Page 65 of Dual Surrender

“Please.” I sighed. “Just Kevin.”

“Yes, Kevin,” he said, and I didn’t know which was worse.

I stood, shaking out my pant legs and shoving my phone into my pocket. “I’m leaving early. I broke my phone.”

“Yes, sir,” Hank said, not catching the slip. He let himself out of my office and I stared at the closed door until my breathing returned to normal.

When he’d called to tell me the police were in the office, my fight or flight had activated and my entire body ached from how tense my muscles had turned. Even as they slowly unwound themselves, I was overwhelmed and tired. I wanted to go back to Big Bear. I wanted to go back to a year before when things were new and easy.

I gathered my bag and computer, saying goodbye to Hank on my way to my car. I didn’treallywant to go back to the way things had been a year before. My relationship with Ronan had developed and matured. We did more, we felt more, we experienced more. Hell, he’d asked me to marry him, which was beyond anything I had ever imagined for us the night we met.

After spending an eternity at the phone store, waiting for all of my files to transfer to a new device, I went home and decided to make dinner. Ronan would be tired once he got off and the least I could do was make him a home-cooked meal.

Once the anxiety of my earlier worries had cleared, thoughts of Ronan filled my head again, as they always did. There wasn’t anything I wanted more than a life with Ronan in whatever form that took, but I didn’t know how to allow 24/7 without the pomp and circumstance. In my head, I couldn’t reconcile how to offer so much of myself to Ronan without losing the partnership. My brain struggled to see how it could work, how it could be fair, but I wanted it so much.

Earlier it had felt like I needed to learn to trust Ronan, but I knew I already did. What I needed was to trust myself.

“Stubborn idiot,” I muttered to myself, slicing a potato into quarters and dropping it into a roasting pan.

Behind me, the door opened, and I felt Ronan’s presence as he stepped into the condo. Always powerful and strong and so mine.

“We have company,” Ronan said in lieu of his normal greeting.

“Ronan, what the shit?” I backed up against the stove, wishing I hadn’t set my knife down. I recognized this man. It was the man Foster was tangled up with. The one who’d been hurt and got Ronan roped into all this shit in the first place.

“I’m not here to kill anyone,” he greeted.

“Of course you’d say that.”

“If I wanted to kill your boyfriend, he wouldn’t have made it out of the hospital.” Sage gave me a cruel smile that chilled me down to my bones.

“Where is Foster?” Ronan asked Sage, passing by the kitchen without a greeting and collapsing onto the couch.

“You know, considering you’re worried someone wants you dead, you are too fucking careless.”

“I’m tired.” Ronan closed his eyes.

“He’s right.” I wiped my hands and followed them into the living room since clearly no one was going to make a stop in the kitchen. I sat beside Ronan, feeling the warmth of his body against my arm.

“Which of us?”

“Him.” I gestured toward Sage.

“Sage,” he offered. Like I didn’t know who he was.

“Anyway.” Sage shrugged me off dismissively, like he wasn’t inmyhouse. “Who wants you dead? Where the fuck is Golden?”

“I don’t know,” Ronan answered. “Someone broke into Foster’s house, tried to shoot him.”

“Go on.”

“He sent us away for the weekend, told us to lay low, but I had to come back for work.”

“Careless,” Sage grumbled.

“I save people’s lives,” Ronan snapped. “I saved yours, though I don’t know why I bothered.”

“And I thanked you for that.”