Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 677(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 451(@300wpm)
She felt his disappointment and couldn’t understand it. Not at all. “I could have done a thousand things differently. Can’t you see that I should have helped her?”
“Can’t you see that you cannot save the whole world? You owe Nate. You have to save him first, last, and always, and part of saving Nate is saving yourself. He needs his mum. I need you.”
But she would screw it up. She would screw it all up and then where would they be? She wanted to lean into him, to hold on and beg him to make things right for her. For them. She wanted to hold on to him, but she was afraid.
“I need you.” Brody stared down at her, his hands on her shoulders, eyes pleading.
The best thing she could do was walk away. Turn and walk out and leave everything and everyone behind. Go back to Africa where she was needed, but not needed. They needed a doctor, not her in particular. She didn’t have to be Stephanie Gibson in Africa. All she had to be was a competent doctor, and that might have been how she spent the rest of her life.
But Nate had come along and now she had to be something more.
“I need you, too.” The words came out on a whisper, new words that seemed vulnerable. Fragile words. “I need you, Brody.”
A shudder went through his body and he dragged her close. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear those words. I’m going to take care of this.”
Because he loved her. Because people in love took care of each other. Somehow Tucker’s words were sinking in and making her ask questions. She’d seen plenty of therapists who had traced the source of her guilt and self-loathing back to the night that changed her life. They’d all tried to ease her through so she could live a happy life. But Tucker had asked her childish questions. Questions her own child would one day ask, and she’d had no real idea how to answer him.
How would she explain to her boy that she wasn’t worth saving? That her life had ended that night she’d made the worst mistake a human could make and she was nothing but a shell already serving time in a self-made Purgatory?
His life should be about joy, and if she didn’t find a way to change, she had none to give him.
How did she explain that his birth hadn’t changed her life? Hadn’t made her more than she’d been before? Had shoved her even deeper into a hole?
She didn’t know what to do, couldn’t trust her own instincts. The surface instincts told her to push everyone away.
What did her deeper instincts tell her? What would the Stephanie who never got in that car and went to that party have done?
She leaned close and wrapped her arms around him. She breathed in his scent. Earthy and masculine and safe.
She felt him kiss her head.
“Don’t worry about anything else. Let me handle this.” He kissed her again. “Let me take care of you for once.”
She found herself nodding against him. “Okay.”
She felt him sigh as though relieved.
“It’s all going to be all right in the end. We’re going to sit down and talk this out with Anya’s family,” he explained. “We’ll exchange all the intel we’ve gathered. This is a good thing.”
Brody was an optimist. “And what about Alfi?”
“Alfi claims he lost the thumb drive. He admitted he took it and thought to sell it back to the mercenaries or the company they were representing or the newspaper the journalist worked for. He wanted to start a bidding war, but somewhere along the way, he lost the damn thing. I swear I’ll kill him myself.”
She shook her head, but she wasn’t going to argue with him over semantics. He wouldn’t really kill Alfi. Even if Alfi might deserve it. “Why? Why would he do that to us? He had to know this would go badly.”
“Alfi doesn’t think. He never has. He sees money in front of him and all his morals go out the window. I’m sure he convinced himself that he deserved the money. Bastard.”
“On this we can agree,” Fedor said. “Alfi Dauterre is a bastard.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to hurt him.” She faced Fedor.
“I’ll leave that to de Vries,” he said with a shrug.
Taggart took over, stepping into the middle of the group. “It’s late. Why don’t you take Steph back home and I’ll deal with our new friends. I’m going to have to bring them up to date on everything, but I’m going to do it at the office. This isn’t the place for a meeting.”
Fedor didn’t know his sister had already lost a piece of herself.
Brody’s hand found hers, squeezing lightly. It was easy to see they didn’t want her around when Fedor lost his shit.