She couldn’t even trust her own parents. So what made her think she could trust Cole? He stood next to her and slipped his hand into hers. He bore the brunt of this turmoil out on the ledge overlooking the ocean. He bore it right alongside her. She squinted up at him. Dim lighting from the house illuminated his face. This man weathered the storm with her.
“I won’t leave you alone in this.” Cole spoke over the storm.
Good. At least he’d clarified. He might leave, because that seemed to be his MO, but not until this was over. She would take what she could get. These were desperate times.
For him, she’d go back inside. He held her hand and tugged her down a hallway and into the study—out of earshot of his brother and Remi. Cole led her to a leather sofa and urged her to sit.
She gladly dropped into it, then he sat close to her.
“Whatever this is, if we aren’t misconstruing all of it, it seems painfully obvious to me that your parents were only trying to protect you. That’s all it is. Protecting you was everything to your mother. If she never told you about your real father, that too was part of keeping you safe. If he didn’t know about you because she didn’t tell him, that was part of her plan.”
“You say that, but you didn’t even know her.”
“I say that because I understand that part of her. I knew your father, and I see the actions of a man striving to protect his daughter. He isn’t perfect. No one is. And I understand their need to protect you to my bones. For me, it’s personal too.”
“I feel like I’m paying for their sins, whatever bad thing they did.”
Cole’s expression grew somber. His breathing quickened. “We don’t know that either of them was involved in something illegal.”
“And yet, we’re making a lot of assumptions already. Seems to me when a man runs and leaves his daughter behind—except, of course, to warn her about a bomb—he has to be involved with something bad.”
“You’re correct to say we’re making a lot of assumptions. So let’s just hold off until we have more information.”
“There is just one thing that I’d like to talk about. I don’t want to make any more assumptions.”
“What’s that?” His expression told her that he was dreading what she might say next.
“Why, Cole?” she asked. “Why is it personal? You left. You didn’t communicate with me for months.” Why did she even care, with everything else going on? But she did. “Outside, you said you were with me in this. How can I believe you?”
He sighed. “That’s a fair question.”
Jo angled to look at his features. The first time she’d seen him, fighting to survive but struggling to live on that beach, she thought he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen. He looked like a dark-haired Ryan Gosling to her. Even now, as she waited for his reply, not knowing if he would completely shatter her heart and her hopes, he took her breath away.
“Where have you been?” The question came out on a whisper.
“You know I got called back to DC to answer more questions. I wasn’t so sure I would come out of the chaos that happened last year completely unscathed. And that whole thing made me second-guess myself. I started thinking that I wasn’t right for you. Being with you wasn’t fair to you. You deserve someone so much better than me.”
She’d heard enough and stood. “Stop it. Don’t give me ridiculous cliché excuses. You might as well say, ‘It’s me and not you.’ I’m done with lies from my parents. And now you.”
Heart in her throat, Jo started for the door.
Cole caught her wrist and pulled her back around and almost into him.
She was powerless to move, despite the pain in her heart.I’m so pathetic to lethim do this to me!
“Jo.” He swallowed. She could see the emotion spilling from his eyes.
She closed hers. She had to muster the strength to pull away. He pulled her fully into his arms. She could not let this happen again.
Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear. “I would do anything for you. Don’t you know that?”
Oh, her heart curled in on itself. But she had to be strong, and she took a step back to look up into his dark eyes and pained expression. “I don’t know that. I want to believe you. But you promised to tell me, and so far you haven’t.”
“I didn’t come back because I wasprotectingyou.”
“What? Now you sound just like my father. That’s what that was about. You get my parents because you stayed away to protect me?” She’d heard it all and pushed away from him. “I want the truth. I don’t care how hard it is.”
Cole looked like he was fighting an internal battle that he might not win. He scraped a hand through his hair and paced. “I guess I’m doing this. I’m really doing this. I’m not supposed to do it. But how can I keep you in the dark?”
