Close Cover (Masters and Mercenaries #16)(48)

Maybe the last few days hadn’t meant the same to him. Still, she could come up with one plan. “All right. I’ll go to Louisiana with you.”

His head came up. “What?”

It made sense. “You don’t feel like you can leave here until I’m safe. I might not be safe for a long time. I don’t know what will make you feel like I’m safe. I can only imagine it would be putting Vallon and his cronies behind bars. That could take a long time. You can’t take over your family business from here, and it sounds like someone needs to. Hell, I can even help you with it if you need someone to make sure the books are in order. And who would come looking for me in Louisiana? Therefore the logical solution to our problem is that I go with you to Louisiana.”

She said it all reasonable like, but inside her heart was pounding because damn but it solved the problem she had with him leaving her behind. It solved the problem of her broken heart.

The look on his face told her that wasn’t a solution at all and that her heart was definitely getting broken, and sooner than she’d expected. A look of horror came over his face and he pushed off the bar. “Absolutely not.”

She stared at him for a moment because there were no words. Only a few days before he’d tied her up and let her fly, his careful hands on her, telling her all the while how he wanted to stay with her. That night had made her think maybe he was too scared to ask her to come with him. She was dispossessed of that notion now. It had been stupid to think Remy would be scared. He was a man who knew what he wanted.

“I’m not taking you with me,” he said carefully.

Well, she had that answer at least. Wow, that hurt. She’d even known what he was likely to say and it still felt like someone had kicked her in the gut. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him. “Okay. Look, I’ve got to close up. It could still be an hour or two. Someone can give me a ride home. You don’t have to sit here wasting time.”

“Linc? You going to ask him to give you a ride home? Is he the reason you suddenly want me to go home so badly? You want to see if it can be good with your old training partner?”

“That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair, chèrie. That’s what I’m trying to explain to you.”

“I asked you to take me with you,” she shot back. “So I don’t get the jealousy thing. Look, I’m not having this argument with you here. I made my play. It didn’t work. I think this is more serious for me than it is for you.”

He stood in the middle of the bar, his hands on his hips. “I didn’t lie to you. I didn’t tell you I would take you with me.”

God, she needed to get out of here. She didn’t want to be the chick who cried her eyes out her first week in. It looked like she would need this job quite badly. “No, you didn’t, and that’s good. It’s my fault. I got in too deep, but it’s time to stop. You said you didn’t want to hurt me. We’re getting to the point that it’s going to hurt me and quite badly. So let’s try to end this as friends. That’s what we promised, right?”

A long huff came from his sensual mouth. “We don’t have to end anything at all right now. I think that’s what I’ve told you all damn night. I’m not going anywhere.”

Why was he being obtuse? “I’m in love with you. Can you say the same?”

He was perfectly silent, but she watched his skin flush, saw how tight his body had gone.

There was her answer. She took off her apron. “Go home, Remy, and I’ll do the same. I wrecked it. We had a good thing going for a week. I know that. Blame me. But we end here because I can’t keep you. You’ll end up hating me if you stay, so go and be happy.”

He would find someone. Hell, maybe there was already a woman in Louisiana. Maybe that was one of the reasons he was desperate to go home. An old flame he’d never gotten over? It didn’t matter. All that mattered was he didn’t love her. She wasn’t his one.

“Lisa, we’re not done talking about this and I’m not going anywhere,” he swore.

She shook her head. “I have to start closing.”

She hurried through the small hallway that led to the back of the building. To her left there was another hall and the men’s and women’s rooms. Past that was the kitchen where the cooks would be cleaning their stations and getting ready to close down for another night. She walked straight ahead to where the offices were. Sean Taggart had the largest of the three, but Linc and Sebastian shared one. It was where they typed in inventory reports and ordered product and met with vendors.

It was a nice office. Maybe she needed to change her dreams. She’d thought of conquering the business world, but she felt happier in a place like this.

It might be the one blessing to come out of this whole debacle.

Lisa took a deep breath and hoped she didn’t look like a woman who’d just had her heart plucked from her body and casually tossed away.

She couldn’t get into Remy’s truck. She couldn’t slide in beside him and pretend like they were normal, like she didn’t know what she knew. She wasn’t sure why he was holding the line about not leaving until she was safe, but he could be stubborn. It would be ridiculous for him to put his life on hold for a woman he didn’t love.

“Linc, I…” She started to ask him for a ride home as she opened the door and then stopped because Linc was on the floor, his big body at an odd angle and…oh god…that was blood. He was bleeding. He was on the floor and bleeding.