Rose of Jericho (Lilith Adams Series Book 2) Read Free Page B

This whole night had been a total disaster. Hell, Alvarez’s funeral was enough trauma for one lifetime.” She was in no mood to play games. She clenched her jaw and kept her eyes firmly fixed on him.
    Chance just watched her for a moment, his own internal battle raging behind his eyes. He definitely seemed calmer, not that she could say the same. Her heart was running like a rabbit on a case of 5 hour energy drinks.
    She was beginning to think Chance was never going to answer when he finally shifted in his seat and let out a sigh. “When those guys busted through the window, my first thought was ‘At least Lily is safe’. I could handle whatever they threw at me as long as I knew that you were in that cab, heading to your apartment.”
    Chance glanced over at the book-end guards again, twisting his wrists against the cuffs. It was obvious that he was less than comfortable talking about this in front of an audience. “When I heard you scream my name, everything changed. I wasn’t fighting for myself anymore. I was fighting just to keep them away from you.” Chance leaned his head back against the seat and gazed at the ceiling of the plane as if it had all the answers. “I was terrified that I wouldn’t be able to keep them away from you. I didn’t…”
    The tone in his voice pulled at her anger, drawing it away. She tried to hold onto it, but it slipped through her grasp like grains of fine sand. That’s when the panic started to sink in. Her conflicting emotions were flinging around in her brain like ping pong balls stuffed with explosives.
    “Chance, from the moment we got on that plane to Tennessee, we’ve been a team, whether either of us wants to admit that. You need to stop seeing me as a client and start seeing me as a partner. Can we please just drop this white knight complex? It isn’t going to change the fact that we’re handcuffed to a plane heading for god knows what.”
    “Lilith.” Chance sighed again with an edge of frustration and just looked at her. “You don’t get what I’m trying to say. It’s not my ‘white knight’ complex…it’s you.”
    Lilith flinched and tried to swallow the sudden lump of tears in her throat. It felt like an accusation, something she should apologize for. Chance kept talking but for a few seconds it was all white noise as she struggled to get a grip on her fragile psyche. Most of her life she’d relied on her logical side and now it was failing her.
    “I can’t lose you, not now. That sense of panic doesn’t exactly come with a side order of logic. When it comes to you, I can’t be objective and that’s what I need in a fight.”
    It was all too much for her to handle and she couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. Thankfully, Chance wasn’t staring at her waiting for a response. What kind of response could she even give? Thank you? I’m sorry? To hell with you? Get a grip on your issues? What the fuck do you expect me to do about it?
    The silence seemed to stretch on forever as Chance just sat there contemplatively staring at the ceiling with a faint blush to his cheeks. Maybe he was trying to figure out what to say or maybe he was trying to figure out why she hadn’t said anything. Maybe he was cursing himself for saying anything at all. Lilith didn’t trust her voice or her head. She kept searching for the right words but she had nothing.
    Chance finally leaned forward with a puzzled look on his face, the blush completely gone now. He stretched as far as he could and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “If this is really Cohen’s family, why go through all the trouble?”
    Okay. That definitely wasn’t what she was expecting. Truth be told, Lilith was infinitely grateful for the abrupt subject change. She’d never been particularly skilled at handling emotionally ambiguous moments of vulnerability. She always felt like someone trying to diffuse a ticking bomb in oven mitts. After everything that had happened in the past few