Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 59563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59563 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 199(@300wpm)
This was the first time she’d felt she belonged with a man. A man who, only weeks ago, she would have claimed was everything she didn’t want. It was insane, yes, but she was done running from her feelings. She’d come to a conclusion: living to prove what she wasn’t wasn’t living at all.
In fact, over the past few weeks, she’d done a world of soul-searching, but clarity had come only the night before, as she stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep. She’d been living a lie her entire life, trying to be something she wasn’t all to prove something to herself, and to the people she knew. She had to make changes. Which meant, she had to go home, convict Alvarez and then decide where that left her. What she didn’t know was where Constantine fit in to those changes.
Done with her packing, Nicole sat down on the bed. She wore a blouse, jeans and tennis shoes, but soon she would be back to business attire. Today, she had awakened next to Constantine; tomorrow, they would be prosecutor and FBI agent, pretending to be strangers, on their best behavior for the jury. This was the end of the line. Their worlds would separate, perhaps forever.
Constantine zipped up a leather bag he’d bought from the hotel boutique and set it by the door. “Ready?”
The truth was that she wasn’t sure she was ready at all, but she had no choice. She managed a nod, her gaze doing a quick sweep of his body in the process, lingering on his muscular thighs beneath the tight jeans he wore. The man was the caviar of denim. He made it sexy. But then, everything about him was sexy to her.
She drew a breath, knowing there was something she owed him—a confession of sorts. Her wish to pretend she was something she wasn’t had made her blame him for things he had nothing to do with.
Not giving herself time to back out, she exhaled and blurted her declaration. “Back at the docks, I wanted Carlos dead.”
Constantine didn’t move, didn’t appear to quite know what to say. “And you blamed me for making you feel that way.”
“Yes,” she whispered, her chest constricted. “How did you know?”
“The way you looked at me and then the way you couldn’t look at me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, feeling the odd pinch of tears in the back of her eyes. She never cried and she didn’t want to now.
“It was human, Nicole. An instinct to survive.”
He was so close, only a foot away, but right now so very distant emotionally. “I know. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make up for the past, afraid of becoming what I was back then.”
“And I scared you. I walk a line you don’t want to walk. You think I’ll change that. Make you like me.” His jaw flexed. “I get that.” The words held bitterness, a bite that hurt.
Nicole surged to her feet. “No. It’s not like that.”
“It is, Nicole.” He hesitated, his jaw flexing. “We both know the limits between us. We simply stopped talking about them. Regardless of what you think, I’m not a cold-blooded killer, or Alvarez wouldn’t be awaiting trial. But will I kill to save lives? Will I make a decision you might not feel fits your moral fiber? Yes.”
How had this conversation gone so wrong? “I don’t think you’re a killer!” She took a step toward him, desperate to right this.
He held up a staying hand and she stopped. “You’re going back to your perfectly planned life,” he said, “free of bad influences like myself. I brought you into this thing with Carlos, and I will see you through it. I’ll get you your life back. You have my word.”
He grabbed the bags and reached for the door, pulling it open without giving her the chance to respond and tell him that what she really wanted was…him.
***
CONSTANTINE SPENT most of the ride to Austin in a foul mood, aware of her every move, her every sound. She drove him crazy with desire, with anger, with frustration. With…something more. Something he didn’t want to think about. But he couldn’t deny he had feelings for Nicole, nor could he deny how wrong he was for her.
He wasn’t a man who lived within a structured set of rules. Nicole survived by creating control, which meant rules. He didn’t think she was happy in that world, not for a minute, but it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t live as the man who made her question herself. His life had been danger and darkness, and regardless of his decision to leave the agency, he wasn’t likely to change. He’d find trouble; he always did.
Nicole was upset now, but she’d get over it when she settled into her life. He knew all the psych workups. People fell hard for those who protected them, who they depended on. Right now, she would find a way to justify the things about him that were not quite right for her world, but later…later she would see more clearly. There was no reason to make this hard for either of them. He had to take this back to business, back to the place where this started, and ended. It was the right thing to do. Right. So why did his gut have knots the size of Texas?