Page 42 of Fatal Deception
“You don’t leave my sight. Twenty-four seven. You’re somewhere? So am I.”
Chapter Thirteen
Audra didn’t respond at first. Mostly because far too many reactions to thatstipulationrattled through her. Anger. Frustration. A bone-deep weariness that made her just want to sink to the ground and give up. Luckily, she was used to that feeling. She’d been fighting it for years now.
What she didn’t know how to fight was the other emotions battling for space inside her.
Relief. Pleasure. Copeland would be by her side and that meant—
Nothing.It means nothing.
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Trying to fight away all thereactionsand just deal.
“No, I left you alone yesterday. That’s when you tripped and hurt yourself. I left you alone at the hospital. I’m not being metaphorical. I’m being literal. Twenty-four seven or the deal’s off.”
That did nothing to ease the mix of emotions. He couldn’t possibly do that, and she shouldn’t want him to, but she kind of did.
She’d been denying her wants her whole life, so why stop now? She turned to face him, taking a deep breath meant to center, calm. She was used to dealing with Rosalie’s ridiculous stubbornness. She could deal with his. She fixed him with the same older-and-more-with-it-sister glare she used on Rosalie.
“Copeland. You cannot be by my side twenty-four seven. You have a job, for starters. Not to mention all theprivateparts of a person’s day.”
He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. Now, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a long day.Days.”
He was starting to poke at her temper.I’llfigure it out, like she didn’t have a say, when all she had were says. “You’re not in charge of me.”
“The hell with that,” he retorted, without much heat, but a lot of conviction. “Someone ought to be. So while we’re at it, you’re going to have to tell Rosalie. Maybe you’ve got a few days, because she’s so far away, but this is going to get back to her. Too many people know. Too many things have happened. You really want her catching wind of this from someone else?”
It was awful. Both prospects. Really awful because he was right. Hawk would no doubt mention something to his wife, and while Anna wasn’t going to call up Rosalie on her honeymoon, there was just too much of a chance that it all got back to Rosalie sooner rather than later.
“Are you trying to make me cry?” she demanded, because she’d just gotten a handle on it, and now he was making it worse.
“No, and I’d really prefer it if you didn’t.”
She managed a watery laugh at that, blinked back the tears. “Yeah, I’d prefer that too.”
“Come on,” he muttered. He moved to her side, wrapped an arm around her so she’d lean on him more than put weight on her ankle. They walked like that in silence to the stairs. She tried to reach for the railing, but Copeland stopped her.
“You’ve got to give that ankle a break.”
“You’re not going to carry me again.”
“You keep being so very wrong.” And then, just like last time, he picked her up before she even had a chance to talk him out ofit. Just an arm under her shoulders, another under her knees, and easy as you please, just up the stairs. Like she didn’t weigh a thing when she most decidedly did.
He didn’t stop there. He walked her all the way to her room. Then he very carefully set her on her feet and crossed over to flip on the lights. He surveyed it with those cool, detached cop eyes.
“Decent-sized bed,” he commented. “Going to share it or am I sleeping on the floor?”
She gaped at him. Her mouth hanging open like a fish. “What?”
“Twenty. Four. Seven. I’m sleeping in this room with you.” He patted his side. “Armed.”
“I have a gun up here.”
“Great. Two’s better than one.”
“Copeland.” She knew there should be a reasonable spate of refusals to bring up, to get through to him, but all her brain seemed to come up with was:what?
“You’re going to have to save us both time and energy and stop trying to argue. This is the deal struck.”