It’s a pile-on at work on Tuesday and Hadley is in rare form, so I’m stuck at the office well past six o’clock. Finally, when my eyes are burning from staring at the computer screen for so long, I give up. It’s painful to write a summary email for Hadley.

Jett isn’t waiting up against the car when I get down to the sidewalk. He’s sitting inside it. Stuart is the one who comes around and opens the door for me. I give him a little smile and a thank you, then slide in beside Jett.

He’s staring deeply into his phone.

“Hey.”

He blinks up at me, but his face takes several seconds to light up. “Hi.” Jett leans in and kisses me, but it’s the closest thing to a peck on the cheek we’ve ever exchanged.

Stuart pulls the car away from the curb, and Jett looks back down at his phone, absently patting my nyloned thigh with one of his strong hands. I put one of mine over it.

We ride two blocks in silence before I can’t stand it any longer.

“Tough day at the office?”

He shakes his head like he’s trying to break himself out of his train of thought. “Not especially. We held a press conference today to put all that shit with LoveLink behind us.”

“It didn’t go well?”

“It went fine. Connor was the life of the party.”

Connor is his CFO and a close friend. I looked up his picture online after Jett told me about him. To say “sexy All-American” would be the understatement of all-time.

“That’s good.”

“Yes.”

Another silence. Jett looks out the window.

I try telling him a joke. “Did I keep you up too late last night?”

He attempts a half-smile while his eyes flicker back to me, then away. “Those three o’clock shenanigans disturbed my beauty sleep.”

I intertwine my fingers with his and catch his eye. “I’m really sorry about that, Jett. I was trying my hardest not to wake you up. There was nothing you could do.”

When he answers, his voice has an edge to it. “I could have had Stuart drive you. I could have driven you myself.”

“I was safe.”

Lie. Charlie’s fingers around my upper arm left a faint bruise that thankfully escaped Jett’s notice.

Jett sighs heavily. “You’re a grown woman. I’m on edge because my accountant called today.”

I look at him with eyebrows raised. “Connor?”

“No, my personal accountant—a man named Jackson Cook. One of his people saw something strange going on with several of my personal accounts.”

My stomach churns like it’s filled to the brim with acid. It’s all I can do not to give myself away. “Strange how?”

Jett shakes his head. “Small transactions, and lots of them, going from account to account. At first he thought it might be an automated investment program we set up last year, or that it might have been me making changes to the accounts without notifying him.”

“That’s not the case?”

“No.” He takes a deep breath. “It could be something going haywire with the automated investments, but Cook didn’t seem to think so.” Then he smiles at me, his teeth brilliantly white but his eyes still distracted. “No need to spend the evening worrying about it. They’re investigating right now. I’m assuming they’ll be back with me in a couple of days at the latest.”

“That’ll be a relief.”

Jett wraps his arm around my shoulder. “In the meantime, I might need a distraction.”

I nuzzle into him. “I can help with that.”

He lifts my chin with one of his fingers and kisses me, this time deeper and softer. “Do you think it’s odd?”

“The stuff with your accounts? That can’t be normal.”

“No,” he says, wrinkling his brow. “The fact that a month ago we didn’t know each other at all.”

I force a satisfied smile onto my face, but my heart is thudding so hard that it feels like it might fly out of my chest and onto the floor of the Town Car. Blood rushes in my ears. It takes two full breaths until I can answer.

“It’s hard to imagine life without you.”

The moment the words are out of my mouth, I wish I could shove them back in. That’s way too heavy a statement for right now, especially when we’re on the verge of....

Oh, God. What am I going to do?

I turn toward Jett, preparing to play it off like I was teasing, joking, but it’s the truth...and then Jett throws me a life preserver.

“I feel the same way.”

He says the words, but there’s something reserved in his expression. He’s trying hard to move past whatever is in his head, but either he doesn’t want to or he’s failing.

“Good,” I say softly, kissing his smooth cheek.

“Three weeks ago,” he says, almost under his breath, and I shudder involuntarily.

Jett could find out what I’ve done before I have a chance to tell him, and that would be the worst-case scenario.

I open my mouth to tell him. I don’t know what I’m going to say. There’s no way to make this seem less bad than it is. Do I start by telling him that I’ve fallen for him, hard? Do I start by telling him about how the guilt keeps me awake at night? That I’m doing all of this because I’m afraid my brother—and now my mom—might get hurt?

I know where they are, and you know what I’ll do.

I close my mouth again.

I know I’m being a coward. I know it.

I take a breath.

Say it, Angelica.

“Something on your mind?” Jett says.

Elsie, where your mother lives. Your brother’s visiting her right now.

I want to tell him so badly that it hurts.

I want him to think the best of me so badly that I can’t.

I want my mother and my brother to be safe....

“No,” I say, resting my head on his shoulder. “It was a long day.”

And every time I lie to you, it gets worse.