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Oh, yes, she could. Just watch her. Again, she tried to get him off her, but with her arm in a cast and her leg suddenly throbbing, all the fight in her died and she went limp. Lying on her back, she stared up at him.
“I care about you, Lacey. Deeply. You’re an amazing woman.” He rolled off her carefully, as if she might leap out of bed now that she was free. But she remained where she was and he rested up on his elbow beside her.
“I know you care,” she replied. Unless everything they’d just done had been a complete lie, then his body was telling her just how much he worshiped her. But it seemed his mind was having trouble keeping up.
“I also don’t know where this is going,” he said. And he was right. Hadn’t she thought exactly the same thing right before the abduction? Hadn’t she been ready to leave him behind to continue her travels, then go home? But things had changed. She could see the potential for a future. But he’d shattered that illusion. “And I’m sorry that my heart isn’t quite in step with yours,” he added. His handsome face was cast in shadows, but it was enough for her to see the way the lines around his mouth drew down, showing his distress.
“I understand,” she replied. “I’m not sad or ashamed I told you I love you. It’s how I feel. Perhaps I shouldn’t have sprung it on you so quickly, and I’m sorry for that. But I’m not trying to force you to say it against your will.”
He brushed the hair gently away from her forehead. “You might be the best thing that ever happened to me, and I don’t want to fuck it up. But…”
“I get it,” she said, even though she really didn’t. Would it be enough for her to know that she loved him, even if he didn’t say it back? Should she stay and let him work through his reservations about her?
“Please let me go,” she pleaded quietly, even though he was no longer holding her down.
He rolled to the side and lay on his back to stare at the ceiling.
“I think I just fucked this up,” he whispered.
“No, you didn’t,” she said, easing her way out of the bed. “I did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“LACEY,” A FAMILIAR voice called her name. She pretended to ignore it and wove her way deeper into the crowd of passengers thronging near the railing to get their last look at Devonport.
“Lacey. I need to talk to you.” A large hand landed on her shoulder and she grimaced. It’d be so easy to throw the man behind her to the ground using the same judo technique she’d employed on that very first night she’d met him. The cast on her arm might hinder her, but she was pretty sure she could still do it. She ignored the urge but didn’t turn around.
“Lacey, please.” It was the anguish in his voice that finally did it. Tore a hole in the armor she’d erected around her heart. She turned slowly to meet Nico’s gaze. But she really wasn’t sure what else there was to say, so she just looked up into his face. His beautiful, scarred, imperfect, handsome face.
“Will you at least talk to me? Please don’t leave like this.”
She shrugged. She’d already made up her mind. She was going home. First to talk to her family, and then to restart her life. But not in Melbourne. She’d decided she needed to get away from her hometown, away from the controlling sphere of her mother.
It’d been three days since she’d said those fateful words. Three days she’d spent cocooned in a hotel in Burnie, listening to her phone ring as Nico frantically tried to contact her but not returning his calls. She’d needed time to think. Needed time to sort through the whirlwind of emotions the past few weeks had elicited. Needed time to sort out her priorities. She was no longer the woman who’d bolted to Tasmania to escape her PTSD. That was something she couldn’t escape from, she knew that now. Instead, she was learning to embrace it. Embrace what she’d once perceived as a weakness. Imran had taught her she might never return to the same person she was before she’d witnessed Cindi’s murder, but she could still be a strong and resourceful person, who could contribute to society. It was time to stop running.
She’d also debated long and hard about what it meant to be in love. What love meant to her. And finally, she’d concluded that she couldn’t be with Nico if he didn’t love her. Nico cared for her deeply, that was obvious. And perhaps if she stayed, he’d come to love her eventually. But she needed more. She needed him to say the wordsI love you. She needed him to tell her that he felt the same heart-pumping ecstasy whenever he looked deep into her eyes. Felt the same familiar tenderness when their hands brushed together accidentally as they walked. Had the same aching hunger to have him bury himself deep inside her, and to stay that way forever.
Lacey wasn’t sure why she needed to hear those special words. She’d pondered her and Nico’s relationship long into the night. Nico was a good man—a great man, even. And most women would jump at the chance to have a man like him care for them, cherish them. Maybe if she was a different person, she might be able to see past his obvious issues around commitment to the potential of a life spent building that relationship into something steady and sure. But she wasn’t that person. She had to hear those words to believe in the possibility that love was real. She could accept nothing less. Lacey was no expert on the psychology of love, but she understood that her difficult relationship with her mother had always colored every other human interaction she’d ever had. Her mother tainted everything she said and did with underlying emotional blackmail. Everything always came with a price in Lacey’s life. That shield she’d erected around her heart to keep out her mother’s barbs and emotional bombs also worked to keep everyone else at bay as well. For once, Lacey needed to hear those words out loud, to make her believe what Nico felt was real. He needed to love her enough to be prepared to knock a hole through her emotional wall.
“I’m listening,” she said, taking a step away from him in an effort to reconstruct her mental fortification.
“Do we really have to do this out here? Wouldn’t you like to find somewhere more private?” Nico asked, casting a wary gaze around. His long hair tumbled around his face in the strong wind, and he scraped an irritated hand through it to pull it away from his forehead. He looked tired. Tired and harried. Her fingers almost went to his face, to try to wipe away the sorrow resting between his brows.
“Nope,” she replied, crossing her arms. Because she wasn’t budging unless he gave her a damn good reason. She was already on the ferry. Unless he had something extraordinary to say to her, she was on her way home. A few people were turning curious gazes toward them.
“Fine.” He took her elbow and drew her a little aside, closer to the metal wall of the main cabin and away from the bulk of the crowd. She allowed him to move her, but only because more people were flooding onto the main deck and they were jostling her for a position. She waited for him to speak.
“Charles told me you turned down the job offer,” he said quietly.
“Yes, I did,” she admitted, not meeting his gaze, staring out over the heads of the crowd toward the busy docks instead. It’d been a hard choice to make, but she knew she couldn’t stay in Tasmania if Nico was here. Chief Inspector Shadbolt had been surprised by her decision, saying that if she ever changed her mind to come back and see him. But Nico didn’t need to know that.
“I want you to stay.” Her traitorous heart leapt at his words. “I want you to take the job at Burnie Police Station. I think you’d be great, and Burnie would be lucky to have you,” he continued, taking a step closer. Her heart flopped over in her chest, feeling like a lead weight had settled there instead.
“Thank you, Nico,” she replied as politely as she could. But she didn’t want him to want her to stay for the job. Just because he felt guilty that he was the one driving her away from a perfectly good career. She couldn’t stay and work with him in the same office every day if she knew her love wasn’t returned. She needed more. And it seemed Nico wasn’t ready, or wasn’t prepared to give more. “But that’s not enough.”
He almost looked like he was in physical pain. His indigo eyes were dark and stormy when they finally locked with hers.
“Don’t go, Lacey.”
