Page 81 of Destroyed With You

“I know. Me, too.”

“I called Seagrave. He offered to meet us at the SSA in the morning to fill us in on how the raid went. Emma and Renly will join us, since they helped out. And, of course, Ryan will be there. Damien Stark, too, most likely.”

“Really? Well, okay. That sounds great.” It should sound great. But I still feel numb.

Winston sits on the bed next to me and takes my hand. “The pain will ease, but it won’t go away.”

My throat is thick when I swallow. “I know.” I sigh. “I just don’t know what to do. Right now, I mean.”

“You’re going to do what you always do. You survive. You get through it. You make your way. I didn’t do that after I lost you, and I should have. Working at the SSA has been the best decision that I ever made. I like knowing that I’m making a difference.”

“I do too. It’s just—” I cut myself off, then close my eyes so I can gather myself. “It haunts me, you know.”

“Collins? Of course, it does.”

“Yes, but it’s more than me believing his lie. It’s that—God, Winston, don’t you get it? He authorized hits that Hawthorne assigned. He’d tell me that the target was an enemy of the state, on an authorized kill list, but now—”

“Now you’re wondering how many people you took out who should have stayed alive.”

“If Collins really is dirty, then it’s inevitable, don’t you think?”

He nods and squeezes my hand, but he doesn’t say anything. What could he say?

“The only comfort I have is that I haven’t actually executed that many people over the years,” I say. “It’s mostly been relocations into witness protection. Of course, Collins could have diverted them somewhere else to take them out himself, but at least I don’t know about it. Which is horrible to say, but makes my conscience rest easier.”

“I get it. And your conscience should rest easy no matter what. We follow orders, and it’s not your job to look at your commander and try to decide if he’s dirty. That’s not supposed to be something we have to face.”

“But apparently it is.”

“I know.” He cups my face. “Baby, I’m so sorry.” And then, before I even think about what I’m doing, I’ve moved in for a kiss. A long, deep kiss, that makes me think that so long as I’m with this man, I can get past even the guilt that I feel knowing that I may have killed innocent people.

Gently, he pushes me away, and I close my eyes, a bone-deep sadness washing over me. “Darlin’, if this is what you want, I’ll be with you now because you need it. But after that—”

He cuts himself off with a shake of his head. “Linda, baby, I want what we had, not a casual fuck or two to make us feel better. I told you that in Llano, and I don’t regret breaking that rule last night. I’ll break it now because I think you need me. But this is the last time. I think we both know it has to be. I’m a strong guy, but at the end of the day, my heart’s pretty damn fragile. I want what we had,” he says. “Or nothing at all.”

I blink, releasing the tears that have pooled in my eyes. “We can’t get back what we had,” I tell him, hating the pain that I see cut across his face, even as I feel the swelling of my own heart. “I’ve told you before—it wasn’t real.”

“Lin—”

I press my fingertip over his lips. “But here’s the thing—I don’t care.”

His eyes crinkle in confusion, but he says nothing, so I barrel on.

“I don’t care if it wasn’t real in the past. Don’t you get it? It’s real now.”

He stares at me, his face completely expressionless. “What are you saying?” Unlike his face, there’s emotion in his voice. An edge. As if he’s just waiting for me to push him over a cliff.

I hadn’t planned to say any of this, but it’s all there, pouring out of me. I think I started to realize the truth in Llano, and last night—that desperate, primal need for him—sealed it. “I’m saying that the past was wonderful,” I tell him. “At least until that part where I died. But that’s not something we can build on.”

“Linda, please don’t—”

“No. Hear me out. We can’t build on it, but I don’t think it matters.” I pause as I gather my thoughts. More and more I’m realizing how much I’ve missed him. How much he meant to me. And how much I still want him in my life.

“This isn’t about what was between us. It’s about what is between us. It was different before, because our conversations never touched on our real lives. The deep down truth, I mean. But I still loved you, even if it was all an illusion. But now—”

I see a hint of trepidation in his eyes and hurry to finish.

“Now I know the real man. And I’ve fallen in love with him all over again.”