“I must know you’re safe.” Moisture lined his lower eyelids. “I need to know you are out in the world, free and safe. Whatever happens to me, however this ends up,youmust escape. I don’t care if you use that credit card for all your expenses for the rest of your life.Takethe damned money.”
At least he cared enough about me to make sure I wasn’t sleeping in the back of my car. With a working credit card, I get a motel room for a few nights while I figured things out.
It was a small comfort.
I took the card.
As soon as my fingers touched it, a tremble started in the plastic, and the card was vibrating as I found my stupid little white-beaded bucket bag and tucked it inside.
“Thank you,” I said, staring into the dark hollowness of my cheap bridal purse. “I won’t abuse it. I’ll get a job as soon as I can find something.”
“I don’t care if you use it for every expense forever,” he said. “Let me watch you live your life through the statements. Let me see you eat good food, live in nice places, buy good clothes, and go on trips to see the world. Let me see you find love, and have children, and have a good life.”
My heart crushed more. A tiny little piece of me had been planning to leave breadcrumbs for him on the credit card statements so he could find me if he wanted to, so that he could walk into where I was working and smile at me, even if he never spoke to me again.
He wasn’t going to come find me, though, just watch me through the numbers. “Only until I get on my feet. Then I’ll be okay. But thanks.”
His whispered voice was closer behind me, like he’d stolen across the room, his footsteps muffled by the carpeting. “Let me be clear: I don’t care if you put your college tuition and a Lambo on that credit card.”
“I wouldn’t.”
The warmth of his breath brushed over the top of my head. “I abused your good nature. Someone should pay for that.”
Maybe I should’ve ducked away from him, but I already missed him. “You didn’t do anything bad to me. I agreed to it all. I said yes.”
This really was the end for us. These words felt like the final things you said before you walk out on someone.
I didn’t want to leave him.
I swallowed the chalky taste in my throat. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“But I do.”
His fingertips traced down my arm below the puff sleeve of my blouse to my elbow.
I leaned back, resting against his crisp clothes, the strength of his body, the clean, masculine scent of his subtle cologne.
His arms curled around me. I would have called it a spoon-style hug, but his fingers ran up my neck into my hair.
Staying still or pushing away would have been smarter. That would have protected my heart.
I would’ve given anything for a few more hours with him.
Preferably in his bed and in his arms, but anything.
Talking, sipping coffee, watching the sun and shadows travel over the desert outside the window,anything.
I spun in Nicolai’s arms, reaching up, drawing him down because the grief of us ending was too much.
Nicolai’s arms tightened, and he lifted me to reach his mouth.
The wall was against my back. His mouth was on mine, warm fresh mint on my tongue, and I grabbed him around his waist with my legs and over his shoulders with my arms. His arms were around my back and under my butt, easily holding me.
He kissed me, and my whole body melted against him, wiggling and desperate. If he had spun us and tumbled me on the bed, stripped my clothes off, and taken me, I would’ve said yes, yes,yes.
But knocking rattled the door, and we both jumped. He lifted his mouth from mine.“Go away.”
“Mr. Romanov, a bellhop has brought up the cash you ordered. He says he has to hand it to you or be directed otherwise, personally,” Ueli’s voice said.
