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Something inside her went very dark and very cold. How could he do this to her?
“I mean it, Claire. It’s me or the Clarion and all the rest of the jewelry and gold stolen from the victims of the Nazis.”
“What?” she whispered, stepping forward as her frozen heart shattered into a million pieces.
He turned and locked eyes with hers. “It’s me or the heist. Choose.”
Claire turned her back to walk into the cottage. She’d never felt more alone in her life. She supposed in some ways he’d told her everything she needed to know. Apparently, he could live without her; perhaps it was time she learned to do the same.
CHAPTER13
FLETCH
Looking at her was physically painful. He loved her so much and she seemed to be unable to make the choice he needed her to make. Was he going to lose her to this obsession she had? An obsession that only she and those to whom she gave over the pieces of stolen jewelry would ever know or care about.
Claire stopped at the doorway and turned back towards him. “How can you say that to me? How can you issue an ultimatum and think I won’t tell you to go fuck yourself?”
So that was her response. Not only wouldn’t she give up her Don Quixote-like quest, but she would also turn on him.
“Because I don’t know any other way to get through to you.”
“You know how much I loved my granda. You know what the Clarion meant to him and why I am determined to see this through. Can’t you just turn your back and let me finish?”
He really had hoped to avoid this confrontation standing in the middle of the cottage’s front lawn, in front of his team, but she seemed determined to have it out with him.
“Do I mean anything to you?” he asked. “Was any of it real? Or was I just a means to an end?”
She jerked her head back as if he’d physically struck her. He wanted to go forward, fold her in his arms, and tell her they’d find a way, but they were at a crossroads and Claire needed to decide which way she wanted to go.
“How can you say that to me? One minute you tell me you love me and the next you’re telling me I have to choose? Why is it me? Why can’t you be the one to choose between me and forcing me not to do something that you know is important to me?”
“Because I’m not the one breaking the law. I am on the right side of this, you aren’t.”
“Do you have any idea how much I love you? Do you know I’ve never said that to any man before? How can you not know how important you are to me?”
The instinct to soothe her fears was so strong. He needed her to be strong enough to choose him.
“If I’m that important to you, you’ll abandon this deadly mission of yours.”
She recoiled from him and turned back to the cottage. “I want you and your men off my property tonight. Mia, you should probably go with them.” She made her way inside without saying another word.
Mia started to say something, but Carter, who had also returned from London, reached out and pulled her back. “Let them be. If we pull out, you’re coming with us.”
“I’ll stay with Claire.”
“Let me put it a different way, you’ll be coming with me.”
“Way to step up to the line,” said Fletch as he started to follow Claire into the house. “Orders remain the same. Claire and I need to hash this out.”
He followed her into the bedroom. “That’s not going to work. You’re going to need to stop walking away from a conversation with me when it gets uncomfortable.”
She whirled around, her eyes filled with unshed tears. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. I’ll do whatever I bloody well want to.”
Fletch shook his head as he walked forward and grabbed her hands in his. “No, you won’t. We’re not through, you and I. I’m sure this whole thing feels like some kind of tempest that I’ve created, but I haven’t. The last thing your grandfather wanted was to see you get hurt, much less killed. You seem to have forgotten that not too long ago, somebody tried to do just that.”
Something about Claire changed in that instant. It appeared she was about to say something and then stopped as if something else occurred to her. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it felt as if they’d reached the crest of the argument and were about to begin making their way down to a better understanding between them. She looked at him expectantly.
He rubbed the backs of her hands with his thumbs. “What is it, sweetheart?”
