“Not for your body, baby.” He taps my forehead with two fingers. “For your head. Like I said, if I leave you alone, you’re going to eventually kill yourself.” His head tilts, “So immediately after this mission, you’re going to see a doctor. Threetimes a week.”
My patience escapes me for a moment as I snap, “You mean a fuckingtherapist—”
“I love therapy.” There’s an amused light to his eyes as he repeats words from a long time ago.
“Crazy bastard,” I’m pushing his face away with my palm as my temper lashes out. When I could’ve sworn a moment ago, I wasn’t feeling anything. “I just told you what I need.”
“No. You told me what youwant… and I refuse.”
How could you be like this? I’m watching him speechlessly.
“Reuben, I—Ineedthis.”
“And I need you.”
How? When did it get like this?
“I hate watching you get hurt,” he growls. “I hate watching people hurt you. I hate the way you’re so careless with your life. Iloatheyour dead for dragging you around like this.”
“Reuben!” My hands snatch out to hold his face and for a moment I swear something inside him trembles. His resolve wavers as he watches me.
“Please.” I rub my thumbs against his cheeks. “Just for a little while.”
“All this time I was thinking… you’d run away at any moment.” His eyes darken. “But it’s worse than that. The moment I turn my back… you’re going to die, Christian.” His forehead rests against mine, “And I can’t chase you if you die.”
I’m sorry, Reuben. I take out all the ‘colours’. Delve only into the emotions that want to be with him before spinning my lie.
“I won’t die, baby. I just want to be focused. I’ll even… go to the doctor if you want… But I need space. Just for a little while… To get better.”
He watches me for a long moment, and there’s that tremor again, in the air around him. A vulnerability I've never seen before as he brushes my cheeks with his thumbs.
“Who’s going to keep me together if I put space between us,estrellito?”
My heart hurts.
It hurts but... it’s better that we do this now, before you become more attached to me.
Better now so that you can survive when we have to say goodbye.
He releases a breath and somehow I know he’s caved to me. His expression hardens, “The moment you do anything reckless, the moment I hear you’re throwing yourself in front of others again, the cards are off the table. Then there won’t be a single place you can go without me by your side. Understood?”
A small smile touches my lips, and even then I’m sure to remove the sadness—I keep only the parts of me that… love him. I pull him down to me to place a kiss in his hair—letting my lips linger there for a moment longer—soaking in his scent for the last time.
“Yes, sir.”
This time, when I pull away, he lets me go. When I walk past him, he doesn’t come after me… but when I look back, I swear the size of his back looks smaller than before.
I swear he’s barely holding himself up.
Chapter 25
‘Christian’
Philip’s yacht sails for the next six hours, travelling down the inlet before finally meeting the sea and docking at an island along Puget Sound.
Those hours are endless. It’s as though the atmosphere in the car has teeth—so razor-thin and jagged that even the slightest movement would tear through flesh.
As the hours go by, we make it look like we lost them, or that we’re still searching, just in case Philip’s backer still has eyes on us. So even after Philip’s boat comes to a stop, we make a show of following the inlet further—of having lost the trail.
