8. Beau

Chapter eight

Beau

E verything I thought I knew about this woman was wrong. I’m now dead certain of it.

All this time, we’ve been after the wrong person. She didn’t change her identity and run from her old life to lay low until she could make good on her escape. All this time, she’s been the fall guy…err…girl, and the real evil has been out there running wild and free in the world.

Why didn’t I see this coming?

Right. Probably because of the mountain of evidence that I was shown before I agreed to this job.

Ignacia is trying to pick herself up in the kitchen by doing normal things like turning on the kettle and throwing two god-awful chai tea bags into two of her pretty floral mugs.

I’m over here on the other side, pretending to be waiting with a level head, while inside, I’m a hot, fuming wreck. That bastard could have abused her physically, emotionally, or in other ways. He’d obviously hurt her because she was shocked he found her. I know what a frightened, cornered animal looks like. I’ve seen that expression on too many of my clients when I get there. A few weeks in, they start to reclaim their lives back. I don’t do it for them. I just give them the tools to help. Also, knowing I’m there to stand between them and whatever dangers and trials they’re facing truly helps.

It’s rare that I have to enter into bone-crunching mode. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever broken a single bone unless it was in my own body, and the few times have been sports-related scenarios. That little douchebag brought all the impulses for carnage out of me. I would have loved to pick him up, snap him in half, and let both those halves beg this woman for her forgiveness.

Alas, I know that’s not the way problems are solved, even if they fucking should be. I didn’t do anything but protect Ignacia like she was a client or—or Sam . That’s her real name. But I have no right to use it. She hasn’t given me permission. She hasn’t given me anything about her real life yet, but she’s going to because I asked. Because she needs help. There are zero options right now.

I’m going to keep her safe. I’m going to eliminate the threat. I’m going to do what I said and give her a life back.

This is now my job.

She’s still shaking when she brings both mugs to the table. With a shaky breath, she sits down in front of one. I notice she hasn’t added any cream to hers. I know she doesn’t drink her tea without it, so I walk to the fridge, get the container, and add a splash to her mug until the offensive brew turns beige.

I’m going to suck it up and drink mine because it looks calm, domestic, and gentle, and right now, she needs that. She doesn’t need another display of power and muscles. The threat has already been chased off. Now, we’re going to deal with the fallout, and coming down from a real shock is always rough.

She looks like she needs a hug. But I’m just not the guy to do it. I’m such an asshole, which is no newsflash to me, but right now, I hate myself for it.

I add some cream to my tea and put the container back in the fridge, which makes a weird humming noise and then a small crunch. It’s one of those ancient old beasts from the forties or fifties, and I make a note to have someone come and look at it. I’ll find a specialist who deals with old appliances, even if I have to fly them out.

Wow. You’re seriously getting into this, aren’t you?

I sit quietly at the table, forcing myself to sip the spicy cinnamon tea until Ignacia is ready to talk. I’m not sure ready is the right word, but eventually, she does raise her eyes. They’re swimming with tears, but she’s making an effort not to let them fall. Just seeing that moisture makes me want to race out the door, run miles down the gravel road if I have to, and find Aiden. Fuck, I’d chase down his car, barefoot on said gravel, if I could reach him and kick his ass for what he’d done to this woman.

Whatever he did, he made her suffer in some way, and that is un-fucking-acceptable. Make no mistake, it will be rectified. Justice will be motherfucking served straight up, even if I have to ram it down the bastard’s throat myself.

Ignacia lets out a sigh that is pure misery. She blinks again, clearing her eyes, then whips them away and studies her tea. “Do you want the long or short version?”

I’d like the version where I kill your ex for you.

Well, not really. Because I don’t do murder. Never had to, thank goodness. In my line of work, it’s sometimes a definite possibility. When I’m working, I do carry a weapon in order to fully protect my clients. Some of them have gone through situations of extreme violence, and some of them have people who want to make sure they don’t wake up the next morning or any other morning. I’ve discharged my weapon several times, but I’ve never had to take a life.

“Whatever you’d like to tell me,” I reply.

She sips her tea so shakily that it dribbles down her chin. She quickly wipes it away, but it’s like she’s not even really paying attention to it. She looks at the table like there’s a live-action show of her past playing right there.

