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Jude couldn’t help the gloat this time.
“You like the way I kiss you, don’t you, Kate?”
She swallowed hard. Drew in a breath. And nodded.
Jude said, “You go do what you have to do, sweetheart. I’m not the guy who’s going to disapprove or beg you to stay.”
“Jude—”
“Go. I respect and admire your dedication and your goals, Kate. I’ll tell you that again and again. However much you need to hear it in order to believe it. Go.”
The air shifted between them. An almost tangible thickening that held the hint of remorse and the distinct edge of hesitation.
So Jude repeated with conviction, “Go, Kate. It’s okay. I get it. Trust me…I do.”
“I know. Maybe that’s why it’s so crazy to—” She groaned. “Never mind. I’m out of here. Thanks for all you endured at the party and just…for everything. I had a great night, Jude. The best, really.”
“Me, too.”
She lingered.
He fought the overwhelming urge to kiss her again. To take her to bed and make love to her at least a dozen more times before the weekend was over.
For a few insanely wild moments, he wondered if Kate was thinking the exact same thing.
Then she wh
irled around and marched off.
Answering that question. And not in the way he would have preferred.
Jude watched her pass through the door.
There was a huge part of him that was curious about the wide berth he’d just granted, when all he really wanted to do was prove to Kate they should parlay this one electrifying affair into something significant. Something that would gauge on a much grander scale precisely how fantastically suited they were for each other.
Yet, even as that notion flitted through his brain, Jude had to reasonably accept that sensational sex didn’t necessarily equate to emotional stability—the kind required in a relationship for people like Jude and Kate. People with all those demons they still hadn’t slayed.
For as much as Jude wished Kate had cured everything that ailed him, this current court case of his was proving his theory incorrect.
Making not just his chemistry with Kate volatile, but also Jude’s entire existence.
As he snatched his wallet, phone and keys from the foyer table, he had one other terribly disturbing thought to process.
Kate was the only one who’d ever grounded him, kept him on an even keel. Even at his worst, following Annalise’s suicide, Jude had found solace in his sessions with Kate, in her unwavering gaze and reassuring presence.
Now, she was talking about traveling all over the world to help others. And while Jude found that a valiant cause—and despite the words he’d genuinely uttered to her—he couldn’t help but selfishly wonder how the hell he was going to survive when she was no longer just a call and a car ride away…
Kate stared at the mound of black leather portfolios on the desk in front of her and tried to detect a single heartbeat within her. That particular organ seemed to have stopped working all together.
“It’s like you’re signing your life away,” Nikki Kane said with a casual laugh. “But you’re not.”
“Right,” Kate mumbled, still wondering when a regular thumping of her pulse would occur.
“Intimidating, I know,” Nikki continued. “Legalities up the wazoo and more procedures than you can shake a stick at. Not to mention all the additional, highly comprehensive training you’ll have to go through. A million and one hoops, yes. Each one of them worth it in the end,” she assured Kate with a more intent look.
“I’m not opposed to all the hoops,” Kate said. “I expect them, in fact. Would be severely disappointed if the process wasn’t this arduous. This…intimidating.”
“Precisely why I approached you with my idea, Kate. You’re an innovator. You’re a go-getter. You are not a woman who should be caged within office walls. I envision you making rounds that transcend traditional hospital psych wards and your own private practice. Rounds that involve helicopter transports and international translators.”
