It was the first blatant lie I’d told Alex, and just having the words come out of my mouth made my stomach constrict violently. After everything he tried to do to help me so far, I still lied to him. Like it didn’t matter to me.

But it did. No one had ever been as determined to help me as he was, and no one had ever gone to such lengths to try to make me feel more comfortable. I was a guest in his house, for God sake, and wearing his sweatshirt. He’d slept in a goddamn chair beside my hospital bed, purely because there was no one else that would.

And I lied to him. For no other reason than because I couldn’t bear to see the disgust on his face once he found out the truth.

If he knew who I was, and what I’d done, Officer Alex Brett wouldn’t be making doctor jokes with me and taking me out to the skating rink. He’d have me hauled down to the station in a heartbeat, and this whole comfortable escape from reality would be over.

Which is exactly why I made a beeline for the changeroom, unable to look the man in his hazel eyes. I plunked down on the bench inside the door where I’d left my boots, thankful the room was still empty.

“Hailey?” Alex was on my heels. He moved faster in skates than I’d ever be able to.

“I’m just going to put my boots back on. You can keep skating if you want.”

He lowered himself down beside me. “What I want is to know if you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. I just don’t like talking about my family much.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” he noted wryly, then must have thought better of what he’d said, adding, “I feel like I’m doing and saying the wrong things here.”

“That’s just it, though,” I blurted out, letting my shoulders sag. “You’re not. You’re doing and saying all the right things, and it’s making me nervous. And I’m telling you things that I have no business telling you, and you’re—”

“Am I still an asshole?”

No, you’re a cop. I stared at him, my jaw slack. “What? No. I didn’t mean that.”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it.” Alex leaned ahead, pressing his lips to mine without trepidation.

A squeak of surprise emitted from somewhere in my throat, but the warm softness of his lips and the gentleness with which he kissed me melted any residual chill that might have seeped into my bones. I raised my hand, though to push him away or cup his face, I wasn’t sure. Either way, I didn’t get the chance, as Alex’s hand found mine in mid air and entwined his fingers with mine, squeezing lightly.

He pulled away, lingering near me, nose to nose. “Just in case there was any doubt about it in your mind.”

I stared at him, incredulous, taking in the flecks of green in his eyes and the stubble of darkened facial hair that had begun to shadow his jaw. I didn’t even bother trying to speak. I couldn’t form a coherent sentence.

“Are you okay?” he whispered against my skin. “You’re shivering.”

As far as I was concerned, it was five hundred degrees in the room and molten lava was about to seep from my pores. “I think there’s a difference between shivering…and trembling,” I admitted in a wavering, weak voice.

His amused chuckle met my ears as he pulled off his skates and changed into his boots. “It was my way of apologizing for asking the wrong questions—the hard ones.”

“Jesus, I’d hate to know what you’d do if you asked the right ones.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t hate it, I can promise you that much.”

His cocky grin was just begging me to come up with some kind of suggestive retort, but a loud string of beeps rang out before I had the chance, and Alex pulled away, tugging his phone from the holster on his belt.

“Damn it, it’s Trent. I’d better take this. I’ll be right outside the door.” He patted my knee and rose to his feet, disappearing out the door.

Oh my God. This was spiraling out of control faster than I could comprehend. One minute, the worst thing I could think of was that I’d lied to him. Then, in the next breath—if I could call it that seeing as I hadn’t even got a breath in before Alex’s lips found mine—he’d kissed me…

And I’d let him. Because I wanted him to.

I wanted to feel the soft caress of his mouth on mine, and I wanted to lose myself in the eruption of fiery warmth that engulfed me with his touch.

Mindless entertainment. Except, this wasn’t mindless at all. Alex and his tempting appeal were a definite distraction from my plight against Creighton Banks, but it was just a matter of trading one kind of mental warfare for another.

However, quite clearly, my mind and body were more captivated by Alex at the moment, and it took two attempts at fumbling with the skate laces before I was able to pull them off. My feet ached, having been shoved into the ill-fitting skates, and it was a relief to flex my toes and put on my boots again. I kept Alex’s hat on, not wanting to aggravate my wound by pulling the fabric across it again. It wasn’t hurting much, and I wanted to keep it that way.

I was just standing up, trying to decide where to put the borrowed skates, when Alex stormed back through the doorway. The question was on the tip of my tongue, but one look at his stony expression and clenched jaw, and I closed my mouth again.

“Let’s go.”

Heat emanated from him, but it wasn’t the seductive warmth of intimacy he’d harbored only minutes before. Now, the fiery heat of anger simmered in his eyes, and I wasn’t sure how to react, my brain still sluggish from the effects of his kiss. I held up the skates. “I don’t know where—”

“Leave them, Hailey. Let’s go.” He jerked the skates from my hands, startling me.

“What’s gotten—”

He leaned forward, sending a brief glance toward the doorway before setting his steely glare on me. “I’m not going to say it again.”