“The short version, then. Girl meets boy; girl thinks boy is perfect; girl is incredibly stupid. For years. Boy does super shady shit for most of that time. Not cheating on her or anything. Just stealing her identity and using her social media to scam people. Boy has all her personal information, so he sets up fake accounts under her name. Multiple fake accounts. Online. Bank accounts, offshore shit. And then he really gets into scamming. Low level. He only takes a small amount from the people he rips off because everyone knows the police are not willing to do anything over small amounts. But fifty dollars here and a hundred dollars there adds up.

“Boy gets confident. He starts making thousands of dollars a day. Under. Girl’s. Name. Girl finds out eventually, but it’s already been going on for years. Girl threatens to expose him to the cops, but Boy points out she’d only be exposing herself. Even when he wasn’t using her name and was doing all the horrible shit under a fake name, he was still doing it on her computer and laptop and phone. There was literally no way to prove it wasn’t her.”

She looks exhausted, but I don’t say anything because any words I use would be wrong right now. She doesn’t need to hear cursing and promises of bloody scenarios where I put my hand down Boy’s throat and tear him a new asshole through his mouth and leave his lips down below so no one knows which is the mouth and which is the butthole. Also? Wow. That’s just gross.

“Girl tells Boy she’s finished. She just wants a clean break. But Boy pursues her, even after she moves out. Even after she tries to salvage her life. Boy tells Girl that he could destroy her at any time. She threatens to go to the police for a restraining order, but again, he tells her that getting the police involved isn’t a great idea since Boy has never laid a finger on Girl. There have been zero reports. She’d have to have some kind of physical proof that Boy abused her in some way. Girl starts recording how Boy is stalking her, but he’s careful not to get caught. He’s never on cameras. He’s always sneaky and crafty, the way he’s always been, even when she didn’t know it. And then, just to prove he can, Boy appears in Girl’s apartment. He somehow gets in, hacks the cameras, steals her laptop, cracks the password, and starts the scamming again. Girl gets really freaked out.”

“Girl is an up-and-coming designer and has lots of friends all over the place. One friend knows someone who knows someone who makes fake IDs, and Girl knows that with a fake ID, she can disappear. She can take her savings and run and hide. Gather evidence and try and put together something that indicates she isn’t guilty. Girl had some money saved from said designs that Boy couldn’t get at because she kept the money as cash in a bank drawer, and she never let Boy know about it. Girl gets her fake ID. Girl buys a super cheap, shitty acreage in the middle of nowhere with said fake ID. Only Girl’s parents and sister know where she is. Then, Girl drops off the face of the earth and becomes someone else. Girl starts to think she’s safe but still sees no way she can return to her regular life. And then, Boy finds her, and everything is over.”

“No. Nothing is over,” I bark raspily.

“Nothing is the same,” she huffs weakly.

“You’re right about that. Nothing will be the same again.” I let my fist come down on the table too hard, which makes her jump. I didn’t mean to scare her. I flatten my palm, stroking the old oak wood in apology. “Nothing will be the same again because now you have me fighting for you, and it just so happens I’m not only rich. I also own a company that offers personal protection. More than that, I have a lot of friends who are great with computers. Boy thinks he’s a good hacker and a scammer and that he’s covered his trail by pinning all of it on you? We’ll fix it all. You can have your life back. You’re a victim of identity theft, and we’ll find a way to make that clear. Boy will go to jail. Boy will never be able to hurt you or anyone else again, I promise.”

“Scammers don’t go to jail. And hackers go for like maybe a year. No one cares. It’s not like he murdered anyone. I’m the one who took my old life and vanished. I’m the one who quit on it instead of staying and fighting.” Then, she quickly backtracks on that. “Even if they go to jail for a year, I don’t want to go. I don’t want a criminal record. I want my name cleared. I don’t want to pay for something I didn’t even do. You know what I would like? I would like Aiden to pay the money back. All of it. Everything he took. Probably from old people who didn’t have a dollar to spare, people who weren’t great with money, or people who couldn’t figure out that whatever he was running was a con. Jesus. I couldn’t figure it out, and I was with him for three fucking years.”

Three years .

That asshat stole three years from this woman, in addition to her identity, her dignity, her peace of mind, and probably her heart and soul. I’m sorry I let him go now. It would have been ultra satisfying to break him in half. Not that it’s humanly possible. Is it? I’d like to do an experiment to prove if it could be done or not, using one foul piece of shit test subject. Aiden. Christ, I should have figured he’d have a name like Aiden.

