He sighed, pushing his hair back. He wanted to put all of this behind them. He wanted to start over with Nikki. What would it have been like, had Lucas never shown up that night? Would he still only be talking to her when correcting her during training? Why hadn’t he spoken to her before then? Why had he felt the need to follow her instead of approaching her?
There was a knock on the door.
“Open,” he grunted, dropping his pencil onto the desk, relieved to have something other than paper to distract him at the moment.
Cillian strolled in. “Hey,” he said. “Camden’s about to have a meeting. All hands.”
“Be there in a minute,” Jasper grunted.
Cillian tilted his head, looking him up and down, his brow furrowed. “You seem more upset than normal,” Cillian said, almost conversationally.
Jasper grumbled, but didn’t answer.
“Very illuminating,” Cillian said, nodding as if he’d received some sage advice. “Wow. I never thought about it that way. You really have a way with words.”
“Not the time, Cillian,” Jasper muttered.
“It’s never the time,” Cillian said. “So why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Sighing, Jasper dragged his gaze away from the paperwork to glance up at his friend. “You told Nikki about Donovan?” Jasper asked.
Cillian’s eyes widened with alarm, the playful smirk slipping off his face. He squirmed a little and glanced away. “I did. I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a secret, and she asked me not to tell you I’d told her.”
“Yeah, well, she confronted me the second I walked through the door,” Jasper said. He relayed the events of the argument, making them neutral, trying to remove his own emotions about the situation. He wasn’t sure how much he actually succeeded.
When Jasper finished, Cillian didn’t respond immediately. Jasper studied his friend’s features. Cillian didn’t look uncomfortable, necessarily, but he didn’t look entirely at ease, either. He regarded Jasper for a long moment before finally speaking.
“Why didn’t you tell her?” Cillian asked.
Jasper opened his mouth, then closed it, letting the words wash over him. He let out a low breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wasn’t sure how. I knew how unhappy she was, and I thought that she would assume I was being even morecontrolling with something like that. And I didn’t want her to worry.”
Cillian nodded, his features uncharacteristically serious as he contemplated what Jasper was saying. “I think that you need to consider things carefully,” he said. “Because the decision not to tell her that you knew about Vincent and the others, even after the fact, could be construed as you wanting to control her.”
“I didn’t—” Jasper interjected, but Cillian’s raised eyebrow and knowing look caused the protest in his throat to die.
“You didn’t want to keep your mistake from her because you were worried about how she would perceive it?” Cillian asked.
Jasper didn’t answer right away. Finally, after a moment, he said, “You know you’re obnoxiously perceptive when you want to be?”
“It’s a gift,” Cillian said, flashing a smirk. “But the question is why. Why were you worried about what she would think?”
At first, Jasper didn’t respond, more surprised by the question than he would have cared to admit. Once he got over that initial stupor, though, he thought about the question—truly thought about it. Why had he been so concerned about what Nikki thought about him to the point where he would hide something like that from her?
The answer was obvious, once he thought about it for half a second. It was because he was in love with Nikki. He wasn’t sure when he had fallen for her, exactly. Only that at some point, either when he was learning everything he could about her or when they were living together, that fascination with her and need to know everything about her had developedinto something more. He liked seeing her grow into a strong, confident woman. He liked her stubborn streak and her optimism. He liked the backbone she had grown, her refusal to take things lying down if she saw them as unfair, the way she hadn’t hesitated to call him out on his idiocy when he’d messed up. He enjoyed spending time with her, and all he wanted was to make her happy and keep her safe.
Cillian was still watching him, one eyebrow raised in a perfect arch. Jasper didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Cillian seemed to read everything on Jasper’s face.
“That’s what I thought,” Cillian said. “At least you finally figured it out. We’ve been waiting for you to realize it for weeks.”
“Right,” Jasper muttered. “Well, regardless, I’m pretty sure she won’t want anything to do with me now.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Cillian said mildly.
Jasper frowned. “Sorry?”
Cillian gave him an exasperated look and huffed.
“I’d talk to her, that’s all I’m saying,” Cillian said, shrugging. “Take that however you want to.” He glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get going. Go talk to her.”
