“No.” He shook his head. “What you need to know—whatIneed you to know—is that it wasn’t all a lie. It wasn’t some calculated plan that I formulated from the very beginning.” He gestured between them. “This—me and you, our relationship—it was never supposed to happen.”
She crossed her arms over her chest again.
“So why did it? Why didn’t you pull away? You could have politely put the brakes on this thing between us when you realized it was getting out of hand.”
“How?” he asked. “How was I supposed to do that, Samiah?” Daniel stood and began to pace the length of the small teahouse. “Do you have any idea how hard I tried to fight what I felt for you? Iknewbetter. Getting involved with someone while working undercover, that’s how you end a career.” He stopped in front of her, his chest aching with the need for her to understand. “But it didn’t matter. I fell so fucking hard for you thatnoneof it mattered. I couldn’t stay away.”
“So you lied to me instead.” The tinge of hurt in her voice crushed him.
Daniel closed his eyes as shame seeped into his bones.
“Yes,” he said. He looked to her again, struggling to find a way to convey the breadth of his regret. “It was wrong to lie to you, and I’m sorry. I should have done things differently. I could have asked my supervisor to pull me from the case. But that meant I would have had to give you up, and I couldn’t make myself do that.
“I know how selfish that sounds. Itwasselfish. Fuck, my bringing you here is selfish. Enlisting your friends to help? Making you think something had happened to Taylor?” Daniel dropped his head back and blew out a deep breath. “Look, you don’t owe me anything. Not your understanding or forgiveness. Nothing. But I had to make sure you understood that what I felt for you wasn’t a lie. It was real. It remains real.”
Time stood still as he waited for her response, the air redolent with significance, the weight of the moment like a living thing.
Samiah stood and clasped her hands in front of her.After several more excruciating minutes, she said, “This past week has given me time to work things out in my head. And I’ve come to understand why you did what you did.”
His brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly what I just said. I understand why you were compelled to steal my access card. You had several choices you could have made. For one, you could have trusted me enough to tell me what you were really up to.”
He started to speak, but she stopped him, holding up her hand.
“But I also understand that you had another, much harder choice to make: You could use my card to access that database or allow a group of shitty criminals to get away with committing their shitty crimes. Honestly, when I think about it, it’s actuallynota hard call to make. You did what had to be done.”
“But not at your expense,” he said. “You could have lost your job.” Daniel’s heart dropped. “Wait,didyou lose your job? Did they fire you over this?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Barrington understood as well. He revoked my access to the secured databases, but in the most ironic twist in all of this, that turned out to be a godsend. I’ve gotten more work done on my app this week than I ever would have if I was still being pulled in eight hundred directions at work. I even took the day off to finish up the data integration testing.” She shoved her hands in her back pockets and hunched her shoulders in a shrug that seemed much too casual for such a momentous conversation. “It’s taken me a few days to arrive here, but after looking at the situation from your perspective, I’ve come to the conclusion that you truly had no other choice. You did what you had to do. I’m not going to hold that against you.”
“Samiah…” There was no way it would be this easy. She could not be this amazing? There had to be a catch.
“You know,” she continued, the corner of her mouth tilting up in a brief smile. “Even if ithadcost me my job, I think I would have eventually gotten over it. I don’t mind being collateral damage if it means some really bad people get caught.”
“But it wasn’t my place to put you in the position of sacrificing a job that means so much to you.”
She shook her head again. “My job at Trendsetters doesn’t make me. I can always find a new one.” She shrugged again. “Or, I can work full-time on Just Friends. I’ve put myself in a position where I’m not dependent on any single job.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to the side.
“You have cleared up the one question that bothered me the most this week, so thanks for that.”
“What question?”
“I was unsure if you’d started out with the plan to steal my access card from the very beginning,” she said.
“No.” Daniel shook his head so emphatically he nearly hurt his neck. “Please believe me when I say I didn’t set out to use you or to hurt you.”
Her lips eased into a relaxed smile. “Then that’s all that matters.”
He was too afraid to hope, but he had to ask. “Samiah, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if you had given me just a little more time, I would have eventually called to tell you everything I just said. And you could have saved whatever ridiculous amount of money you spent on airfare.”
Relief crashed into him. God, he didn’t deserve this. He didn’t deserve her at all.
“It was worth every penny just to see you,” Daniel said.