Not that Beau is much better.

But Aiden .

He makes all the good Aidens in the world look bad.

“It would have been like fighting a ghost.” I’m trying to find the right things to say. Normally, I’m good at it. I can take a very upset client and calm them down in no time. “He intimidated you and scared you. He did stalk you. He broke into your place and made you feel unsafe. That is not okay. I don’t believe in fate or destiny, but when I messed up my age on the website—when I even went on the website at all —I started a chain of events that brought me into your life, and all of it might have been random, but I see the reason now. I’m going to give it a reason. You’re going to move in with me so I can ensure your safety while my team gets this figured out.”

Her head cranks up, and I hear her vertebra groan at the sudden movement. I’ve just said the wrong thing. The wrongest of wrong things. She’s instantly back to being ultra-panicked. “What the… what ?”

I don’t even know why I put that out there. I don’t want to share my space with another person, which is precisely why I don’t. Move in with me? Of all the foolish, imbecilic things to put out there. Good fucking gravy.

“For the love of cheesy toes, I am not doing that,” she exclaims, smacking the table for good measure. Wham !

Time for some levity. I’ve gone way too far. I’m still reeling, too, although I hope my usual dead face is good at covering for me. Because right now is not the time to catch feelings. I mean, have emotions, show emotions. Whatever. Same difference.

“What are cheesy toes?”

She shudders. “I don’t—I…never mind. I don’t think anyone loves those. I should have said for the hate of cheesy toes.”

“Like athlete’s foot,” I quip.

“Something like that.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who does enjoy that.”

Then, all of a sudden, she gets serious. Our minute of levity is going to last just that. A minute. I don’t like this new weight that’s settled onto Ignacia’s shoulders. She’s still beautiful, but it’s so clear someone has reached inside her and stolen her light.

That light-stealing, identity-stealing, fucking Aiden fucker .

A giant crab cracker. That’s what I need to break the guy in half.

I should have unleashed Ignacia’s crawfish. I’m sure Ol’ Snappy Claws, or whatever his name is, would have enjoyed latching onto Aiden’s genitals and hanging out.

Shudder. This is all just to keep my own brain occupied, so I don’t do or say the wrong thing right now, not when it truly counts that I don’t do exactly that.

Frowning, she murmurs, “Move in with you? No. I don’t even know where you live. Also, what about the cats?”

“Your safety was compromised. You fled from your own life because of this creep, and now he knows where you are. He stole so much from you. And you’re worried about the cats ?”

She gets an ounce of sass back, and color floods her cheeks. At this point, thank fucking god for that. I was so worried. Yes, me . The guy who doesn’t get worried. The guy who doesn’t feel anything. The guy who is really good at managing what little emotions he does have. As a rule, I don’t get angry either.

However, my rules are all shot to shit because I’m still livid.

I think I might even be angrier than Ignacia is.

“I made a commitment to them,” she says. “When I bought this place. I might not have known they came with it, but they were here before I was, and they deserve to be taken care of. They might be great hunters and enjoy their life outdoors and not want to be indoor-kept pets, but it doesn’t mean I don’t worry about them or love them. They’re affectionate, and they love me back. I provide food for them twice a day.”

“Okay.” I have the sudden inspiration that I need to be gentle with her right now. I need to see her points as valid because they’re important to her. I need to make her feel heard. And then, I need to bring down the hammer and get her to accept my idea. There is no way she can say no to this. “Okay, I can ask one of the neighbors to look in on them. I’m sure someone will do it for the right amount of money.”

She bites down on her bottom lip and looks out the window. “Still no.”

Alright, I tried to be gentle. I tried. “Then I’m moving in here,” I state.

“No!” she exclaims. Now I have her full attention. Her full stubbornness, too. I can see it creeping up, flushing her neck, and moving in as her eyes get harder and her jaw sets in place. She looks utterly determined not to share this space with me.

If I were the kind of person who got offended, then I might be. It’s not like I have the plague or anything. And it’s not like I’m Aiden. Maybe it’s just because I haven’t properly spelled this out for her.

“In my other life, I’m basically a bodyguard, although I hate that word. I’m a Personal Protection Officer. You need to hire me.”

