Jonah does say something now. “Jesus, Callie! Will you quit already?”
One of her fingers traces the rim of her glass as she stares back, defiant. And I am suddenly so tired, so just . . . done with all of this. I stand up and grab my damp purse. Jonah’s on his feet immediately.
“Thank you for dinner,” I tell Astrid. The waiter is hovering in the background with a tray of plates. We hadn’t even gotten to the main course.
She stands up and hugs me, telling me she’ll call us tomorrow to check in. Callie sighs and comes around the table and hugs me, too, which is surprising. “Sorry,” she whispers in my ear.
I squeeze her in response.
Jonah is quiet for much of the walk. About a block away from our building, he says, “Can we talk about this?”
I bark out my laughter. “Oh, now you want to talk?”
He sighs. “Chloe—”
I stop mid-stride. “Have you had me followed without my knowledge?”
This surprises him. “No. I had Belladonna followed.” I wait, arms crossed. He continues, “I’m not going to apologize for wanting to keep you safe.”
“Right.” I laugh again. “This was all about keeping me safe. How obvious.”
Now he’s pissed off. “Yes, as a matter of fact it is. I’ve had reliable intel that Belladonna was not going to stop coming after you with his allegations. He planned—”
“Planned what?”
He’s mere inches away now and so angry I can see him vibrating. “To kidnap you.”
I blink, suddenly unsure.
“You don’t understand his family history, Chloe. You don’t know the grudges they’ve held against Creators for a long time.”
I want to scream. “Maybe I would know if, oh yeah, somebody actually told me this stuff!”
“And how would that conversation go?” he asks me. “Should I have said: Hey, Chloe, guess what? I got word that Jens Belladonna, who had a Tracker on you for weeks, is planning on possibly kidnapping you and torturing you soon until you admit to doing something you didn’t do. But, you know—whatever. No big deal.”
“Yes,” I insist, even though I know better. I would have freaked out over him telling me that.
He laughs; it’s bitter. And then he turns away from me and heads in the opposite direction of our apartment. I stay where I am on the sidewalk, utterly confused over what to do. Before I can decide, half a block away, he turns back around and comes back to me. “You know what? No. No. I did the right thing tonight. I am not the only Council member who wants Belladonna’s ass out of Annar. Most of the Guard wanted him gone, too. Had you talked to anyone there, they’d have told you that there’s been dissonance for some time now under his leadership. And no matter what you say, no matter how you complain, I’m not going to ever be sorry that my first instinct in any situation is to protect you.”
But I dig my heels in. “You know how I hate being kept in the dark. You know how it tore me apart when my parents did it to me. And now it’s what you’re doing!”
“Really? That’s how you see it?” he asks, voice cold.
“You keep things from me. Look at the whole Hawaii thing!”
His eyes widen. “Not telling you about a possible kidnapping threat is not the same thing as neglecting to tell you about my real estate portfolio!”
My eyes flood with tears. “Maybe to me it is.”
“Maybe you’re keeping things from me, too,” he counters. “Like whatever happened at the Guard party with Miscanthus and Lightningriver. Like what happened today when you spoke with Belladonna that got you so depressed you could hardly function afterwards. Like what you’re doing with Callie. When did that happen, Chloe? When did you decide that Callie Lotus is a better person to go to than me?”
Touché, Caleb murmurs.
“Are you trying to punish me?” he asks.
“No!”
But he’s totally worked up now. “Because that’s how it feels.”
I guess I hadn’t even thought about what my relationship with Callie might mean for Jonah.
“But like that matters, right?” He shakes his head. “No, of course not. It only matters that I’m the one who’s the open book, that I make sure you’re totally comfortable with everything. Who cares if your secrets and actions hurt me, right?”
This isn’t what I wanted when we started this conversation. “Jonah, I’m . . .” Sorry, is what I want to say. But it seems like I say that phrase way too often to him.
“I’m not going to apologize for what I’ve done tonight,” he says again, more quietly now.
I nod my head slowly, accepting this. We walk home in silence.
“Is there something I can help you with, Councilwoman Lilywhite?”