walks over to the window, forking mouthfuls of pasta as she talks. “Will Jax and Levi be sitting in their cars? Won’t someone notice them?”

“They won’t be in their cars. Levi’s inside the old boat club, and Jax’s in his van.”

“The boat club is a wreck. Won’t Levi be uncomfortable?”

I let a laugh slip out. “Ayuh.”

He will be too. Levi thinks he drew the short straw. But there was no way I was asking Jax to station himself in the boat club.

She looks at me and frowns before gesturing to my food. “Eat and explain to me how this is all going to work.”

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