Chapter 161
[ 494 words ]
Chapter 161:
Jarrod sat on the floor. He rubbed his stinging thigh. He looked up at the woman standing on the bed.
His gray eyes widened in absolute shock.
He wasn’t shocked that she had rejected him. He was shocked by the strike. The explosive power, the lethal precision, the perfect defensive posture—no civilian nurse on the planet moved like that.
Caroline saw his eyes narrow. She saw the sharp, analytical gears turning in his head.
Her heart plummeted into her stomach. She had just exposed her training.
Panic flooded her veins. She had to fix this immediately.
Do𝘄ոloа𝘥 р𝗗F𝘴 𝖿𝘳𝘦𝗲 oո gal𝘯𝗈𝗏е𝘭s.с𝘰𝗆
Caroline instantly dropped her fists. She let her shoulders collapse inward. She wrapped her arms tightly around her own ribs, digging her nails into her skin until it hurt, forcing hot tears to well up in her eyes.
“You bastard!” Caroline screamed, her voice shaking violently. “I was having a nightmare! I thought the man from the hospital was attacking me again! Why did you grab me?”
Jarrod froze. He looked at her trembling shoulders and the tears spilling over her eyelashes. The dark suspicion in his brain was instantly washed away by a crushing wave of guilt. He forced the apology out, his guilt warring with a cold, analytical corner of his mind that flagged her movements as something far more than a panicked reaction. He would deal with that anomaly later. First, he had to calm the storm he had created.
He stood up slowly. He raised both of his hands in the air, palms open, showing he was unarmed.
“Caroline,” Jarrod said, his voice thick with raw remorse. “I am sorry. I lost control. I swear to God I didn’t mean to terrify you.”
Caroline kept her arms wrapped around herself. She glared at him with cold, unforgiving eyes.
“If this is your idea of a ‘safehouse’,” she spat, “I would rather sleep under a bridge with the assassins.”
The guilt on Jarrod’s face vanished, replaced by a dark, terrifying possessiveness. He would burn the city down before he let her walk out that door.
He took a deep breath, forcing his raging hormones down. He shifted his posture, standing tall, slipping into his cold, military negotiation mode.
“You are not leaving,” Jarrod stated flatly. “But I will offer a compromise. A thirty-day grace period.”
Caroline stopped crying. She watched him warily.
“For the next thirty days, you live here,” Jarrod continued, his voice steady. “But I give you my word as an officer: I will not initiate any physical intimacy without your explicit consent. I will not touch you. It will give you time to adjust to being my wife.”
Caroline’s brain calculated the odds rapidly. She had no apartment. Her parents had sold her out. The killers were still hunting her. Thirty days in this fortress would give her time to plan an escape route or dig up dirt on his family.
She lifted her chin. Her eyes were sharp and clear.
“If you cross the line once,” Caroline said coldly, “the deal is dead, and I walk.”
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