No.
“It’s a good plan. I just...” He shook his head, a movement so slight she could have imagined it. “It’s a good plan.”
As they drove, she picked up the newspaper and flicked through it. A later edition than the one she’d seen at St Pancras. “Oh my God, I’m on page three.” She slapped the paper with the back of her hand. “Page three! How the hell is any of this happening?”
“What does it say?”
She sped-read, fighting nausea. “The authorities know I’m in the UK. The US wants to extradite me.”
“They’ll have to catch you first.”
“There’s some lobby group arguing that I’m a political asylum seeker. They’re calling me a whistle-blower...literally talking about me in the same sentence as Snowden and Deep Throat. It wasn’t me who blew that whistle.”
“You would have though, if you’d come across the same information your fiancé had.”
“No, I don’t believe I would.”
“I do.”
He did? “If I hadn’t been forced into this situation, I’d never have chosen it.”
“You would have gotten that info out but maybe you would have been more care—” His eyebrows dived together. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to suggest that your fiancé—”
“Don’t apologize. You’re right—he wasn’t careful.” She smoothed the newspaper. “But it wasn’t justhiscarelessness that got him killed.”
A pause. “You mean your phone call, the one they tracked?”
“He took a risk but he might have pulled it off if I hadn’t gotten scared. My fear for his life had him killed. How ironic is that?”
“He knew what he was getting into. He knew the risks. I bet he’d be gutted to think you were blaming yourself.”
Jamie covered her nearest hand with his and squeezed, filling her chest with something between warmth and an ache. Underneath their hands the newspaper rustled. Her eyes pricked. What was going on here? That night in France had been lust and desire, impulsive, to say the least. But this was attraction of a whole other kind. And was she ready for it?
She cleared her throat and shook out the paper, forcing him to release her. Ready? Her life was a mess. She was a mess. “I refuse to feel sorry for myself, not when I...” She stared ahead, sensing his gaze on her. “I will not feel sorry for myself. So please don’t feel sorry for me, because that...”Because that makes me want to melt into you and believe every word you say and take the comfort you offer—and so much more.“I would never have chosen this situation,” she repeated.
“Samira,” Jamie said, in that gentle tone that did her in, every time. “There is no shame in fear. Fear is meant to keep you alive—like when you escaped Hyland in Italy. That’s its purpose.”
“I thought you said that was instinct?”
“There’s no stronger instinct than fear. It’s okay to listen to your fear—just don’t let it makeallyour decisions for you.”
“But my instinct always comes back to fear. It always tells me to cower. Like at the train station—my brain was telling me to go and help you but fear kept me in place.”
“And your instinct was correct. You hid and I was fine.”
“But my instinct is always going to be to hide, to run.”
“And at the spur of the moment those are usually very wise decisions. It’s when your conscious brain tells you to fear that you should question it. When you talk yourself into fear. When you tell yourself ‘I’m a fearful person’ so often that it influences your decisions—a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’ve seen the way you fire up at the thought of injustice. You would have found a way to blow the whistle. Maybe you would have done it in such a way that protected yourself—which is a good thing—but you would have done it.”
She blinked. Wow. “You’ve really thought about this.”
“Not really.” He shifted in his seat. “I’m just thinking aloud. I make most things up as I go along and for some reason people tend to believe my bollocks, which is handy in the medical profession. And, hey, you’ve probably figured out that my big life decisions haven’t always worked out so well. I’m the doc who tells you not to smoke, then dashes out for a fag between patients.”
And the self-deprecating joker was back. Which was okay. She liked the joker. She liked all parts of him—the philosopher, the action man, the protector, the mystery man who lurked somewhere underneath and between. She liked altogether too much of him.
“I think you need to giveyourselfmore credit,” she said, her voice suddenly husky. “What’s that saying about swallowing your own medicine?”
“Giving myself too much credit kind of created the fundamental problem that isCaporalJames Armstrong. And I think the saying you’re looking for is ‘Practice what you preach.’ In my experience it’s far easier to preach.”
