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She sprang up off the bed, stumbling over the sheet before wrapping it more tightly around her naked body. The action had the unfortunate consequence of pulling the remaining sheet off Nick’s naked body, revealing the full beauty of his muscled legs and magnificent cock.
She forced herself to ignore both. “Who did what to me, Nick? Who ruined my body? Who left me with all these scars you have to look at when we’re in bed?”
“Alexa…” She couldn’t see him, had turned away so she didn’t have to see the confusion and hurt in his eyes. But it didn’t matter, because she could hear it in his voice. His hands came down on her bare shoulders. “Hey…”
She tried to shrug him off — she didn’t want or need his sympathy — but his hands remained fixed on her shoulders.
He turned her gently around until she was facing him. He lifted her chin. “Look at me, Alexa.”
She looked up at him, angry at herself for the tears that stung her eyes. “What?”
“I have never — not once — thought you were anything but beautiful, anything but perfect,” he said. “Have I ever done anything to make you feel otherwise?”
The uncertainty in his eyes tightened the vise around her heart. He didn’t deserve this. None of it was about him. Not really.
She exhaled and all the anger left her body with the breath. “No. I’m sorry… I guess I still don’t understand why you’re doing this, why you care so much.”
“Because I do,” he said. “Because your strength moves me, and because I know that being capable of fighting every battle alone doesn’t mean you should have to.”
She smiled through her tears. “Is that all?”
He laughed and shook his head before his expression again grew serious. “I care so much about you, Lex. I hate that someone hurt you, that someone left you alone.” He inhaled like it was painful to breathe. When he spoke again, his voice was coated with steel. “Whoever did that — and whoever covered it up — has to pay.”
She didn’t disagree. It went against everything she believed in, everything she fought for at the AG’s office: you gathered evidence, presented it to a judge or jury, let the chips fall where they may. Then you lived with the outcome, even when Lady Justice got it wrong. It was imperfect, but it was all they had.
But how many times had she seen guilty people go free? How many people never paid for their crimes because of a technicality? Because of one diehard on an otherwise unanimous jury?
How many times had she watched a victim’s family cry while the person who hurt them celebrated on their way out of the courtroom?
And all of that was when the legal system had had at least a chance to work.
Her case had never even been heard.
“Okay,” she said. “But I’m going with you. Period.”
She could see the wheels turning behind his eyes as he gauged his chances at changing her mind.
He pulled her close. “It’s your case, Lex. It’s your call.”
5
Nick pulled into the driveway and navigated the rental car toward the gleaming stone and stucco structure sitting on a small hill at the edge of the city. It wasn’t large, but it shimmered like a beacon in the Cuban sun, and he knew the back of the villa opened directly onto the wide open sea.
“Whose house is this?” Alexa asked as he turned off the car.
He looked at her. “Mine, I guess.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “You guess?”
He marveled that she could still manage to look so effortlessly elegant. She’d spent the day before tying up loose ends at the office, staying late to make sure she could be gone for a few days without impacting her cases, and they’d boarded the MIS plane bound for Cuba early that morning.
He was dragging, in need of some food and fresh air and sun after a restless night obsessing over the folly of secretly using more MIS resources on Alexa’s case, while she looked as fresh as a daisy.
“I only bought it six months ago,” he said. “This is the first time I’ve seen it in person.”
“You have a house you’ve never seen?” she asked.
More than one.
