Yours to Keep by Serena Bell

into his head that I was Theo’s stepmother,” Ana said. “And I couldn’t collect myself enough to correct him.”
    He looked at her, startled. “Got it into his head that you—?” He shook his head in disbelief as it slowly dawned on him. “He told them you were. That’s what he meant. He lied to them and said you were his stepmother. Why?”
    Her gaze flickered away from his. “I think he thought he’d somehow escape having to tell you what he’d done.”
    “So they—?”
    “So the cop just addressed me as Theo’s stepmom, and I didn’t—I didn’t correct him. I’m sorry about that.”
    “ You’re sorry?” He raised his eyebrows. “Geez, no, don’t be ridiculous. I’m sorry. You didn’t sign up for this. For any of this.”
    “It wasn’t—” A small smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “After the initial bit of having no idea where he was, then seeing the cop car, it wasn’t so bad. He was—I made him apologize. To the cop. I hope that’s all right. I figured if he was going to pretend I was his stepmother the least I could do was some good, you know?”
    Somehow her calm and amusement had managed to swallow up Ethan’s bigger, wilder emotions. He was starting to grasp what Ana had gone through, and with what grace, and he looked at her now with something akin to awe. “You made him apologize.”
    She nodded. “And I made him thank the officer for going easy on him and promise him he’d never do it again.”
    “And he did it.”
    Another nod.
    He knew for sure that he wouldn’t have been able to do the same. Wouldn’t even have thought of it in the midst of the storm of emotions that would’ve overtaken him at the sight of his son emerging from a police car.
    She’d made Theo tell his father, had sat with quiet poise through the insanity of the past few minutes, urging the story out of the boy, tolerating Ethan’s ravings.
    Oh, God.
    She’d been a goddess, and he and his son had quite possibly been the worst-behaved clients one could imagine having.
    As she stood there, cool and lovely, her long hair draped over the shoulders of her pink top, her dark eyes seeming to see beyond how incompetent they’d been to something more elemental, he liked her a thousand times more than he had before, when she’d been merely pretty and mysterious. Now she was … she was …
    He remembered the irrational sense he’d had, when he flung open the door of EdBranch’s office, that it was Ana who was rescuing him.
    “Ethan.” She took a step toward him.
    All the moving parts in his body froze as she took another step and raised her hand to his face. Was she going to—?
    The shock and fear and anger coalesced into something very different. Longing. Lust.
    She stood very close, and, looking into her dark eyes, feeling the heat of her body inches from his, he wanted to reach for her, to lower his mouth to her slightly parted lips, to consume her. Screw all the reasons it was a terrible idea.
    “You’re still—” She reached up and pulled the onion goggles off him.
    He dropped his arms and let humiliation rush over him. “Did I have these on the whole time?”
    “Yes,” she said.
    And collapsed in giggles over the countertop.
    She couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe it was post-adrenaline slaphappiness. Or maybe it was that if you stopped for a moment and forgot about the fact that Theo had nearly been killed and she’d nearly been detained—not that you could forget those things—it was pretty funny. She could perhaps see more of the humor, because she knew the backstory.…
    Yes, in fact, she could definitely see more of the humor. Ethan wasn’t laughing at all. He’d picked up the onion goggles from where she’d set them on the countertop and was examining them as if they held the key to understanding what had happened.
    “I had these on the whole time I was yelling at Theo.”
    “Yes,” she said again.
    She’d seen his gaze drop to her mouth and was pretty sure he was