“Wow.” Clay stared up at the house, his eyes wide. “This is…impressive.”

I chuckled and tugged on his shirtsleeve. “Come on. You keep ogling their house, and they’re going to think you’re a freak.”

He grinned at me and reached for my hand. I let him take it because the front door was opening, and I didn’t want him getting embarrassed if I pulled away. Besides, it was just holding my hand. It didn’t have to mean anything.

Except the way he’d looked at me when he’d picked me up today told me that things were shifting between us, and I had a bad feeling that Jenna’s comments regarding this relationship were going to be an issue now.

I didn’t want to bring it up now though. We’d have a nice dinner, and I’d see where things went from there. If we had to have the talk, we’d have the talk then.

“Rona, it’s nice to finally meet you.”

Shit. Jenna’s husband was hot.

I shook his hand, trying not to stare at him as I tried to figure out exactly what shade of blue-violet his eyes were. Then I realized that I was gaping at my friend’s husband and flushed, turning to Jenna as Rylan introduced himself to Clay.

She grinned at me, her eyes laughing. Apparently, she knew the sort of effect he had on women. The moment he turned back to her, I knew why she didn’t care about my unintentional ogling. He looked at her like she was the only person in the world. Like she was his world.

“Dad!” A little, dark-haired girl with big, shining eyes barreled down the stairs as we passed.

Rylan bent and picked her up. “Hey, Dee.” He kissed her forehead. “Aren’t you supposed to be upstairs taking a bath?”

She stuck out her bottom lip. “But I want to be down here with you and Mom.”

“How about you go do what you’re supposed to do, and I’ll come up in a bit and read you a story?”

Her face lit up. “Okay.”

“Now, say goodnight to everyone.”

She looked at me, and then at Clay, tucking her face closer to Rylan’s chest, suddenly shy. “Goodnight.”

Clay and I smiled at her, and Rylan passed the little girl off to Jenna who gave her a hug and kiss. It wasn’t until Diana turned to race back upstairs that I caught a glimpse of several round scars on her neck. I didn’t have to be a doctor to know what those were.

Cigarette burns.

I felt sick. A glance toward Jenna had my eyes locking with hers. She gave me a short nod, her eyes burning with anger. Our interaction didn’t last long, and when I turned my attention back to the guys, neither of them seemed to have noticed the exchange.

“Is Jeremiah feeling better?” I asked.

“Miraculous recovery,” Rylan said wryly. “One day, he’s so sick that he can’t possibly go to school, but after spending an entire day in bed, eating nothing but crackers and soup, he’s up and ready to go the next morning.”

“Is Jeremiah your son?” Clay asked.

“He is,” Jenna said. “Ten going on thirty.”

“Thirty’s old,” Jeremiah said matter-of-factly as we entered the kitchen. “Can I be twenty-five instead?”

“Thirty’s old?” Rylan asked. “Come on, kid, cut me some slack.”

He shook his head and grinned. “Never.”

Jenna ruffled his hair. “Thanks for cleaning up after you and Diana finished dinner.”

Jeremiah ducked away from her hand, but he was still smiling. “You said I could play my new game if I did.”

“Did you finish your homework?” Rylan asked.

“Yep,” Jeremiah said proudly. “And I didn’t need any help with it either.”

“It’s okay to ask for help if you need it,” Jenna said, her smile softening. “But that’s great that you understood everything.”

“Does that mean I can go?”

“Two hours,” Rylan said. “Then it’s shower and bed.”

He nodded and hurried away, not wanting to waste a single moment of his game playing time.

“We brought some wine.” I held out the bottle. “I wasn’t sure what kind, so I just grabbed one and crossed my fingers.”

“I’ll get some glasses,” Jenna said as Rylan took the bottle. “I wasn’t sure if either of you had any food restrictions, so I went with variety. Salad, fruit salad, wedding soup, vegetarian lasagna, and baked chicken.”

My jaw sagged. “That’s a lot of food.”

Rylan stopped next to her and put his hand on the small of her back before bending down to kiss the top of her head. “I told her we’d be eating leftovers for the next week, but she wanted to make sure we had something for everyone.”

“We appreciate that,” Clay said as he stepped up next to me, sliding his hand around my waist.