“No, nope. How the heck would I do that anyway? You’re the kind of person who wouldn’t do that dangerous kind of work—putting your life on the line—unless it made you some serious bank. You’re already minted. You don’t even need to work. So either you sometimes enjoy nearly getting killed, or you get a thrill out of protecting people, which would be kind of sweet, but I imagine the people who hire you are the ones who are also minted and making bank and whatever other rich people terms there are that could possibly apply.” Her nostrils flare out a little, and her eyes turn so stormy blue. There’s a fire in there that I haven’t seen before. She should have directed it at Aiden earlier, but I’m glad her spirit is coming back now.

Also? She looks so honest-to-goodness gorgeous when all hot and defensive, a little bit angry, and a whole lot stubborn that my dick slams against the fly of my pants. I’m not sure if he’s saluting her or if it’s some kind of sign for me. It should be a sign to get out of here because getting my dick involved in any of this is just a recipe for a dick soup disaster.

Christ.

It’s a recipe for trouble.

Big dick trouble.

Any dick would be too much trouble. The big is…well, I’m just saying.

She continues, “Anyway, you’re not moving in here because I haven’t hired you. I can’t afford your services. And your life is far too valuable for any amount of money I could offer.”

I can’t tell her that I’d do it for free. Also, what the hell? Why do I want to do it for free? Why do I suddenly want to stay here, day and night, in this tiny little farmhouse to ensure this woman’s safety when she’s someone I basically just met? She’s a client on a completely different contract. She was supposed to just stay a client.

But the truth is, she’s not just a client.

If she were just a client, then I wouldn’t even be here right now. I would have taken my one night, ran with it, and never looked back. I wouldn’t have booked extra nights. I wouldn’t have wanted to see her so badly that I did the unthinkable and bound myself to her.

Even if I could afford to pay out the contract.

The contract. It might be the one thing I have left to argue in my favor. “We have a contract. It says if you don’t fulfill it, then you’ll be charged to pay back the fees for those missing nights.”

“You can still come,” she says, rolling her eyes and regaining back more and more of her former spirit with every minute. “I’ll still be here. I’m not leaving. I’m not running again.”

“Good.” I crunch my knuckles like I’m waiting for a good fight. “I’m glad you’re being brave. I’m glad you want to stand up to this, but you don’t have the resources and tools to do this alone. If you hire me, then I can help you.”

“I can’t hire you. I don’t have the money to hire you. We’ve already been over this,” she says exasperatedly.

“First, you’re in no position to be offering your bed as a rental when it’s not a safe environment, so it puts you in breach of the contract. Second, I’ll waive my fee. Let me fix this for you, and while it’s all being settled, you come and stay with me for a few weeks. It will only take a few weeks, and then I’ll call the contract null and void. I’ll even pay you out for it at the end of it all.”

“Why would you call me out for a breach of the contract, waive your fee, and then pay me out anyway?”

Yeah, that doesn’t exactly make sense now, does it? I’m trying to get her on a technicality, so it’s not so damn obvious that I’m desperate to keep her safe. And why that is…I don’t even know. People don’t get under my skin, I don’t work for free, and I don’t let myself care .

“And what about the cats ?” she adds.

“You’re more worried about the cats than you are about yourself.” I have to point that out again. She doesn’t seem to understand that her safety is paramount. “Your ex is a criminal. He’s unpredictable, he’s a stalker, he’s stolen your personal information and committed fraud, and he’s stolen years of your life.”

“Dude, I know. It happened to me,” she says with a roll of her eyes. Then, she glances at my mug and gives me—I swear on cheese feet or whatever—the most evil curl of her lips. If someone like her could look evil. She’s more like play evil. And it’s darned adorable. My dick gives my pants another zipper punch. He’s in a fighting mood, too, apparently. “You haven’t drank your tea. Are you waiting for it to cool? Iced chai is delicious as well. You should have said you prefer it that way.”

I pick the mug up and down the whole nasty brew in a few swallows. She’s right. It’s gone cold. But she’s also wrong. It’s not at all more palatable.

“There are so many great health teas. I have a few in the canisters in my top cupboard. We could brew those up and give them a try. They taste…um, well, not so great, but they’re excellent for gut health.”

This woman might kill me with her teas if I’m not careful.

She might do a heck of a lot more to me than that, and the stupid thing is, I’m not being careful at all about it.

