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He pulled away and held her face in his hands, smoothed back her hair. “Just a precaution.”
The private plane they’d taken to Havana hadn’t been a surprise — it was listed on the asset list for MIS — but it had seemed excessive for an investigative agency, even one that did surveillance for corporations and affluent clients. Now she saw that there was more to the business than she’d realized: a private plane meant Nick and his brothers could bring firearms overseas without having to pass through TSA security.
She tried not to think about what else she was missing, what else she would find out from the investigator when she returned to Boston. She tried even harder not to think about the other implications of their predicament — namely the fact that Nick was alone.
If this had been any other case, she was almost certain he would have had backup. Ronan, or maybe even the younger brother, Declan.
Nick was alone because of her. In more danger because of her.
He would deny it, and there was no point adding to his burden by asking him to comfort her.
“Okay,” she said.
“Will you be all right here?” he asked.
She nodded. “I might explore the city a bit, go back to the market, take a swim.”
“Should I be worried?” he asked with a smile.
“Don’t be silly. I’m a grown woman. I can walk a city by myself.”
“I know you can. I’d just rather walk it with you.” He hesitated, his expression growing serious. “I want to do everything with you, Lex.”
She forced herself to breathe. This wasn’t something they did — talk about the future, about how much more they wanted, how much more they’d be allowed when it was all said and done.
“I want to do everything with you too.” It was the truth, and with all the uncertainty in their relationship, the truth was all she had to fall back on.
He kissed her, his lips lingering over her own, his tongue stroking her mouth. She felt his restraint in the coil of his body, knew he was holding back the passion that always ignited between them when they touched or kissed. Now wasn’t the time.
He pulled away and smiled. “See you soon.”
“See you soon.” He picked up his keys and headed for the door. “Nick?”
He turned around to look at her.
“What if we can’t? Do everything together I mean.” She hadn’t planned to say the words, to speak the secret fear aloud.
The anguish that washed over his features terrified her. “I don’t know, Lex.”
He looked at her a moment longer before opening the front door. It closed behind him a second later.
She stared after him, his words echoing in her mind. Nick never didn’t know.
About anything.
If she had a problem, he knew how to fix it, and she had a feeling she wasn’t the only one, had a feeling Nick had been fixing things for everyone for a long time.
Ronan was the face of MIS — she’d picked up on their dynamic as soon as she’d walked into the offices all those months ago — but Nick was the fixer, the money man, the one who solved problems before anyone else knew they existed. He was all of those things and he still didn’t know what to do about their relationship, how to fix the cavernous gulf between what they wanted with each other and the conflicts that separated them.
Of course, it was possible those conflicts didn’t exist long-term, that MIS was exactly what the company claimed to be — a perfectly legal business operation.
But her gut told her there was more to it than that, and not just her gut, but the evidence so far: private planes and investment properties overseas and digital capabilities that quite possibly exceeded the ones she had access to at the AG’s office.
Isn’t that really why she’d come to Havana? To delay the moment when she would have to make good on her promise to Imani to contact the investigator assigned to MIS? When she would have to find out what he’d uncovered about Nick’s company?
Because once she knew, she wouldn’t be able to go back. She wouldn’t be able to brush off the evidence pointing to criminal activity by MIS, by Nick and his brothers. Then everything would be on the table — MIS, the Murphy family, Nick’s relationship with Alexa.
All of it would be fair game.
