But when his fingers close around mine, warm and solid, it’s like all my fears drop away for just a moment, and something inside me breaks a little.
Bloody hell, I think I’m falling for him.
I’ve been falling since he made me grilled cheese, maybe since before that, and every piece of intelligence I gather is another nail in his coffin.
Or mine.
When this is over, someone will have to put him down.
I look at our intertwined hands. At the man who flew me to the Statue of Liberty because he wanted to show me something rare and beautiful. At the asset who might become a weapon, who might force London’s hand, who might end up in my crosshairs no matter how much I?—
Love him.
The thought snakes across my brain, threatening to undo me.
No.
I don’t love him. I can’t love him.
I don’t even know what love is.
He is the target. That’s all he will ever be.
And yet, I’m still lying to myself.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say, the words coming out of me like they have a will of their own.
Nate looks at me, waiting, and I feel the weight of everything pressing down—Kapoor, Paragon, Prometheus, all of it balanced on the edge of my tongue. The lies, so many lies upon lies.
But these words refuse to leave my mouth. If I tell him the truth, I blow my cover, the mission ends, and whatever fragile thing is growing between us shatters along with it. It will shatter into so many fucking pieces, there will be no chance in hell of them being put back together.
So, I swallow the confession and give him something smaller instead, smaller but no less true.
“I’m scared,” I say, staring at our hands. “Of what’s happening between us. Of how much I…” I trail off, start again. “I know you probably know this by now, but…I don’t do this. Get close to people. Let them in. It’s not… I wasn’t built for it.”
His expression softens. “Neither was I, darlin’.”
“But here we are.”
“Here we are.”
He pulls me closer, tucking me against his side, while the candles flicker and the city hums below us. I let myself lean into him, into the warmth and the steadiness, even though I know it can’t last.
“Whatever happens,” he says quietly, “whatever they try to turn me into…I need you to know something.”
“What?”
“This.” His arm tightens around me. “You and me. This is the most real thing in my life, the only thing that feels like it’s actually mine.”
Oh, kill me now.
My throat closes on me. I want to tell him the truth so badly. I want to confess everything all at once and warn him about what’s coming.
But agents don’t get to want things, especially not NOCs. We follow orders. We complete objectives. We are the ghosts of this corrupt world, and we sacrifice whatever needs sacrificing in order to get the job done.
And sometimes, those sacrifices cost us everything.
So I say nothing. I just hold him tighter and watch the lights of the harbor blur through the tears I refuse to let fall.
