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Okay.
So, maybe he wasn’t wounded.
He was angry.
“What?” I whispered.
Leo narrowed his eyes. “What exactly were you planning to tell me at dinner tonight?”
I bit the corner of my lip. A lot of the fight and determination I’d had running through me before seemed to have vanished. He was in my space, and he was reacting in a way I’d never seen him before.
Serious.
Focused.
Intense.
My belly began trembling with nerves. In spite of all that I was feeling, I shared, “I was going to tell you that I think we should end things.”
Curiosity was still present in his expression. “Why?”
He knew.
He already knew.
“Don’t,” I pleaded with him.
“Don’t what?” he questioned me.
A rogue tear had escaped, despite not wanting to let Leo see me cry. “Don’t make me say what you already know.”
His eyes followed the tear as it rolled down my cheek, and for some strange reason, it seemed as though he wanted to reach out to brush it away, like it was causing him pain to see it there. If that’s what he had wanted to do, he didn’t.
Or, more specifically, he couldn’t, because I wiped it away myself.
With the tear gone, he focused his attention on our conversation again. “I can’t think of anything that would be a good reason for you to end what we have between us, but I can think of quite a few reasons for us to hold on to each other.”
I could have, too.
I had been thinking about them from the very beginning.
But it all changed just before he left here on Monday morning.
Maybe it was best to tell him, so he could stop with all of this and just go. More than anything, I needed him to go.
So, after I let out a sigh, I explained, “You said it yourself on Monday morning, Leo. You like to keep your distance from criminals. You do what you’ve got to do to get the job done. Granted, at that time, I didn’t realize just how far you would go to get the job done, but the bottom line is that even if I had nothing to do with this particular case you’re working on now, I am still a criminal.”
He tipped his head to the side as his eyes roamed over his face. “Hanna, there’s a lot I want to say in response to that, but the most important thing I need you to understand is that all that happened between us was real. None of that was related to my work. None of it. If I had been investigating you, Ineverwould have taken things where I did with you. Honestly, it’s a bit insulting and very hurtful to think that you believe that.”
Once again, I was struggling to keep up my defenses. Between the sound of his voice and the words that he was saying, it was difficult not to feel myself wavering just a touch. Everything felt so genuine, and I hated that I didn’t know if it was all because that’s what I was hoping was the case, if it was the truth, or if he was just that good at being deceitful.
I didn’t know how to respond, but fortunately, I didn’t have to, because Leo still had more to say.
“And you are not a criminal,” he said.
“What? You mean, in all of your research, you haven’t seen my mug shots?” I countered.
“I did.”
