He promises me chicken piccata for dinner, along with garlic bread and fresh green beans. My mouth waters, but by the time everything arrives, I’ll have called Gladys. Will I have any appetite left after that?
“What’s wrong, baby?” Doc asks, pressing a kiss to my neck and sliding his arm around my waist.
“I’m fine.” The overwhelming sadness in those two simple words fills the room, expanding into every corner until I can taste my own helplessness.
“Don’t lie to me, Natasha. You’renotfine.” His words hold such pain. I remember what Graham said to me in the hospital.
“Doc doesn’t lie. The man is about as straight and narrow as they come. Yet he trusts you enough he’s willing to do it for you.”
I haven’t trusted anyone that much since Logan died. But maybe…I could try.
“Even if West and his teamcando everything they claim, Bastian could still find me. Maybe not today or this month or even this year. But he willneverstop looking for me. And when he finds me, hewillkill me.”
“Fucking hell. No. He’ll never touch you again. Not while you’re with me.”
Doc is a protector to his very core. It’s all he knows. All he is. Every cell in my body wants to believe him. But he doesn’t know Bastian. I do.
“I can’t lose you.” I take his hand, holding on with all my strength. “Somewhere in the middle of all of this…I started falling in love with you, Doc. If Bastian finds me—whenhe finds me—you have to let me go.”
“No fucking way. How can you ask me that, Natasha? If you reallyarefalling in love with me, how can you be okay with letting me go?”
“Because it’s the only way to keep you alive.”
We face off for almost a minute before Doc tries to pick up one of the heavy duffel bags he brought from his home. With a grunt, his grip fails, and the bag hits the floor.
“Let me get that.” I can’t stand to see him hurting. He won’t take anything stronger than ibuprofen, which he’s been popping like candy since the moment he got up this morning.
As if he needs to prove—to himselfandto me—that hecanprotect me, he tries again. This time, he manages to haul it onto his shoulder.
“Dammit! Stop!” I stalk down the hall after him. He doesn’t get to walk away from me. Not like this. I’m so tired of feeling invisible. Ofbeinginvisible.
No friends. No family. No home. No future. Always pretending I’m okay.
“Put the bag down, Doc. I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, but it stops right now.”
“I’m trying…to take care…of you.” He’s wheezing again. Fuck.
He won’t look at me, instead staring out the bedroom window down at the street below.
I snuggle up to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and breathing in the scent of him. “I can’t lose you, Doc.”
He doesn’t react. His voice, when he finally speaks, holds no emotion at all. “Then how can you expect me to be okay with losing you?”
I leavehim in the bedroom, stretched out on the king-sized bed with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. These bouts of wheezing could continue for days, but he brought three portable tanks with him and claims he’ll be fine in half an hour.
So I curl up on the couch and stare at the new smartphone West gave me. I don’t understand how it can possibly be safe to use it. Ripper tried to explain how he’d installed some sort of encryption program that would stop anyone from tracking me, but by that point, I was so tired, nothing made any sense.
Gladys picks up on the second ring. “Nat! Did you miss me?”
I’m frozen, a hundred different replies racing through my mind.
I’m sorry. I’ve been lying to you for years.
You have to stay in Seattle.
I’m not who you think I am.
“Baby girl, what’s wrong?” In the background, I hear Bella say something before Gladys lowers her voice. “It’s Nat. But she’s not saying anything.”
