Page 43 of Tangled Like Us

I head to the pantry. “It’s said if you have a headache or migraine, then someone has put the evil eye on you.” I pick olive oil off the shelf and return to the kitchen counter.

She loosely crosses her arms. “So you wear the cornic’ to ward off the evil eye and then your headache just…vanishes?”

“My grandma will tell you it helps.” I uncap the olive oil. “Others will say it’s just superstition.”

“What do you say?” she wonders, watching me measure oil into the shot glass.

I stare off for a short second. I see my chain ensnared with another chain. And I blink that flash out. Like a breeze passing by. “I like to believe in family first,” I tell Jane. “And there’s something about a generational tradition that seems fucking powerful to me.”

She nods. “Je suis d’accord.”I agree.

I tried to learn some French when I transferred to Jane’s detail. All of the Cobalts are fluent, and protecting her is easier if I can understandher.

Ten months later, only simple phrases make much sense to me. I’m not that great at picking up other languages.

Jane continues on. “But in my family, there’s also a thrill in irritating my dad with superstitions. As you’re probably aware, along with the rest of the world, he’s solely logic-based, but my mom is very muchfate-driven. I suppose I’m somewhere in the middle.”

She has a lot of love for Rose and Connor. In the public eye, her parents might as well be gods. Impossible to live up to, and I’ve seen that immense pressure weigh on her shoulders.

Jane peers closely at the oil and matchbook. “Is all of this to ward off the evil eye as well?”

I nod. “I do the maliocch’…which actually meansevil eye,but it’ll take the evil eye away. Which should help with my brother’s headache.”

Probably more than the cornic’.

She leans in closer, her shoulder a breath away from my chest. “What do you do with the oil?”

Air strains again.

I run my hand over my jaw and glance down at Jane, who lifts her chin to meet my hardening gaze.

“I can’t tell you, Jane.”

She nods, understanding. “Because you’re my bodyguard, and I’m your client, and that’d be too much information…” Her voice fades in a shallow breath as she sees me shake my head. We’re too close. My hand skims her waist, and her arm brushes my chest before she rests her knuckles to her lips.

Blood scorches my veins, and my cock throbs.

I force myself to take a step back before our legs touch. “Because it’s a secret. I can’t even tell Banks how to do it.” I hold the knot of my towel. Secured.

Boundary intact.

She tucks a flyaway hair behind her ear like we just fucked on the counter. “So…how come you know how to do the maliocch’ but your brother doesn’t?”

It takes me a minute to explain how in my family, you can only learn the maliocch’ at midnight on Christmas Eve.Superstition and tradition.My grandma taught me. Banks used to fall asleep by that time as a kid. As an adult, he just forgets. Drinks too much spiked eggnog or is working on the holiday.

We talk for half a minute, and then we exit the kitchen into the living room, my supplies in hand. The half-gallon of milk in hers.

Jane drifts towards the adjoining door, next to the brick fireplace. Which leads to her townhouse. I walk back towards the narrow staircase. But we haven’t broken our gazes. Not yet.

“I suppose I’ll see you sometime later,” she says in a soft breath.

She’s only going one door away, but when Jane is at home in her townhouse—when that door shuts—we stay separated and I give her space.

Because at the end of the day, I’m not supposed to mean anything to Jane Cobalt. I shouldn’t be a thought she goes to sleep to.

I’m just someone who protects her from volatile people and dangerous situations.

I expel a coarser breath through my nose. I can’t move yet. “I’ll be there when you call.”