“I approached the head of the agency I worked through and asked to take classes on supporting people in crisis so that I could then teach others about it—how to spot it and how to respond. A kind of train-the-trainer thing. Not that we’dbethe person to help them, but we could be the people who knew how to find help.” She reached out and took his glass, finishing the last of his wine, too. “The agency still runs that program. It’s a sort of peer-to-peer support group. And it’s one of the reasons some models give for choosing to work with them. The work is always grueling, but when an agency values the mental health of its talent, it’s better for everyone involved.”
“And that set you on a path.”
She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not always great about learning from my mistakes or bad decisions. But usually, once I calm myself down, which may take fifteen minutes or fifteen days, I gain enough perspective to at least ask myself: What do I need to learn from this?”
With the rain pattering on the tall window and the glow of headlights and taillights warped by the drops, something quieted inside Lovell. Something he’d never even realized hummed through him. This gentle night, this night when it felt as if the energy in the room allowed him to rest, truly rest, for the first time in possibly ever, was something he wanted. He wanted the comfort of it, he wanted the closeness of it. He even wanted the fear that edged against his soul telling him if this thing between him and Daphne didn’t work out it would hurt far more than anything in his life ever had. But that fear didn’t make him want to run; it made him want to fight. Fight for her, for them, and for more nights like this when they could be raw and honest and fullythemselveswith each other.
And fight he would.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
James’s whole body seemed to take a breath, reminding Daphne of a kitten she’d once rescued from a garbage bin when she first moved to Paris. It had been wary of her, accepting of the food she offered, the shelter, the safety. But always a little aloof. And then after about three months, he jumped onto her desk one day, blinked his big blue eyes at her, curled up into a ball beside her keyboard, and taken a big deep breath before dropping instantly to sleep. In that moment, in that one exhale, she’d known that Franklin finally trusted her. That he could let all his guards down around her.
He’d died too young, at twelve, but he’d been in her arms when he took his last breath.
James rose and walked to the minibar. Digging around the options, he pulled out a bottle she couldn’t see and poured two glasses.
“Amaro,” he said, returning to her. “Come sit with me.” He nodded to the two chairs placed in front of the window.
She took his hand, and he led her across the room. When she sat, he grabbed the throw blanket and draped it across her lap before taking his own seat.
Rolling his glass between his palms, he spoke. “You asked what I was thinking. I don’t have an answer to that. There are so many thoughts circling inside my head that I can’t seem to catch the thread of any one of them. And then I wonder if any are worth catching at all. At the end of the day, I want to live without a hit hanging over my head, and ideally, I’d like those responsible brought to justice—whatever that might be. I also want the trafficking to stop. I want those women and men, hopefully not girls and boys, to have a chance to heal.”
“But in between what happens at the end of the day and now is more complicated than that,” she said.
He nodded. “Memories keep popping up in my head, like a slideshow. Some are good, usually of my grandfather. Some are…not so good. My mother and sister fighting over a man who wasn’t worth fighting over. My brother slipping out at night and coming back with a look on his face that I knew meant he’d done something he shouldn’t have but was proud of. The men that came and went through our tiny apartment. The blows, physical and emotional, until I was old enough, big enough, to be left alone. The ever-present drugs lying around the house.
“Drugs and violence defined my life, the life of my siblings. I’m not excusing anything they did or are doing—they’ve made their decisions. But the way we grew up, the systems we grew up in…they made it near impossible to break those cycles. To even know they could be broken.”
“And you’re wondering, why you?”
He nodded again. “I did it. I made a different life. The unicorn, I suppose. But why me? Why not them? Could I have helped? Could I have done something different that might have set them on a different course?” He took a sip of his drink, then leaned back. “I can’t change anything from the past, but I’m not quite ready to move on to thinking about what I can learn from this situation.” He slid a rueful look her direction.
“It’s hard to think about that when they are still, literally, trying to kill you. Maybe it’s worth trusting that that will come?”
He inclined his head. “I hope. Right now, though, my mind is a jumble of anger and sorrow and regret and relief. And guilt,” he added, his voice quiet.
“That you managed something very few did?”
“And that I never looked back,” he said. “I just marched forward, happy to leave the stench of that world behind. And forget everyone in it.”
“Daisy was a part of that, wasn’t she?” Daphne asked. He flickered a look her way, then let his gaze drift to the window, as if pondering her words.
“I never thought about it that way, but I suppose she was. When we met, I saw a good person, someone from a stable, loving family. Someone who would want that for herself, who’d create something I could be a part of. A life so different from the one I’d left behind in both New Jersey and the military.” He took a sip of his drink, then kicked his heels out, settling in. “I saw what I wanted to—stability, love, family. And I grabbed on to it as fast and as hard as I could. Maybe a part of me wondered if it was the only chance I’d have. Or maybe I was blinded by the possibility of having it. Either way, I made a decision that nearly cost a woman—my boss’s daughter—her life and left Daisy in prison rather than getting the mental health care she needed.” He shook his head, started to say something, then closed his mouth.
“You regret it?”
“How can I not?” he replied. “I made a snap decision without really thinking it through, without giving myself time to evaluate. That kind of shit could get you killed in the military, but like a kid offered free rein in a candy shop, I grabbed my goodies and ran. So to speak. It was a dumbass thing to do on so many levels.”
Daphne shook her head. “I think it was a brave thing to do.”
He turned his head and looked at her, one eyebrow raised. “You wanted something, James,” she said. “You wanted family and love and stability. And you had hope that you could create it. That’s a bold thing to want, to hope for, when so much in your life taught you not to want or need any of it.” She glanced down at the swirling dark amber liquid in her glass. “And I don’t think you were swindled or missed anything when it came to Daisy. She was, maybe still is, a troubled woman. But I’m guessing she wanted all the same things you did. She wanted family, love, a partner. But her brain chemistry interfered, made it impossible, without help, for her to have it. I’m not making excuses for anyone or anything, but I don’t think you made a mistake. I think you made a brave choice that didn’t turn out the way you hoped.”
His green eyes studied her, then a hint of a smile appeared. “I think you’re an optimist, Daphne Parks.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m practical, James Church. Realistic, with a touch of optimism, maybe.”
He held his hand out and she set hers in it, their arms stretching across the short distance between their chairs. “I can’t walk away from this,” he said, his fingers gently caressing hers.
