He blinked at the seeming change of subject. “Oh. Good.”
“I would like to go home, as well.”
“Why?”
“Because my dad is blackmailing me, and I realized I’d like to be around all the people I care for more than I’d like to run away.”
“Your dad is what?”
“It’s okay.” She patted his chest. The weak sunlight lit the porch, turning it into a golden cage. No, not a cage. She was here voluntarily, and she’d go home voluntarily.
She didn’t have a sword, but she could at least have her rage. The rage, and her own intellect. She smiled through her anger. “I think I have an idea on how to head this off.”
“What’s the idea?”
“I’m going to write a statement.”
He waited, then frowned. “That’s it?”
“Yes. I’ll beg for people to leave me alone. Appeal to everyone’s sense of goodness.”
Jas steepled his fingers under his nose and looked down at her from his greater height. “Your plan is to appeal to the goodness of . . . the internet.”
She managed a wobbly smile. Cynics, she was surrounded by them. She wasn’t a cynic, though. She couldn’t afford to be. She had to believe there was good in the world, and so she’d appeal to that good first. “Yes. It’s one thing for Jia to do a video telling the world that this isn’t a fun love story, it’s a damaging privacy infringement. It’ll make more impact coming from CuteCafeGirl.”
“Okay. Kind of see your reasoning. I don’t think a statement could hurt you. How will this get your dad off your back though?”
“If people stop caring about who I am, there’s no story. If there’s no story, there’s nothing for my dad to blackmail me with.”
He did not look convinced. “I don’t know. That sounds like a stretch.”
I’ll also crush him for good measure.
That part, she wouldn’t share with Jas, not yet.
The rage flared again. The crushing? No white knight needed this time. That was going to be all her. “It’ll work.”
NOT FOR THE first time, Jas wondered if that woman with the camera had known, when she’d taken those photos and spun an elaborate story, that she’d be revealing Katrina’s underbelly to the world. Had it even occurred to her that that would be a possibility? Or had she blithely only been concerned with entertaining her followers with a romance casting real people?
He puffed out his cheeks. “If you say so.”
“I do.” She moved closer to him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
Her grimace was deep. “For making everything about me again.”
He snorted. “Last night, everything was about me.”
“So we’re trading?”
Trading sounded good. It sounded awfully close to sharing. He wrapped his arms around her.
She rested her head on his chest. Around the corner, the hay bales were still piled high. “I’ll be sad to leave this place. Us being alone together.”
“You hate me being around you when you’re working.”
“It’s because you make noises.” She pressed a kiss on his chin to soften the blow.
“How much time will you need to pack?”
“Not long, but I have to write my statement, talk to my lawyer, put some things into motion on the publicity side.”
Another few hours with her, alone? Yes. “Right. Let’s do it.”
“Actually, never mind. You’d have to drive late into the night if we did that.” She worried her fingers. “Times like this, I wish I felt confident enough to drive. But . . .”
But she didn’t want to risk a panic attack at the wheel, and neither did he. “I’ll drive you all night. Don’t worry.”
If anything, that brought more worry to her expression. “Are you only saying that—”
“Katrina.” He shook his head, trying not to let his exasperation creep through. “I am a grown man. Trust that when I say I’m fine with something, I’m fine with it.”
She nodded, and he bent down to kiss her nose. “Let’s clean up and we can take the leftover food to the big house and say goodbye.”
“Don’t forget the hay.”
“I could never.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“GOD, I’M EXHAUSTED.” Rhiannon lay on her back, her sweatpants and hoodie travel-worn and stained. She’d rolled off her international flight two hours prior. Gerald had picked her up.
“You and me both, sister.” Jia slumped on the couch, her head resting in her hand. In deference to Jas’s presence in the room, she wore a simple scarf over her hair.
Katrina shifted from her position on the other side of the couch and stroked Zeus, who was curled up into a tight ball in her lap. Doodle had easily gone off with Gerald to explore