Page 69 of Chalk Outline

“I’ll add garlic bread.”

Nice.

“What’s your favorite movie?”

“I prefer to read your favorite books,” he answers automatically, as if he knows what they are. If he did, he would probably have run the other way.

“Romance?”

He cocks an eyebrow. “Comics?”

We can do both.

That last one makes me giggle since I hoped he was a dog when Grandma said she had a surprise for my eighteenth birthday. “Do you play fetch?”

“Only if I get a treat.” His facial muscles are taut, unmoving, and sculpted to perfection. I giggle again at his adorable answer.

The wild flicker in his eyes suggests that he wants to say more. Yet, I see something else in them: sadness. I wonder if he feels as though he doesn’t fit into this world the same way I do. I often feel like I don’t even belong in this house.

“He is fun,” I tell Grandma as my eyes slide her way, watching her leave the garden without saying as much as a goodbye. I return my gaze to him and say, “Welcome aboard.”

“After you.” He waits for me to make the first move.

So polite and trained.

A giddy sensation travels through me.

Before I move, my gaze drops to his shoelaces, lingering there momentarily.

“Why are they tied backward?” I point to his boots.

He also drops his gaze. “Oh, the shoelaces?”

I nod.

“It throws people off easily and gives me an advantage. Work smart, not hard.” His whole demeanor changes once Grandmais out of sight. An inviting grin slowly pulls at the corners of his lips, pleasant and graceful to the point that it becomes hauntingly sexy, and goosebumps break over my skin. Nope. “You fell for it,” he finishes.

I did… uhh.

I step onto the balcony, and Jason sets the rifle aside. He watched my tower while I was showering.

“Did you know my husband? Considering that you worked with my grandma for a long time.” I know I’m a broken record with so many questions, but I can’t shake the feeling that something doesn’t add up.

He doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he lights a cigarette and takes a drag before he shoves the lighter into his pocket.

The same ritual he had yesterday. Well… It’s already early morning, so it was two days ago.

“No. I don’t think so.” Smoke curls around him. “Maybe we were placed in different locations. Romina has dozens of teams.”

Right…

I’m not his target, but someone is. He wants me to follow the narrative of a bodyguard who’s also a contract killer with a fake identity, so what is the endgame?

If my husband had an identical twin I didn’t know about, that would be even more fucked up.

I gnaw on my bottom lip.

We were best friends. I didn’t know everything about his life, but he would never have kept that information from me.