“And you’re not hesitating.”
“Oh, I am,” I murmur. “Just not for the reasons you think.”
Her eyes sparkle with heat, morphing into exhaustion. “Then why?”
I take a step closer, just enough for the hum of the machines to recede, for the room to narrow into something intimate, dangerous.
“Because once we do this,” I say quietly, “you won’t just be part of the plan. You’ll be the center of it. The face of it. Anton won’t see you as a threat, he’ll see you asthethreat.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” I ask, softer, darker. “Do you understand what he does to people who stand in his way?”
She lifts her chin, refusing to be intimidated, refusing to retreat.
“I’m already in his way.”
God help me.That strikes something inside my chest with a force I don’t expect.
She steps closer too, as if pulled forward by something magnetic and inevitable.
“Damian,” she whispers, “you don’t have to protect me from this.”
“Yes,” I say, “I do.”
Her breath catches, tension sinking under the skin, slow and startling in its intensity. The space between us stretches thin as wire, humming with dark, unspoken electricity.
Her gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then back to my eyes so quickly I almost think I imagined it.
She inhales shakily.
“Then tell me what happens next.”
“We go public,” I say, voice low. “We announce the initiative at dawn. You and I together. Unified.”
“And Anton’s men?”
“We’ll be ready for them.”
She nods slowly, her eyes fixed on mine like she’s searching for the parts of me I don’t show anyone else.
“We can do this,” she murmurs. “Together.”
We.
Again.
The word coils inside me, warm and unwelcome and necessary.
Harper watches me, her expression unreadable, but her pulse visible at the base of her throat, fluttering like a trapped spark.
I clear my throat, steadying myself. “Get some water,” I say. “You haven’t moved in hours.”
“You haven’t either,” she counters.
There’s a faint, almost-smile full of exhaustion at the corner of her mouth. It twists something inside me I don’t have a name for.The mouth on this woman.
“We’ll rest when Anton is in the ground,” I mutter.
