Page 72 of The Exit Strategy

I rise to my feet instead, taking her with me, and cross the kitchen to settle her on top of the island. I’m out of control, or my control has finally snapped.

Her shocked gasp adds fuel to the fire in my belly.

This new position puts us eye to eye. My arms bracket her hips. Her hands white-knuckle my forearms. My mouth’s a breath away from hers—and I still don’t fucking close the distance.

I can’t.

Not without it costing her something she doesn’t know she’s paying, but I’m weak for her, and I hate myself all over again for it.

My weakness is destroying us both.

“Cole.” My name from her lips at this proximity is a specific kind of torture. Her palms slide to my chest, a small pressure warning me to step back. “What are we doing?” she whispers.

I have no idea.That’s the honest answer. I know what I want. I’ve known what I want for years. What I don’t know is how to have it without it becoming a weapon someone else picks up.

“Will this be another thing we don’t talk about?” It’s the hurt in her tone that has my stomach dropping to my knees.

“I—”I what?

What do I say to that? All the reasons I can’t have her are still valid, even if they no longer feel like a death sentence.

The heat in her gaze slowly ices over.

I’ve fucked up again.

“The LLC,” she says, jumping down from the island and making her way back to the table on unsteady legs.

“Junie.” Fuck. I scrub a hand over my face. “I’m sorry.”

Her head snaps up, and the glare she shoots my way incinerates me on the spot. “Stop.”

My mouth snaps closed.

“You don’t get to keep doing this, Cole. Unless you have something to say to me about whatever the fuck happensbetween us when we’re alone, I don’t want to hear it. I’m not something you can hide away.” She glances down at the table. “Not anymore.”

I’m the biggest fucking prick on the planet. “You’ve never been a secret, Junie.”

She lifts her head, confrontation on the tip of her tongue. “Then what the fuck was that?” She points to the island.

Mistakeis a lie I can no longer utter. “That’s…complicated.”

She snorts. “No shit, Sherlock. But only for you. Until you can simplify whatever’s happening in your head, don’t do that again. It’s not fair to me, and even I know I deserve better than…this.”

Just tell her. Tell her everything and put yourself out of your misery.

Is that fair to her though? To make her carry the weight of my decisions?

I don’t know how to have her without ruining her. But I’m standing here in my kitchen in broad daylight, my hands still warm from her skin, and I’m starting to understand that I don’t know how to not have her either.

“You told me to stay with the documented vendors. And I am.” Her voice gains strength as she slips back into work mode—the one space she’s always felt safe. Someday I’ll prove to her that she’s always been safe with me too.

Someday.

“But I found a payment pattern in the Q1 supplemental accounts that doesn’t—” She stops. Taps her pen once. “It doesn’t feel like the others. The others are…sloppy. This one is…neat.”

The wordneatlands like a load test on an already compromised beam.

“Junie.” My mind scatters. “The county reviewer will ask for the documented vendor chain first.” The words come from my mouth on autopilot because my mind is miles away. “That’s the sequence. Everything else comes after we’ve established the clean baseline.”