I felt like a child being ushered out of the arena, and felt Alex’s hard gaze on my back as he stayed close to me the entire way to the SUV. I didn’t try to question him again; it was futile. He was irate, and this wasn’t the place to hash out his reasons.

Was it anger, though? I glanced back a few times as we crossed the parking lot, and his gaze flitted cautiously among the cars and shrubs around us. He was on guard, watching for something, and I wondered if maybe the emotion was fear that he wore, misinterpreted because I hadn’t seen him scared of anything before.

Then, his eyes met mine again, and his cold stare spoke volumes.

No, he was definitely angry, and that anger was directed at me.

Shit. What does he know?

Alex opened the car door for me, and I got in. He slammed it hard, unnecessarily, and climbed into the driver’s side.

Silence blanketed the vehicle’s interior. Seatbelt on, Alex gripped the steering wheel with both hands, his chest rising and falling heavily with each breath, his gaze set straight ahead. It unnerved me to see him seething, the rage unfurling within him like its own live entity.

“Tell me.”

I turned to him. Even in the darkened interior of the SUV, with the only lights being the security lights strewn about the parking lot, the look he wore made me swallow hard. “I don’t know what—”

“Don’t.” That one word, combined with the menacing stare he fixed on me, froze the blood in my veins. “Whatever you say next to me, Hailey, it better be the truth.” He took a deep breath, his eyes never once deviating from mine, and let it out. “Now, tell me.”

My heart was pounding, my pulse reverberating violently in my ears, loud enough that his demand sounded distant. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Things had been good for a brief, fleeting moment, and suddenly everything was crashing down around me.

You knew better. You knew he was a cop, and yet you still—

“Hailey!”

“Damn it, Alex, just tell me what you know!” My head matched the pounding of my heart, throbbing as I screamed at him.

My request received a hollow scoff, and he shook his head. “Why, so you can pick and choose what you tell me from there? Fine.” He banged the steering wheel. “Trent put a rush on the DNA from your attacker. It came back belonging to a Mr. Jackson Ellis. Sound familiar?”

“No, should it?” I snapped. “I already told you I didn’t know him.”

Alex didn’t respond to that. “The guy’s got a track record a mile fucking long, Hailey. If ever there was a definition of a criminal, this guy’s it.”

“Okay? I think we could’ve established that when he tried to kill me.” I tried to sound testy and solid—God, I wanted to sound just as angry as he was—but I knew what was coming next. I could only pretend for so long that he wouldn’t find out. This man lived and breathed justice; it was his profession, and his moral code. Everything was about to implode, and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it.

“He’s got a direct affiliation with another criminal,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “He’s a known employee for a man named Creighton Banks. Does he sound familiar?”

“Perhaps.” Tears stung my eyes. “Damn it, yes, it does.”

“Hailey…” Alex leaned back in the driver’s seat, pinching the bridge of his nose as his eyes squeezed shut. My name on his lips sounded almost sympathetic, but that was quickly doused. “Christ, what the fuck have you done?”

The question tore at the tattered remnants of my resolve, igniting a new wave of fury within me. “I survived, that’s what I’ve done.”

“Survived?” Alex spat out. “No one fucking survives when they work for a fucking drug dealer like Creighton Banks! What were you thinking?”

My eyes widened, but his question was obviously rhetorical, as he continued on, pressing his palms into his eyes. “I’ve worried about you, felt sorry for you, and done everything I can to protect you, and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me you worked for a fucking drug lord? I wanted to help you! But here you are, sitting here in my vehicle, letting me think you’re the victim, when the truth is you fucking did it to yourself!”

I slapped him, hard, without thinking. Alex caught my wrist, his eyes burning like molten embers, and he held me there as tears began to streak down my cheeks.

“You son of a bitch!” I screamed, choked with the weight of his outburst.

The fire in his eyes had dissipated almost as quickly as it had come, leaving only a distant desolation in its wake. “I fucking wanted you,” Alex admitted, as though it broke him to confess such a thing.

I cried openly, lowering my head as the hot tears splashed onto the leather console. There were so many insults and harsh words I wanted to hurtle at him, but they were lost somewhere amidst the pain that engulfed me. My wrist was still clutched tightly in his hand, and I pulled back, but he only tightened his grip.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t read you your goddamn rights right now and haul you into the precinct.”

I snapped my head up to stare at him through blurry eyes. The hat had slid down slightly, and I could barely see him beyond the edge of it. But, that was fine. I didn’t want to see him. “Because I don’t work for him, asshole.” I could barely choke the words out above a whisper, but Alex heard me through the grief and hurt that thickened my throat. “He’s my father.”

And with that, Alex let go of my wrist as though I’d scalded him. I shook myself free, and threw the door of the SUV open wide, running from him. It didn’t matter where. Not anymore.