"If I make it through winter," she said, "by next summer I could add a third van. Maybe a junior coordinator." She bumped my shoulder with hers. "You could build me the racking for the new cold store. I've seen your work."
Next summer. The words went through me the way cold water finds the gap in a collar. Eight months from now. Her, still here. Me, still trusted with something she'd built.
"Sure," I said. It came out half a second too late, and a shade too even, and I knew she'd registered both before I finished the syllable.
She didn't comment. She filed it, the way she filed everything, and went back to the cold store specs. I spent the next hundred yards hating that half-second more than I'd hated anything all week.
Later, after walking the length of the beach twice and grabbing something to eat, the tension came back. Nadia couldn't settle, pacing back and forth in front of the cats, making my place feel even smaller.
"I should do something. Respond to that post. Call clients."
I caught her hand as she passed. "Let me help you shut your brain off."
She looked at me, and I saw the shift. Anger mutating into something else.
"You think sex fixes this?"
"No. But it might help you stop thinking." I stepped closer. "And I've been watching you fret all day. You'll be useless at that meeting with Cole and the others if you can't think straight."
"And?"
"I don't want you thinking. I want you seeing stars."
What happened next had an edge to it. Desperation born from frustration and fear. She took what she needed, and I gave it willingly, both of us losing ourselves until thought became impossible.
Afterward, tangled together, Nadia finally relaxed.
"I'm still angry," she said against my chest.
"I know."
"And I'm not giving up."
"I know that, too."
"But thank you. For today. For all of it."
I pressed a kiss to her hair. "Always."
She fell asleep in my arms, while I lay awake, counting down the hours until we were to meet Malakai and the others. The words were still in my chest. They'd been there since the night she asked me how I saw her, and they weren't any easier to move.
I'd wondered whether there was a version of me that could say them and still be standing afterward. Protecting her, though, that I knew how to do. Doing that came with instructions.
So I held her, and I promised myself that Elevate Events was going to regret targeting Nadia Becker. Whatever I couldn't give her yet, I could give her that.
THIRTEEN
NADIA
Sunday afternoon at Malakai's old bunker of a home had been enlightening and terrifying in equal measure.
Malakai had spread printouts across the table. "Elevate Events has used this playbook in three other markets. Boulder, Durango, Bend. Same pattern every time."
"Staff poaching," Chase added, tapping one of the documents. "Social media whisper campaigns. Anonymous health complaints. Then the buyout offer."
"And if the target doesn't sell?" I'd asked.
"Two folded. One's still fighting but barely hanging on." Malakai looked at me. "They're counting on you being too scared or too broke to fight back."
