Spying Under the Mistletoe (Love Undercover #2) - Stina Lindenblatt Page 0,30
more focused on keeping you safe without you discovering the real reason you and I were a couple.”
Well, that’s a relief. Kind of.
“You aren’t even interested in me that way?” I’ll definitely need more whiskey to get through this conversation.
Possibly the entire bottle.
I down the contents of my glass and return it to him. “Can I have some more, please?”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. Between what happened in the parking lot after school and Landon’s confession, I require something that will make me…happier.
Dear Mom, I mentally write.
If you were my age and a hot man wanted you to live with him while he was protecting your butt, would you do it?
Oh, and what would you do if you escaped your Russian mafia family only for that family to want to drag you back in again?
Miss you greatly,
Chloe
Landon gets up and heads toward the kitchen. When he returns a moment later, the contents in my glass have been replenished, and he’s carrying a bottle.
He hands me the glass and parks the bottle on the coffee table.
Whiskey—the puppy—snores on my lap, oblivious to the conversation and the storm of emotions brewing inside me: Happiness that Nikolai still cares about me and wants to keep me safe. Fear that someone wants to kill me. Disappointment that I’m nothing more than a job for Landon. Like all the men in my life, he had no intention of sticking around for the long run, even before I discovered the truth about who he is.
And those are just the main emotions.
My gaze sweeps over the living room and lands on a picture on the wall. I’m guessing it’s Landon’s family when he and his sisters were kids. There’s something familiar about the lanky, dark-haired boy in the photo.
A soul-deep longing punches me in the gut—a longing for those simpler days, back when I was a little girl who was oblivious to the truth about my family. Back when chasing butterflies and playing pirates with Nikolai filled my days.
“I’m sorry but I can’t do this,” I say. “I don’t care what’s at stake, I’m not being dragged into my family’s web of lies and illegal activities. I’d rather take my chances with whoever has the contract on me.”
“You’re getting this all wrong, Chloe. My team and I don’t play on the wrong side of the law. That’s why your cousin hired us. He knows you don’t want to return to that life, but he couldn’t exactly go to the cops either. So he called in a favor with someone he knows, a mutual friend who Nikolai knew wouldn’t betray him to the cops. I know you don’t have reason to trust me, but you do trust Ava, right?”
“Does Ava know about all this?”
“She does.”
I nod. “All right—it looks like I don’t have much choice but to trust you. For now, anyway.” Because no matter what I said a moment ago, I’m not interested in dying. No more than I am in going back to my family.
Besides, if Landon was known to the cops for being on the dark side of the law, they would’ve arrested him when they showed up at the school. “So, what now?”
“I continue to do as I’ve been hired to do.”
“Protect me like some sort of bodyguard?”
“Yes—and the part about you being my girlfriend. Like I said before, it’ll make things easier when it comes to explaining why I’m with you most of the time. More so than if we were just colleagues or friends.”
That makes sense.
“But we’ve only known each other for less than a week, and we are colleagues. No one will believe we went from meeting each other for the first time one day to practically living together a few days later.” A new realization hits me. “Does Principal Woodnut know you aren’t a real substitute teacher?”
“She does.”
“And she has no problem with that?”
“She knows why I’m working undercover. So no, she doesn’t have a problem with it.”
“Does anyone else at the school know?”
He shakes his head. “No. For now. But given the attempted kidnapping this afternoon, I’ll have to bring in my colleagues to help keep an eye on things.”
Ah, the mysterious colleagues he mentioned in the school parking lot after I was attacked. He told me he would explain once we returned to his place.
“You mean more substitute teachers? As it is, you were lucky Zoe started her maternity leave early. You won’t get so lucky with anyone else. No one is scheduled to take time off prior to