“This is what we’re going to do,” I announce before I go silent. It’s better for dramatic effect. However, the only drama I get in return is Ignacia’s hands flying to her hips. She’s still sitting down, so it looks quite hilarious. I manage not to smile since none of this is funny. “You’re going to hire me, and I’m going to work for free. I see it taking no more than ten to fourteen days to resolve if I have my team working on it. And I will have my team working on it. As for sleeping arrangements, you have an extra bedroom here. It might be small and filled with sewing things, but I’ll sleep there, and we will resume our hot bedding appointments on the correct nights to stay true to the contract.”

“I’m between jobs right now, and I can assign myself wherever I wish. Perks of being the boss and all. You won’t go anywhere without me, even if it’s out in the yard. I’m your constant shadow now. My team will get this figured out for you. You’ll get your old life back, and I do guarantee Aiden will face jail time, and if not that, then serious legal repercussions. He’s gone too far, and we’ll find a way to prove it. He might think he’s a great hacker and good at finding people, but he has no idea what a true professional looks like. We’ll build an ironclad case against him. We will also get you a restraining order against him under both your identities. If he comes anywhere near you, he’ll go to jail. All of this will happen quickly. I have people who can just about perform miracles.”

“Are they saints?” she asks.

My eyes nearly go flying out of my head. “Are they who ?”

Her lips flutter and twitch. They’re so lovely—full and kissable. I’d like to lean across the table and taste them. Kiss them until they’re swollen and hurting. Maybe punish them a little, but not in a creepy, asshole way. Just in a way she would like, with little bits of teeth and tongue.

It’s official. My pants have become a tent.

Thank goodness for old oak tables.

She pushes the heels of her hands into her eyes and groans, but it turns into a sigh, which just turns into her sounding and looking so damn tired. All the levity, all the fight, all the attempts at picking herself up are gone, and it’s just her. She looks like she needs a good night’s sleep. This is our night, and I’m not going back on it. I’ll feel better that I’m sleeping beside her, even if the second she goes down—after all this, she will crash, and it will come sooner than she thinks—I’ll be on my phone and laptop, firing off instructions left and right to the other members of my team.

They might not be Jesus, but they’ll get the job done. Not real miracles. Just a lot of hard work. I ignore the fact that I want to take Ignacia in my arms, comfort her, reassure her, kiss her gently, then deeply, then into oblivion, and into forgetting. I want to carry her up to bed, tuck her in, and be a gentleman. And then, if she asked me to fuck her into tomorrow and oblivion and forgetting and all the stuff she desperately needs right now, I’d be a gentleman and oblige. Nicely. It’s possible to have hard, energetic, maybe even borderline rough sex and still do it nicely. If she doesn’t want that, if she asks me to fuck her into oblivion the vanilla way, then I’ll darn well make it happen too. Even if vanilla is just as gross a flavor as her chai tea.

In my humble opinion, of course. The rest of the world clearly doesn’t agree.

“Just say yes,” I urge her. “I can have a contract drawn up for this in ten minutes while you put on your pajamas and brush your teeth or if you want to soak in the bath to relieve some of the stress. Let me handle this. You don’t have to do it on your own. You won’t be able to do it on your own.”

“But why?” Her voice breaks, and it cuts right through me.

Why indeed? What possible answer could I give her? Nothing that I can say out loud. Nothing that I can even explain to myself. I shouldn’t. And that’s the truth.

“Because you need someone, and that someone is right here. This needs to be done. Knowing what an injustice was done to you, I can’t just walk away when I have the money and the team behind me to fix it. Sometimes, even rich assholes want to do a good turn for the world.”

There. I think that should satisfy her question and the thousand things banging around in my skull.

She stands up shakily, and I force myself not to rush to her and sweep her up. She doesn’t need that right now. It wouldn’t be right in any version of any contract or any other scenario where we’re involved. She wouldn’t be just a client again. Even though it takes all my control, I sit my ass right down here in this seat. And I don’t budge.

“I think a bath sounds nice,” she murmurs.

“Perfect. I’ll have the contract ready and waiting for you when you’re finished. Take all the time you want.”

I never said I wasn’t the world’s biggest asshole, did I?

Even still, I can barely deal with the flash of unconcealed hurt in those blue eyes before she turns away.