Shit. Touching me like we were a couple was bad enough but answering for both of us was what told me that I wouldn’t be able to put off the discussion past tonight. Dinner, home, then talking.

I took a step forward, then reached for the salad bowl, like that was the entire reason I’d moved away from Clay. If I kept a little distance between us, things would be fine.

“I understand you work for the FBI,” Jenna said as she poured us each a glass of wine.

“I’m a profiler, yes,” Clay said as he accepted one of the glasses. “I used to be a guest lecturer at Quantico, but I recently decided I was ready for a change.”

“Does that mean you lived in Virginia then?” Rylan asked. “How’d you end up in Fort Collins?”

“I’m actually in Denver,” Clay explained.

Rylan’s eyes slid from Clay to me and back again, but he didn’t say anything else.

“Rona mentioned that you’re paired with Raymond Matthews,” Jenna said.

I raised an eyebrow. That seemed like an odd thing to have taken from our conversation yesterday.

“I am,” Clay said, his expression curious. “Do you know him?”

“I do.” Jenna glanced at me, a bit of color coming to her cheeks. “He and I have done some…work together. You’ll probably hear my name from him at some point.”

She’d done work with the FBI? It took me a moment, but then what I knew about Agent Matthews connected with what I knew about Jenna and the pieces fell into place. She helped him with his child pornography and human trafficking cases. Probably as a freelancer, or an off-the-books hacker.

For a moment, I wondered why she hadn’t asked him to track down her siblings, but then remembered what I realized myself when I’d gone into Child Services. He was bound by a different set of rules than I was. At some point, we might need some help from someone with some power, but it was better to have me doing the work right now.

“How is Agent Matthews doing?” Rylan asked.

As Clay answered their questions, I helped set the table and hoped that he would come to the same conclusion as me. Otherwise, I was in for a very unpleasant night.

“I like them,” Clay said as we drove back to my apartment. “When I first saw that house, I wondered what in the world we were going to talk about, but they’re really down to earth for people who have an insane amount of money.”

“Probably because they weren’t born to it,” I said absently as I stared out the window. “Rylan made his own fortune as a software designer. Jenna wasn’t rich before they got married, but she did have her own tech company.”

“And now she works with the FBI as a consultant,” he said, shaking his head. “Only you would find a way to work around being kicked out of the agency.”

“I wasn’t looking for a workaround,” I said honestly. “I had no idea she had any connection beyond what had happened to her.”

“What happened to her?”

I finally looked at him, surprised. “How could you have been in the FBI five years ago and not heard about Jenna Lang, especially with Agent Matthews as your partner?”

He frowned for a moment, then his eyes widened. “Shit. That was her?” He glanced at me. “You’re not getting mixed up in all that, are you? That’s not what she hired you to do?”

I shook my head. “I can’t tell you what the case is, but I can tell you that it’s not anything dangerous.”

I didn’t add that if Jenna ever asked me to help, I would. That wasn’t his concern.

Which he would soon find out, because we were pulling up behind my building, and it was time to have the talk. When we got inside, he reached for me, and I took a step back. The surprise on his face confirmed that he and I weren’t on the same page. The hurt said that I probably should’ve done this when I’d seen him in front of my door the first time.

“Rona?”

I sighed and sat down on the edge of the couch. “Sit, Clay. Please.”

He did, but far enough from me that we wouldn’t touch.

“We’ve had fun,” I began, “but I told you when we first started this, I wasn’t looking for a relationship. You said you weren’t either.”

“I wasn’t,” he said quietly. “But what we have is good, Rona.”

Shit. I really didn’t want to do this, but I had to. No matter how much I liked him as a friend and enjoyed sex with him, I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. With anyone, actually. Maybe, one day, I’d change my mind, but I’d yet to find a man who made me want to consider it.

“It was,” I agreed, “but we’ve gone back to having our own separate lives. You’re in Denver, working a job that will probably have you spending long hours who knows where. I’m here, with my life. I don’t want to lose your friendship, but if we try to keep what we have, where we are now, I think that’s what’s going to happen.”

He wanted to argue, to try to talk me out of it. I could see it on his face.

“Please, Clay,” I said. “It’s for the best.”

Finally, he nodded. “All right. Friends.”

Relief flooded me. “Friends.”