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“I…” He nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.” After a few moments, she whispered, “It wasn’t just sex. It was so much more.”
He took a step toward her, his eyes blazing fire, then stopped. What she saw in those brown depths—desire, pain, loss, hope—took her breath away. “You need to go. Now.”
“What?” she whispered, caught off guard, because just seconds ago he’d been looking at her like he couldn’t live without her.
“Leave. Now.” He gave her his back, his shoulders hard. “If you don’t go, if you don’t walk away from me right now, I’m going to chase you again. And we both know I’m going to catch you. We’ll be happy for a little while, and we’ll go back to pretending we don’t remember why we can’t be together, but then somet
hing like this will happen again, and we’ll be right back to this moment. I can’t do that to you, and I can’t do it to Ginny. This needs to end here. Just do us both a favor and get the hell out of my life because I’m not strong enough to do it myself. Not when it comes to you. So, please, just fucking go.”
The pain piercing her chest choked her. She swallowed past it, the sound of her heart breaking the only thing filling the silence of the room, but she was fairly certain she was the only one who heard it. The second she walked out the door, he slammed it behind her and locked it. She jumped then took a calming breath. Something crashed against the wall and shattered, and she covered her mouth, blinking rapidly.
It was over.
They were done.
She’d been right.
It ended exactly as she imagined it.
With her broken.
Chapter Nineteen
Three days.
That’s how long it had been since he’d told Daisy to get the hell out of his life. And he’d been miserable ever since. A part of him, a tiny part, said he’d done the right thing. The sad truth was, no matter how much he cared about her, no matter how much he wanted it to work, it just didn’t. They were like two puzzle pieces from different boxes that would never fit together no matter how hard he tried.
It was time to give up and go back to his own box.
Ending things the way he had was the right choice. He had no doubt that the two of them together didn’t work, and never would. But that didn’t make accepting it any easier.
Steven nudged him with his elbow. “You okay over there?”
“Yeah,” Mark said immediately. “Just focused.”
“On what? The wall?” He pointed to the left. “Mr. DeLaCorte is over there.”
Mark stiffened because, damn it, he was right. He’d been staring at nothing, like a moron. “Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“You’re not the only one,” Steven muttered angrily. “I’ve been left to clean up the damn mess you made, and I’m not too happy about it.”
“What?” Mark asked.
“Nothing. Never mind.” He narrowed his eyes. “Five o’clock. Guy in black. Does he look suspicious to you?”
“Uh…” Mark focused on the man in question. He was watching their charge, a diplomat from France, with a frown. He had his hands in his pockets and was walking toward him slowly. That wasn’t suspicious, per se, but the way his forehead was coated in sweat? Yeah, that had attacker written all over it. “He’s approaching pretty fast.”
Steven pressed the button on their microphones. They had guys outside in a car, ready to rush in at the slightest sign of danger. “Suspicious Caucasian male, in his thirties, dark hair. Requesting back up.” He let go of the button. “You go to him. I’ll go to our client.”
Mark nodded, heading toward the suspect. As he grew closer, he smiled, trying to look friendly despite his tense muscles and the ripples of fear rolling off the other man. “Excuse me, sir, but I’m going to need you to take a step—”
The man cursed in an unfamiliar language, pulled out a gun, and aimed for Mr. DeLaCorte…and Steven. A million things flashed through his mind as Mark watched that gun lift. Ginny’s laugh. The way she hugged him first thing in the morning. His mother smiling as she waved good-bye after he dropped Ginny off in the morning. And…Daisy. Crying.
Shit.
Mark launched himself at the shooter, and he heard Steven behind him do the same with their client. A shot boomed, and for a second, just a second, he thought he’d been hit. That he was going to die, and make an orphan of his daughter. That he was going to die, and Daisy would never know how much she meant to him…or how much he loved her.
