James, the security guard and driver, squeaked the leather seat as he turned. “Fast food?” His voice was tentative as he spoke, unsure how to help in a situation where I wasn’t in danger, just frustrated.

Knuckles rapped on his window before I could agree to be swept off my feet by a good order of French fries.

Oh no. James rolled down the window enough for me to see who was outside.

“May I speak with Miss Montgomery a moment?”

I shook my head at James.

“The lady said no,” he translated.

He sighed. “Let me in the car, Blondie. We need to chat.”

I leaned back in my seat to cross my arms. “Stop calling me Blondie, and no we don’t.”

“We work together,” he argued.

For the umpteenth time around him, I rolled my eyes, over his antics. “No, we don’t.”

“Well, sure, not as a couple—at least not at the moment. Professionally? Yeah, we do babe.” I didn’t even have to look at him to see his aloof expression with that cocky grin on his face.

Maybe I could start punching men in the face like he did. Could be cathartic.

I turned my head back and firmed my gaze at him through the window. “No.”

“No? Should I go back and tell my grandfather that-“

“James,” I sighed.

He understood and clicked the unlock button on his door. Brent wasted no breaths climbing into the back with me.

The space was too small as he slid in next to me. “Aren’t you staying for cocktail hour?”

“No.”

He smiled and his voice reflected it. “How many times are you going to tell me no, Blondie?”

I smacked his hand away before he could twirl my hair around in his fingers as he did when he toyed with me. “However many I want. Why? You gonna clean me about it?”

Understanding flickered in his face, eyebrows doing their thinking thing before he rubbed the back of his head. “I told you things are complicated.”

“Complicated? Killing people is that complicated?” I scoffed, shifting my body further away from him. “Just fuck off. I am in no mood for you right now.”

What was I in the mood for? A redo on life? My mom to come back from the grave? A burger? A moment of fucking silence, maybe?

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath in through my nose, releasing it out of my mouth. A calming technique my mother used.

It helps release the stress, she said.

He moved to face me, eyes searching my face for something. His expression was far too soft for my comfort. “Blondie,” he breathed, “look at me, please.”

No. I kept my eyes firmly set out of the window, looking at a neatly kept garden bed full of multicolored flowers getting ready to die for the winter. They looked how I felt—droopy and sad.