“I didn’t call,” I whispered, my heart, already beating fast, started to pound.

“Three months,” he declared but said no more.

I stared into his glittering, silver eyes.

Then I lost my ever lovin’ mind.

“Are you nuts? ” I shrieked.

“Tess –”

“Fuck you!” I shouted and pushed at him with my pastry bag filled hands, a thin stream of pale yellow icing shot out onto the floor beside us as well as on his Charlie Daniels tee and then I found the bag not in my hands and watched him twist his torso and toss it on the island next to the cake and twist back to me. That was when I put my hands on the hard wall of his chest, shoved and repeated on a shout, “Fuck you!”

He rocked back a couple of inches then moved right back in, his face got into my face and he growled, “Fuckin’ listen to me.”

“No!” I yelled. “No way. No f**king way. You used me.”

“It’s my job,” he ground out.

“Do you think I give a shit?” I asked.

“Maybe if you’d calm the f**k down and listen for a goddamned minute you’d understand why I do think you should f**kin’ give a shit.”

“I can assure you, Brock Lucas, that nothing you can say will make me understand why I should give a shit,” I informed him.

“Your ex, Tess, that motherfucker needed to be taken down. That motherfucker is serious bad news.”

My body went completely still at his words and I held his eyes as my next words trembled.

“I know that, Brock. I know.”

And it was then I watched with rapt attention as his eyes immediately melted quicksilver and his hands moved from the counter to my head, palms at the base of my neck, fingers in my hair and his face dipped an inch away from mine.

Then he whispered a ragged, tortured, “Baby,” and that one word cut through me like a jagged knife.

Oh God.

He knew.

Of course he knew.

Of course.

Of course, of course, of course.

That thing tight in my belly uncurled, filling me up, slinking up my throat and this time it wasn’t filled with the paralyzing poison of fear or despair. It was something else.

Panic.

I tried to tear away but Brock held on, one hand still at my head, the other arm sliced around my back, he shuffled me down the counter and pressed me into the corner.

With no way to escape, I held my body tight, hands pressed against his chest and kept my eyes glued to his throat as I whispered, “Let me go and get out.”

“No one knows that shit happened to you, do they?” he asked softly.

“Let me go and get out.”

“You haven’t told any of your girls.”

Eyes firm on his throat, I demanded, “Let me go, Brock, and get out.”

“Kept that shit buried deep,” he murmured.

My eyes lifted to his and I screeched, “Let me go and get out! ”

His arm around my back tightened and his hand shifted so his fingers were still in my hair but his thumb swept over my cheekbone.

“I was the first you let in there, wasn’t I, baby?”

Oh God.

“Let me go and get out,” I whimpered.

“Tess,” he whispered.

I fell silent.

“You need to let that shit out,” he advised and my gaze slid to his earlobe. “Eyes,” he ordered and my gaze slid back.

I still didn’t speak.

He held my eyes.

Then he said softly, “I held back takin’ us there, Tess, I didn’t want us to go there until the shit with Heller was done and you were cleared and we were good to move on. But your goddamned glasses and that cute f**kin’ look you’d get on your face every time I kissed you that made you look like you just experienced a f**kin’ miracle, shit.” His hand tensed on my head. “Shit, baby, you got to me and I couldn’t hold back.” His thumb swept my cheekbone, his eyes went from warm to hot and his voice went deep when he told me something but he said it like he was talking to himself, “That look gets way f**kin’ better after you come.”

“Please let me go and get out,” I whispered.

He shook his head. “It’s the job and it’s a shit part of the job and I’ll tell you, Tess, I knew he violated you, no way I’d have played you. No way, Tess.” His voice got lower and his face got closer when he said, “You gotta believe that, babe. I wouldn’t have played you if I’d known.”

“But you did,” I said quietly.

His hand tensed on my head. “I didn’t know.”

“You still did it.” I leaned into the counter, pulling back my head. “I didn’t play you. I never played a single game with you. But you played me from start to finish.”

His hand tensed on my head again as his eyes started glittering. “That’s not true, Tess, and you f**kin’ know it.”

“You’re right, Brock. Earlier with what you said, you’re right. You’re the first person I let in there and when I did, I didn’t even know your f**king name.”

“That f**kin’ guy had to go down,” he growled.

“Yes, he did but it doesn’t warm my heart to think the first man I trusted with my time and attention after a very, very bad marriage was with me only to investigate my possible criminal relationship with my definite criminal ex-husband.”

“It started like that, yeah, it did and that lasted about a goddamned hour. You cannot stand there lookin’ in my eyes and tell me you don’t know the f**kin’ second it stopped bein’ that because, you do, you’re a goddamned liar.”

He was not wrong. I knew. I knew the exact second. I’d lain in bed at night thinking about that too.

Therefore, I didn’t respond.

He kept speaking. “I had a job to do and we wanted a clean sweep. I knew you weren’t gonna be swept up in that but I also knew they had to make certain so I had to make them certain before they hauled your ass in and you finished them off.”

“So you’re saying you did what you did to protect me?”

“No, I’m sayin’ I did my job, you weren’t dirty, no need to protect you. And I’m sayin’ for four f**kin’ months I liked my job a whole f**k of a lot.”

That took my breath away. So much so, I couldn’t speak.

Brock didn’t have the same problem. “You didn’t have my name, Tess, but all that time you had me and you know it.”

I looked back at his throat.