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Alexa walked beside Nick, leaning against his arm as they continued along the water. They’d had a gorgeous dinner at a restaurant on the water, the lights of the city’s hotels and the yachts moored in the marina reflecting off it like submerged Christmas lights.
They’d feasted on calamari dusted with fiery chili, scallops wrapped in ham and fried to a golden crisp, delicate crepes stuffed with prawns and mussels, and duck served with port sauce and a creamy spinach gateaux. Alexa had protested when it came time for dessert, but it hadn’t taken much for Nick to convince her to try a few bites of the rich chocolate fondant he’d ordered, complete with rich vanilla ice cream.
Nick stopped at the wooden railing overlooking the water and looked over at her.
“You’re cold,” he said, removing his jacket and draping it around her shoulders. “Do you want to go back?”
“Not yet. It’s so beautiful.”
He looked down at her. “You’re so beautiful.”
She leaned into him, wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her face against his chest. Desire stirred in her center as she breathed in the spicy scent of his body mixed with expensive cologne.
She hadn’t been fooled by the trip to Gibraltar. It had been a lovely getaway, but under normal circumstances, Nick would never have allowed her to come along. Not willingly anyway.
He would have said it was too dangerous to be even in the same city as a man who’d once worked with Matis Juska, that she was safer at home with Ronan and Declan watching over the house.
He’d brought her with him on the heels of the incident at MIS as a way to get her out of the city fast, but it wasn’t permanent, and she knew him well enough to know that he’d want to protect her until he took Matis Juska — and preferably Frederick Walker — off the board for good. Tomorrow theywould head back to Boston, and she had a feeling Nick would try to talk her into leaving the city, into leaving him.
Maybe that was why he’d been so quiet during the trip.
“You going to tell me what’s on your mind?”’ She didn’t want to fight now, and it would be a fight because she had no intention of leaving Boston when they got home. She wanted him to take her to bed, and she didn’t want anything between them when his body moved inside her own.
He leaned back and looked down at her. “What do you mean?”
“Nick.” She smiled a little.
He nodded and inhaled deeply, turning back toward the water. “It’s my fault,” he said simply.
“What…?” It wasn’t what she’d expected him to say. “What are you talking about?”
“If I hadn’t told you about the irregularities in the investigation, you wouldn’t be in danger,” he said without looking at her. "You’d still be working at the AG’s office. You wouldn’t know about the Walkers or Juska. You’d still be living in your apartment. Would still be on good terms with your parents.”
She was momentarily speechless. It had never occurred to her that Nick would feel responsible forall the changes in her life, that he would feel guilty. She’d assumed his introspection during the trip had to do with getting her out of the way while he dealt with the Walkers and Matis Juska, and while they were probably still going to have that conversation, she could tell from the set of his jaw, the way he wouldn’t look at her, that this was what had been weighing on his mind since they’d left Boston.
“Hey.” She reached for his hand. “Look at me.”
He turned toward her and the anguish in his eyes brought tears to her own.
“I did this, Lex. We can sugarcoat it all we want, but you know it’s true.”
“You told me the truth,” she said. “No one else did that. No one else even bothered to look past the Case Closed stamp on my file.”
“The truth?” He shook his head. “What good is the truth when you’re in danger? When you’ve had to sacrifice your job and your reputation and your relationship with your parents after you’ve already sacrificed so much?”
“The truth is everything, Nick. Especially for me.” It was something she’d realized in the months since she’d left the AG’s office. Justice was only justice if it was predicated on the truth. Tying something up in a neat little bow and calling it donewhen people who hurt other people were able to do it again and again was a lie.
Justice and lies couldn’t coexist. They just couldn’t.
“You say that now, but…” He looked away, back out to sea, black beyond the lights of the marina.
“What?” she prompted.
“How will you feel when this all dies down?” he asked, meeting her eyes. “Even if we win, if we get Juska and expose the Walkers, you can never go back to the AG’s office. The investigation into your conduct will always be part of your professional history. Every time you apply for another legal job, someone will ask you about it. And what about your parents?”
“What about them?” He looked at her like the question was beneath her. She sighed. “Look, I don’t have everything figured out, okay? I don’t know what I’ll do for work when this is all over. I don’t know what will happen with my parents, how we’ll tell them the truth about MIS and what they’ll say about it.” She looked into his eyes. “But I know I love you, Nick. My life before… it wasn’t real. SometimesIdidn’t feel real. I went through the motions of filling out papers and making arguments in court, but what did it matter if guilty people were let go andinnocent people were hurt because they didn’t have the money and power to get the justice they deserved?”
He shook his head. “Lex…”
