She shakes her head. “It’s hard to believe that.”
We’re interrupted yet again to place our orders. We should have invited Callie to our place for dinner, but if she didn’t want us to drive her here, it’s unlikely she would have come over.
When the waitress walks off, Callie says, “It’s been nice of you to send the coffee and other things, but you can stop. Before I met you, I had no interest in dating anyone and absolutely no interest in relationships. While we were at the resort, I suffered a huge lapse in judgment, which only ended up reinforcing my convictions. I can’t trust my judgment, and it’s much easier just to be alone.”
“You can’t blame your judgment when someone is purposely trying to deceive you,” Miles says.
“Like you both were?”
I lean across toward her. “We were doing our job, Callie. We were only intending to do surveillance. We never thought you or your family would get hurt.”
Her head draws back and she frowns, and alarm bells go off in my head as tears well in her eyes.
Without bothering to wipe those tears away, she leans across the table, her voice low and bitter. “I told you all about what my ex did to me, how he betrayed me, and how much he hurt me, and you didn’t think I’d get hurt by you sleeping with me, when I didn’t even know who you were?”
CHAPTER 64
MILES
Max and I reel back, as if we’ve been slapped. We knew this, of course. We know how we hurt her, and how we betrayed her, but hearing her say it, seeing her face as she says it, is torture I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
“You knowus,Callie,” Max says. “You know who we are, you just didn’t know about our jobs. I’m not minimizing the way we deceived you, and our jobs are a very important part of who we are, butyou know us.”My brother pats his chest, right over his heart.
“We knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, Callie,” I say, “but we couldn’t resist the pull we felt. We should have waited to take things as far as they went, but we couldn’t resist you. We got carried away.”
“We never anticipated having to do the bust at the wedding, and we hoped there’d be a way through it all where you didn’t get hurt,” Max says. “We were just planning to gather information, arrest him sometime after the wedding, and then be able to come clean with you as soon as our work was done.
“We almost considered not going ahead with the bust, but we couldn’t put our feelings above the chance to take those men down. We’re sorry we couldn’t tell you ahead of time, and we’re sorry your sister’s wedding was disrupted.”
I meet her eyes, thankful that she’s still listening, and hopeful that she understands how sincere we are. “We made bad decisions, but I hope you can see that we’re nothing like your ex, and if you give us the chance, we’ll prove it to you.”
The server appears with salads, and Max and I both draw in deep breaths. It’s hard to read anything in Callie’s expression aside from the pain.
“So, what exactly are you asking for?” she says as we all sit there, not touching our food.
“We would be very grateful for the chance to have a fresh start,” Max says.
“You want me to pretend none of that ever happened? That’s a pretty big ask.”
“We don’t expect you to forget,” I say, “but what we have is too special not to try to work through it. If you give us the chance, we’ll prove ourselves to you every day for the rest of our lives, and it will be easy, because all we want to do is take care of you.”
Callie’s eyes are big as she looks up at me. “The rest of your lives?”
“When you know, you know.”
“We heard you ran into Ms. Collins,” Max says. “She mentioned that she told you about us extending our lease. We’re working on getting a field office started here.”
“What? Why?”
“To be near you, Callie.”
She looks down at the table, softly shaking her head in disbelief. “You really are serious.”
I take her hand, and breathe a sigh of relief when she lets me hold it. “We’re committed to you Callie.”
“And we meant it when we said we were falling in love with you,” Max adds.
She’s quiet for a long moment, then meets our eyes again. “So, what would a fresh start look like?”
