on, and tipped it over the sink to check for leaks.
“Look.” He turned halfway through the living room and pointed back at her with the mug. “From what I know about your history with cops, I can’t say as I blame you for not liking or trusting us much, and as much as I’d like to, unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do to change what happened. All I can do is my job and, hopefully, show you we’re not all like that. If Kurt’s stalking you—and he is, by the way—then it’s my job to keep you safe, and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”
When he stopped talking, Ellie stopped everything: moving, breathing, thinking.
“Kurt’s a punk. His record doesn’t show any history of violence, and it may be he’s just trying to scare you into going back to him. I don’t know how he thinks that’s going to work, but I have to be honest with you. In cases like these, it’s almost impossible to predict what a person will do, especially if he’s this determined to get you back. Seeing us together might be enough to send him packing, or it might push him over the edge. We don’t know.”
Ellie folded her arms over her stomach. “So you think kissing you out there last night might have provoked him?”
“I don’t know, but that’s on me.” His jaw tightened before he looked back at her. When he did, he was in full-on cop mode, storm-gray eyes and all. “You should have never been put in a position where you thought that was your only means of escape. It won’t happen again.”
Ooooh, boy, he was serious.
“This isn’t the route we’d normally take, Ellie, and it may be that we’ll have to rethink it after a while, but right now we have two things working in our favor. The first is that anyone who knows you knows you’re painfully honest, so lying to him about being in a relationship was probably the smartest thing you could have done right then to throw him off. The second thing is that we both know there is no ‘us.’ ”
He didn’t even blink when he said it.
“What happened last night, that kiss, it was nothing more than a means to an end. Hopefully it made a point but…uh…yeah…if it pissed him off and he ramps things up, we’ll nail him.”
“You sound pretty sure of that.”
“I am. But to get to that point, we need to make this look legit, and one night’s not going to prove anything—no matter how real that kiss might’ve looked. You don’t want him thinking you’re just out having sex with some guy; you want him to think you’re in a solid relationship, so it’s not so much about the big shows of affection as it is about time together. Last night…well, yeah, there’s a couple reasons that shouldn’t happen again, mainly because it puts added stress on you, and that’s the last thing we want.”
Stress? That brief time out there in the driveway with him during the incident was the least stressed she’d been since…honestly, she couldn’t even remember when. This wasn’t about her stress level, though. It was about getting rid of Kurt once and for all, and she fully expected her stress level to rise a lot higher before it got back under control.
Brett was still talking, but it took a second for her to hear what he was saying.
“…we both know that next to Kurt, I’m probably the last guy you want to be spending time with. Sorry to say, I’m pretty much all you’ve got at this point, so we’re going to have to make do.”
Perching on the arm of the couch, Ellie sighed. “Look, Brett, I appreciate all this, really I do. But even if this is part of your job, it’s not fair—or right—to ask you to do it. Not for me. And I’m not trying to sound like a martyr here, because we both know that I’ve been a complete cow to you since the day we first met, so you can’t— What? What’s that look for?”
“Nothing.” But his brow stayed furrowed deep, like he was trying to process something. “It’s just…I think that’s the first time you’ve ever done that.”
“Done what?”
“Called me by name.”
“No, it’s n—” Oh, crap. Maybe it was. “You see? You’re crazy to do this for me.”
“Maybe,” he said quietly. “But, again, it’s my job, and I’m all you’ve got, so let’s not make