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“You don’t have to do this. You have secrets. I know you do. I’ll keep them for you. I would never betray you, James.”
“This is so much bigger than me. I can’t put my family and hundreds of people at risk. Not even for love.”
Her breath hitched, but she nodded. “Okay. If that’s your choice. I can’t force you to want me. I’m not going to beg.”
She crossed to the foot of the stairs and paused in front of him. He held his breath and braced himself for her anger, but her eyes were only sad. She skirted around him and jogged up the stairs.
He heard her rummaging through drawers and pulling things out of the bathroom. After weeks of keeping everything in her duffel, she’d finally unpacked, and now she was tossing it all back in again. He felt like he was going to be sick.
Coming back down, she set her bag on the floor as she bent to tie her shoes. When she stood, she studied him for a long moment. “You made me believe in happiness again. You made me feel safe for the first time in a very long time.”
Stooping to retrieve her bag, she looped it over her shoulder and settled its weight on her hip. “I spent eight years married to a man who claimed to be good and loved me with his fists. He was a monster. I don’t care what you do. Maybe I should. Maybe it’s stupid of me that I don’t.”
Her fingers twitched on the strap as she reached for the door. “But what you do doesn’t make you who you are. Not as long as you’re good deep down in the ways that matter.” The corner of her mouth tipped up in a small, sad smile. “No one understands the importance of secrets more than I do. And yours will always be safe with me.”
Delaney slipped through the door, closing it softly behind her, and he rushed for it, gripping the handle with white knuckles. He wanted to go after her. He wanted to stop her and bring her back upstairs and apologize until his voice was hoarse from it. He wanted her.
His phone chirped an incoming message, and he gritted his teeth as he dug it out of his pocket. Declan. Reminding him of a family meeting to debrief over what he’d been calling the ‘Devereaux problem.’ James stopped himself from throwing the phone against the wall so hard it shattered. Barely.
Moments later, his phone rang. Declan again. Couldn’t the son of a bitch let him grieve in peace over this? He let it go to voicemail, but it was silent for a fraction of a second before it started ringing again.
“What the fuck do you want?” he snarled.
James could all but hear the raised eyebrow in his cousin’s tone when he said, “Did you get my text?”
“Yes, I got your text. I always do.”
Declan sighed. “James, you know I’m only thinking about the family, the syndicate.”
“I know. But I trust her, Declan. And I wish you trusted me enough to let that be enough. She understands secrets. She wouldn’t betray us.”
A beat of silence. “And how do you know she wouldn’t?”
“The same way you knew Evie wouldn’t. The same way you knew you could trust Libby and Falcone. I just know. Isn’t that enough?”
James heard rustling and the hushed murmur of voices over the line. “Bring her to dinner next week. We’ll see what we see.”
James jerked upright. “What did you say?”
“I want to meet her. Then I’ll decide.”
The line went dead before James could respond, but he didn’t hesitate to grab his keys from the hook by the door and race down the stairs. He prayed she hadn’t gotten far. If he hurried, he might be able to catch up with her. To apologize and tell her how he really felt.
When he burst through the kitchen door into the bright light of day, the sight of her SUV still parked at the back of the lot sucked all the air out of his lungs. She was still here.
He ate up the distance between them with long strides. When her head jerked up and she caught sight of him through the windshield, he smiled. By the time he reached her, she’d climbed out of the cab, and he lifted her into his arms, burying his face against her neck and inhaling her scent.
“I thought you’d be gone by the time I got out here.”
“Well, what took you so long?”
He laughed and set her back on her feet, pressing her up against the truck and brushing her hair away from her face. “Stay with me.”
“But what about Declan? Your family? I know how important they are to you.”
“He wants to meet you. We’ll deal with him, with all of it, together. I love you, Delaney. Stay with me.”
Her smile was wide, and her eyes were bright when she pulled him in for a kiss, long and slow and demanding nothing. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
