Page 28 of Protecting Peyton

I shifted my attention to him and smiled my best shit-eating grin. “That was if you won at pool, and you didn’t, so there’s nothing to settle. Now shoo so I can get some work done.”

He ambled back to his desk.

I couldn’t get yesterday’s conversation and his many questions out of my head, and any meal with him would undoubtedly bring it up again.

He’d insisted he knew I was lying, that I was hiding something, and that he would find out. That scared the shit out of me.

I knew there had to be people in this world I could entrust with my secret. March was probably one of those people—a SEAL, a man who would rather die than betray his honor. But I couldn’t break my rule and take the chance.

Only a half-dozen people in the world knew I’d moved to Atlanta—three friends I’d thought I could trust and three people at the Boston PD. Still, the strangler had found me there. It could have been my communications, or a number of things, but I wasn’t taking any more chances.

The fact that I’d barely escaped taught me a lesson—don’t trust anyone, not even Rhonda, my closest friend, and the only contact I had left. A secret only I knew was the only safe secret. Not even Rhonda knew my new name. Secrecy was my only defense.

LA was as far as I could get from Boston without using my old passport and leaving a record. This city of twelve million people provided anonymity.

And I liked it here. I loved working for Grace, and I didn’t want to move again, but I would have to if I couldn’t get March to back off.

The answer, or at least an option, came to me a half hour later. If pushing him away and ignoring him wasn’t working, it was time to try a different approach.

I went into Grace’s office for privacy and dialed Serena.

“Hi,” she answered. “How are you feeling today? Yesterday was pretty scary.”

“Scary, yeah,” I admitted. “I’m feeling fine except for a headache. The CT last night looked good, and they have March watching me?—”

“Lucky you,” she interjected. She had the same thought I’d had, that any woman who didn’t like Zane March’s attention on her was nuts.

“To see that I don’t develop any symptoms,” I finished. “That’s kind of why I’m calling. Is there any chance you could persuade Duke to come relieve March so I can go to lunch with him, to thank him for yesterday? You know, the whole rescuing-me-from-bad-guys thing.”

“Does this mean the ice queen is melting?”

Grace had called me that because of the way I’d treated March since he’d arrived as security for us.

“Maybe a little, but we can’t be alone because March can’t leave Grace unguarded.”

“I’ll see what I can do to get someone there, so you can put the moves on Zane.”

“That’s not?—”

“Of course not,” she interrupted.

“Get your mind out of the gutter. I just want to talk to him privately.”

She laughed. “I’m not the one with the crush.”

“I don’t?—”

“Tell me you don’t find him attractive,” she demanded.

“He’s no Duke, but he’s okay.” I hoped bringing her fiancé into the discussion would get me out of this.

“Is there someone else I don’t know about?”

“No.” I drew out the word. “I just don’t need or want a man in my life right now.”

“Maybe if you let your mind wander into the gutter more often, you’d allow yourself to live a little. It doesn’t have to be either nobody or partners for life. There’s a whole spectrum between the two.”

I pulled in a breath through my teeth to keep from arguing with her. I had rules to keep me alive, but it wasn’t something I could discuss.