“You care about a lot of helpless things.”
Her eyes lift to mine, sharp with understanding. “Is that what you think you are, helpless?”
“I think I’m many things. Helpless isn’t one of them.” I settle beside her, careful not to disturb Misha. “You, though. You collect broken things and try to fix them.”
“I don’t—”
“The employee I was going to fire for incompetence. The kitten caught in wire. Me.” I reach out, tuck hair behind her ear. “You see damage and think it’s your responsibility to repair it.”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“Isn’t it?” My hand drops to her shoulder, thumb tracing the curve of her collarbone. “You stay when you should run. You ask questions when silence would be safer. You look at me like I’m worth saving.”
“Maybe you are.”
“I’m not.” The certainty is absolute. “You need to understand that, Janice. Whatever you think you see in me, whatever potential you’re hoping to unlock—it doesn’t exist. I am exactly what I appear to be.”
She studies my face with that intensity that always unsettles me. “You saved Misha.”
“An impulse. Meaningless.”
“You let me keep Diana.”
“A strategic concession.”
“You hold me at night like you’re afraid I’ll disappear.”
The observation lands harder than it should. “That’s different.”
“How?”
“You’re mine. Protecting what’s mine isn’t kindness; it’s self-interest.”
“You keep saying that. I don’t think you believe it anymore.” She shifts carefully, settling Misha on the cushion between us. “I think you’re trying to convince yourself as much as me.”
The accuracy irritates me. “Don’t psychoanalyze.”
“Then don’t make it so easy.”
Misha wakes, stretching with a yawn that shows needle teeth. She climbs onto my lap like she owns it, kneading expensive fabric with her good paw. The injured one she holds carefully, protective of the healing tissue.
“She trusts you,” Janice says softly.
“She has no choice.”
“Neither did I. Trust happened anyway.”
The words settle between us, heavy with implications neither of us voice. Trust. The thing I’ve been simultaneously demanding and sabotaging since I forced this marriage. The thing she’s been withholding while simultaneously giving me pieces of herself she can’t take back.
The thing that terrifies me more than any threat I’ve faced.
My phone buzzes. Felix.
Minor situation at the warehouse in Queens. Nothing urgent, but you should be there. Security concern.
I stand, displacing Misha gently. “I need to handle something.”
“Now?” Janice checks her watch. “It’s almost midnight.”
