Oh wow what was even happening in my chest right now. I breathed through my nose until I found words. Patrice Denis was going to ruin me. “I didn’t know you had such a possessive side, Professor Denis.”

He dipped his chin, and his expression turned just a tiny bit bashful, but he answered with a flustered laugh. “I didn’t either.”

I couldn’t help the smug smile that was probably pasted on my face. “Brad and I go way back. His parents were a power couple at Cornell, and my parents loved to have the local academia luminaries at their dinner parties.”

Patrice twisted his mouth to the side at that. “I don’t like the way he talked to you.”

I lifted a shoulder, aware of what he meant, the dismissive way in which Brad had talked about my job. “For my parents, and some of their friends, my entire career choice is mystifying.” I made air quotes as I said the next part. “Apparently, spending five years working on some of the toughest cases in the region is my cute way of getting people to ‘take me seriously.’ Even my mom, who at least tries to be supportive, just can’t see why I would do this instead of work for the winery.”

His face became thunderous then. “Well that’s just bullshit. Don’t they read the news and see the cases you’re dealing with?”

He shook his head and there was a fluttering happening in my chest that I’d never particularly felt before. “That shit’s not happening again on my watch.” He looked so serious, and he sat there with his mouth closed, running his tongue over his teeth, as he came up with whatever he wanted to say. But after a few breaths he relaxed his shoulders and let go of my hand to grab a drink of his beer.

He’d said his piece.

Something I was learning about Patrice was that he never said more than he had to, but whatever did come out his mouth was good as gold.

What he said, how incensed he was on my behalf, it made me want things that I knew very well I should not ask for. But I was still me. “Are you going to be my defender?” I was trying for humor, but even I could hear the yearning in my voice.

Patrice’s eyes took me in. Inch by inch, they moved over me with such intensity that I could swear my clothes were at risk of igniting. “I’m going to tell you what I see, if other people in your life can’t or won’t.”

There was danger for me here, I knew that. This was not territory I could tread into without serious risk of injury, but I never was one to heed trouble. “And what exactly do you see?”