“And what if I don’t give in to you, James? What if I can’t give in to you? What then?”

“Harper, I’m here no matter what. You don’t have to trust me, but everything I do is for us. You got it? Remember what I said. If I ask you to walk through fire?”

“I’m fireproof,” she says back in a sad voice.

“If I ask you to take a bullet?”

“I’m bulletproof.”

“And if I walk away?” Her eyes are gathering tears but both my thumbs swipe the corners of her eyes before they fall down her cheeks. “What happens if I walk away, Harper?”

She swallows hard and shakes her head no.

“I’ll come back for you, Harp. If I walk away, it’s because I’ll come back for you.”

The tears stream out now and there’s nothing I can do to catch them. “I don’t want you to walk away.”

I lean into her ear and whisper, “I never said I was going to, you crazy woman. It’s a just-in-case scenario.”

She sniffs. “You won’t walk away.”

I shake my head. “I’d have to be torn away, Harp.” I smile at her. “They’d have to tear me away.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.” This eases her fears and I feel her relax in my embrace. “We’re like ten minutes from my house, wanna go check it out?”

“I do!” Sasha says. But I shush her with another finger to my lips.

I close Harper’s door and walk back around to my side, catching a suspicious look from Sasha as I pass her window. Great, I get one on board and the other is immediately suspicious. It’s like these girls are opposite forces, able to see through me, but only one at a time.

“You’re not walking away from me, are you, James?” Sasha asks with a desperate edge to her voice.

I slide my sunglasses down and glance in the rear view. “Never, Smurf. I need you more than you can ever imagine.” And then I shoot her with my finger in the mirror and she smiles.

Chapter Thirty-Two - Harper

I don’t believe him. I do not believe one word he says.

I’m not fireproof.

I’m not bulletproof.

And if he walks away, I will die.

Die.

That will be the end for me, because nothing feels right. My stomach is in knots. My mind is racing with all kinds of scenarios. My body is shaking with fear. If they have those files, then what? What happens to me? And if they don’t, what am I supposed to do? Nothing about this makes any sense. Where is Nick? He said he’d come back for me, just like James. But our year is just about up. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live like this. And the farther we go up PCH, the sicker I feel. My stomach is all over the place. One minute I just want to hurl everything, the next I’m desperate to keep it all inside.

The pier comes into view on the left and Sasha squeals with delight. She’s so happy. But I’m not. I groan and put a hand on my stomach. “James, please, just turn around.”

But he can’t even hear me over the wind and Sasha. Besides, he’s not listening. We pass the pier and turn up Fifth Street towards my house. The little Mexican restaurant is busy because it’s lunchtime now. He slows down and turns left onto Walnut, then makes the first right into the alley.

My alley. I grab him by his upper arm. “I don’t want to go to my house, James!”

He ignores me, just parks the car in front of my garage, then gets out.

But he’s not going to my house. He walks up to the garage across the alley, flips open a control pad, and keys in a code. The garage door opens as he gets back into the Hummer. “I live right here.” He smiles down at me and I feel my worries lift for a moment.

“You lived across the alley from me that whole time?”

He pulls into the garage and cuts the engine. “All the better to stalk you, my dear.”

“Ha,” Sasha says from the back seat. “James, you really are the big bad wolf. He was gonna tell Merc wolves ate me out on the prairie if I didn’t behave, Harper. You better watch out.”

“All right, enough,” James says as he opens his door. “Let’s go inside and I’ll give you the tour before I head out.”

Ohhhh. My stomach does another flip and I have to swallow down the puke. I reluctantly get out and follow them over to the key pad by the inside door. James presses in the code and the garage door closes as the condo door opens. Inside there are steps leading up to a second floor. Sasha and I follow him up to a bright and open living area.

“You can see the ocean,” Sasha says.

He does have a very nice view. One block away, but looking down Sixth Street. When I follow them out onto the balcony, I realize you can even see sand from here. “That’s quite a view the Company pays for.”

I don’t know why I say it. To be a bitch. To hide my insecurities. To make him feel guilty for being here on their dime. Or maybe all of the above.

What’s he doing with me anyway? I get that he wants me to trust him, but why should I? He has never denied that this is a job. He has denied certain very specific things about why he’s here. It’s not to kill me. It’s not to kill Nick. But beyond that, he’s been very evasive.

“You should see the third floor,” James quips back as he takes my hand and leads me over to some stairs on the other side of the living room.

“I wanna see the third floor!” Sasha says excitedly.

“Stay here, Smurf,” James growls.

I know what he’s doing, but I follow him upstairs anyway. He takes me past a bedroom and an office, until we get to the end of the hallway, and then he opens the double doors that lead to the master and waves me in.

The doors close behind me and then his hands are on my hips. Lifting my shirt and caressing my br**sts before I can even begin to protest.

I want to protest.

That’s a lie.

I want to f**k him. I want to suck him off so hard he forgets all about these files and stays in bed with me for the rest of the day. But that’s not gonna happen, so the best I can hope for is an hour of dirty pleasure.

I drop to my knees and begin unbuttoning his pants, but his hand grips my upper arm.

“No, Harper. That’s not why I brought you up here.”

“What?” He pulls me to my feet. My face is hot with embarrassment. “What’s wrong?”