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He saw her gaze waver, shooting back to the notepad, before shooting back up to him. “So that’s your answer, right there? Like it makes everything okay.”
“Excuse me?”
“Just like yesterday. With Selina. You’re perfectly comfortable operating in those shades of gray.”
Selina? What did any of this have to do with Selina? Nikolas felt himself being backed into a corner and all he could do—all he could think to do—was go on the offensive. “A point I have been honest with you about from day one. Further, I gave you full disclosure of my work and my caseload when you still had every right and opportunity to walk away.”
“That’s right. There you go, practically with your hands up and your voice all smooth and easy, like there’s no problem at all.”
“From my point of view, there isn’t.”
“I guess we’ll just have to differ on that.”
Nikolas had no idea how the conversation had gone so far sideways. Especially from nothing more than a few scribbles on a notepad.
“The reason I came to find you is because Marlowe called. The lab has your results back and we need to meet her there at ten.”
“I guess I’d better go get ready, then.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s a good idea.”
She slipped away from him, exiting the room without turning back. Not only didn’t he understand what had her so upset, he was equally unable to understand where he was the bad guy in all this.
He hadn’t betrayed her trust. And the fact that she couldn’t see that stabbed a pretty big hole in his own.
* * *
They’d been talking about baby furniture. About moving in together. About the future.
How did it all go so wrong?
Nova felt like she carried some blame for it, only she couldn’t take back what she said. Nor could she change how she felt. Nikolas did operate in a shade of gray. He also knew how to use that silver tongue of his to make it all work out okay.
But was that so wrong?
As they drove toward the lab, Nova couldn’t stop asking herself that question.
Nikolas made no pretension about who he was. He’d been up-front from the moment they’d met and he’d acted properly toward his current client in what he shared.
Even the day before, as he’d talked about the visit to the AAG, he was careful to relay Micheline’s behavior, but not its bearing on his investigation.
So what was it? What had her spooked?
Was it just seeing Ferdy’s name, so starkly written in Nikolas’s scrawled handwriting? Or was it something else?
Something that had everything to do with an incredible night spent in his arms and an overwhelming case of emotion she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with.
He’d asked her to move in. He’d looked at baby furniture. He wanted the baby.
Weren’t things moving too fast?
Just like with Ferdy.
Maybe that was what seeing his name in black-and-white had really meant.
She’d made a mistake once. What happened if she did it again?
The lab was a nondescript building in a Mustang Valley business park. As she looked at the low and squatty structure, she couldn’t believe that the entire course of her life would be decided from within its walls.
