Page 140 of Beneath the Surface

“So you’re saying my career-ending injury is a bonus?” he asked ruefully.

“I’m saying we make it work.” Quinn’s voice was firm. “Whatever happens with your career, with my book, with anything, we make it work. Together.”

Dax pulled her down for a kiss. “Together,” he agreed.

They lay in comfortable silence for a while, Quinn’s fingers tracing idle patterns on Dax’s chest, his hand stroking her hair.

Outside, the sun was setting, autumn light slanting through the windows, painting everything in shades of gold and amber. Soon it would be winter. Snow and cold and the quiet hibernation of a city settling into the darker months.

But here, in this room, everything felt warm. Safe. Right.

“When’s the book coming out?” Dax asked eventually.

“Spring. Manny’s pushing for April. He wants to time it with the sentencing.” Quinn had finished the manuscript two weeksago, working frantically to capture everything while it was still fresh. “The Timesfeature runs next month. Casey Flores did an incredible job with it.”

“I read the draft you showed me. It’s powerful, Quinn. Really powerful.”

“It’s the truth. That’s all I wanted. For people to know the truth about what Wheeler did. About what my father tried to stop.” Quinn’s voice caught slightly. “About what you and Clara and everyone else sacrificed to bring him down.”

“Your father would be so proud of you.”

“I hope so.” Quinn thought about the video she’d watched dozens of times now—her father’s face on the screen, his voice strong and clear, telling her to be brave, to be smart, to be safe. “I think about him every day. About what he’d think of all this. Of us.”

“He’d like me,” Dax said with mock confidence.

“He’d think you were overprotective and occasionally insufferable.”

“But lovable.”

“Very lovable.” Quinn smiled against his chest. “And he’d trust you to keep me safe. Which is saying something, because Dad didn’t trust easily.”

They fell quiet again, but it was a peaceful silence. The comfortable quiet of two people who didn’t need to fill every moment with words.

Quinn felt herself drifting, exhaustion from the trial and the emotional rollercoaster of the verdict finally catching up with her.

“Stay with me,” she murmured, already half-asleep.

“Always,” Dax promised, his hand still stroking her hair. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Quinn believed him.

For the first time in eleven years—since the day she’d lost her father—Quinn Barrett felt safe. Felt whole. Felt like she’d finally found her way home.

Not to a place. But to a person.

To Dax Mercer. Her partner. Her equal. Her stubborn, overprotective, beautiful disaster of a man who’d almost died saving her and would probably do it again in a heartbeat.

And tomorrow, they’d face whatever came next. The sentencing. The media coverage. The next steps in their careers and their relationship.

But tonight, they could just be.

Together.

Safe.

Home.

Quinn’s eyes drifted closed, Dax’s heartbeat steady beneath her ear, and for the first time in as long as she could remember, she slept without nightmares.