Chapter 8: Break the Terms

"I did what a mother does," Marilyn said. "I protected your children."

"By paying my wife to sign them over."

"By paying a woman who has no money and no job."

"She has a house," Landon said slowly. "Doesn't she? Under the prenup."

Marilyn opened her mouth, and for the first time in three years I saw her have nothing ready.

I didn't wait for what came next.

I picked up my phone, walked through the kitchen and out the front door, and nobody stopped me.

On the pavement my knees began to shake.

I texted Ronan from the curb.

"I need to be somewhere that isn't anyone's."

His answer came before I'd put the phone away.

"Stay where you are."

He came fast, in the dark car, with his coat open.

He didn't say anything when I got in.

He drove us down to the river, to a brick building with a freight elevator and a steel door, and he unlocked it with a thumbprint.

The apartment was big and bare, with a long window full of lights.

"Who lives here?" I asked.

"I do. Mostly I sleep at the office."

"It looks like nobody lives here."

"That's the idea," he said.

He took my coat off my shoulders and hung it on a hook.

His hands didn't linger.

They were careful, and I hated how careful they were.

"Rule three," he said.

"I know."

"You made it. I'll keep it. Tell me what you need, and I'll bring it to you."

I looked at him.

At the gray at his temples, the hard line of his mouth, the pulse in his neck going fast.

I had spent seven weeks wondering whether I'd invented him.

"I need you to stop being so good at this," I said.

"At what?"

"Waiting."

I crossed the floor and put my palm flat on his chest.

His heart hit it hard.

"Jessa."

"I made the rule," I said. "I'm breaking it. That's allowed."

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