I give her over an hour in the bath. I’d give her all the time in the world, but that’s as long as she takes. I already have the standard close or personal protection officer contract ready. I pulled it up in under a second. I use it so often that in the long list of contracts and files I have saved on my phone, it’s at the top.

I wait in the kitchen. I feel like it’s the least I can do to give her privacy and show her that in this, I respect her. She didn’t choose to have this happen. She didn’t choose to have her life stolen, derailed, and scammed. She might have dealt with it better, but now I’m dealing with it. I’ve always had a team behind me, and I’ll have everyone working double time now that I’ve heard her truth. I believe her truth, and I’m going to make it right, even if it means getting involved in ways I never saw coming or thought possible.

Too involved.

No, that’s not a thing. People like you don’t get too involved in anything. You don’t have the capacity for it because you’ve shut that shit right the hell down.

But then.

But then, Ignacia walks into the kitchen in a fuzzy green robe with mermaid scales on the hood and arms and matching green fuzzy pants. Her wet hair is not combed out or even dried very well, and she’s dripping all over and flushed from what must have been a very hot bath. Her eyes are also brighter than they were before she went in. I knew a bath would fix a lot. I just didn’t know how much.

I also didn’t realize she’d emerge looking like a freshly reborn sea creature. A seahorse. A mermaid. No, a selkie. Hmm, no. A siren. That’s the sea creature that calls men to their death. Yeah, she looks like one of those, even though I have no idea what they look like. They’re probably haunting, alluring, soaking wet, and gorgeous. And they probably have the ability to make a man hard in under a second flat.

Because I am. Again. It’s an annoyance I’ve never had the displeasure of not being able to control before. Also, I don’t want it to be visible. TMI, but thank goodness I’m hung the way I’m hung because even rock fucking solid, my dick doesn’t stick straight out. These sweatpants do incredible damage control. Sitting down, they didn’t control jack shit at all, but upright? We’re good. I do a double downward doubletake just to be sure. Yup, not visible.

She twists her hands in front of her waist without looking at me. “Is the contract done? Can I sign it, and then we can go to bed?”

That shouldn’t sound dirty. My mind shouldn’t go to something sweet and innocent like cuddling her after the world came at her. I’m the one keeping it at bay, literally, because it’s my job. I’ve been contracted left and right to be here. But it still doesn’t involve holding her.

“Yes.” Oh, look at me. Grunting out that word. I whip out my phone before more language has to become a thing. “But I need to ask. Are you sure? You’re sure you had nothing to do with it?” I’m too insistent. It’s too much.

I’ve sideswiped her like one of those guys on the scooters who comes out of nowhere, riding down the sidewalk, and then bam! They take you right out, backflip head-over-arse style.

Instead of getting misty-eyed and weepy, she narrows her eyes, and I see fury forming in them. It’s anger that I just had the nerve to doubt her. To ask her twice and not believe her. She looks at me like I’m one of those men. One of those who doesn’t believe a woman when she says something, one of those who doubt a person’s truth, even when it’s coming from their heart because my heart is all wonky and half-formed. “I had nothing to do with any of it. Not even a little.”

Ignacia takes the phone in her small hands, scrolls down, and swipes her finger across the line on the screen. I should insist she signs properly and initials after reading.

But she’s clearly tired.

So I don’t insist.

I’ve never been anything less than professional.

But I did just ask her to confirm her innocence again. It matters. It matters more than I can say. I had to be sure, not just beyond reasonable doubt, but beyond any doubt.

I’ll let it slide just this once because we already talked the contract out. I’m not in the market to scam people, and I’m not Ignacia’s ex. It’s not because I’m tired as well or because I know just how much she needs to sleep and how I want to be the one lying beside her, even in a very platonic matter, watching over her while she sleeps. People are so exposed and vulnerable in those moments. I want to be the man she trusts, even if it’s just because I’m muscly and I threw my professional weight around.

I watch the crown of her head—her blonde hair is so much darker when it’s wet—hover over my phone. I can’t see her face, but my chest still aches.

Just with that question, I’ve undone any trust we might have shared. I’ve proved to her beyond reasonable doubt that I’m a dumbass.

Also? One day, I’m going to leave.

I need to do everything possible to minimize the damage. The goal is now to make her as free as I can. It doesn’t mean tying her to me in any way.

Still , one way or the other, I know I’ll hurt her.