I’m almost to my door when I hear footsteps behind me.
“Sasha.”
I turn. Tony is standing fifteen feet away with his hands in his pockets. Boris is nowhere in sight, which means he’s giving us privacy while still watching from somewhere.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“I need to apologize.”
I wave my hand in the air. “I don’t want apologies.”
“Then what do you want?”
The question stops me.
What do I want?
For him to have never taken Adrian’s contract? For the past month to have been real instead of a mission? For my body to stop responding every time he’s in the same room?
“I want to understand who you are,” I finally reply. “Not the operative. Not the cover identity. Just you. Who is Tony when he’s not running a mission?”
He takes a step closer. “Honestly? I don’t know anymore. I’ve been someone else for so long that I’m not sure there’s anything real left underneath.”
He runs a hand through his hair, and I remember grabbing that hair while he was on his knees in front of me.
“But I can tell you what I know,” he continues. “I’m someone who lost his entire team in Chechnya three years ago because I trusted an asset I was sleeping with. She fed me false intelligence that got six good men killed. Men who trusted me to keep them safe.”
“What happened to her?”
“The Agency pulled me out before I could do anything I’d regret. She disappeared. Probably got paid well for her work. After that, I stopped believing I deserved anything good. Stopped letting myself get close to anyone. The work became the only thing that mattered because it was the only thing that couldn’t betray me.”
“And then you took Adrian’s contract.”
“I took Adrian’s contract because it was just another job. Money for information. No attachments. No risks.” He takes another step closer. We’re ten feet apart now. “Until I met you at that wedding and realized I’d miscalculated everything.”
“Stop.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re good at this. At saying exactly what I want to hear. And I can’t tell if you mean it or if it’s just another performance.”
“It’s not a performance.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? You’ve admitted to lying, Tony. You’ve admitted you took money to destroy me. So tell me why I should trust a single word out of your mouth right now.”
He opens his mouth. Closes it. Takes a breath.
“You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t trust me. You shouldn’t believe me. You should walk away and never look back because that’s the smart thing to do.”
He moves closer. Five feet now. Close enough that I have to tilt my head up to maintain eye contact.
“But Sasha, I’m standing here anyway,” he continues. “Telling you the truth. Hoping like hell that you’ll see the difference between what I was hired to do and what I actually feel.”
“And what do you feel?”
“Terrified. Guilty. Like I’m drowning and you’re the only thing keeping me afloat.” He’s so close now I could reach out and touch him. “Like maybe I don’t deserve you, but I want to try becoming someone who does.”
The honesty in his voice makes my throat tighten. My body remembers him. Wants him. I could close the distance between us in two steps. Could pull him into my room and let him remind me why I fell for him in the first place.
