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“He wants revenge.”

“For breaking his nose?” I can’t fucking believe it.

Yeah, Trafton is an idiot, and he probably wants to get one on me.

Taya!

Everyone knows that she and I got together, but hopefully they also know I fucked her over—that will protect her.

Or not.

I have to go back.

That thought clamors through me.

I have to go back and take care of her.

I put my glass down at that point and don’t pick it up again.

“Son of a bitch!”

“He’s angry, he’s sloppy, and he has a grudge, which is the most dangerous combination.” Kaz watches me steadily. “A four-year-old was in that yard, Brooks.”

Eli with his wooden horse. Fuck!

Steve, who has been giving us space, appears briefly to check the wine levels, reads the room, and disappears again.

He’s good at his job.

“I owe her…them.” Pressure clamps down behind my sternum. “Taya. Clara. Those kids.” I clench my jaw at the effort it’s taking to not scream out very loudly. “I owe them in a way I don’t know how to fully account for. I’ve walked away from jobs before and not thought about it twice. You do the work, you get paid, you move on. That’s been my life for eleven years, and I was comfortable with it.” I turn to look Kaz in the eyes. “I’m not comfortable with this.”

“Because you’re in love with her.”

I look away and sigh. “Are we doing this?”

“We’re doing this.”

I glare at him. “In a bar in New York?”

“It’s a very nice bar.”

I look at my wine and tamp down the urge to run home, pack, and catch a flight to Colorado and sit in front of Taya’s cottage and office—wherever she is, so she isn’t touched by a man like Sid Trafton.

“I have never in my professional life cared what I left behind when I walked out of a job. I did the work, I got paid, the situation was what it was, and whatever came after was not my problem.” My chest aches, hollow and sharp. “Now, I think about what I left behind every single day. I think about what her face looked like in that courtroom when Aldridge deployed her own analysis against her.”

I place my hands on the bar counter to center myself. “I can’t make it not matter. That’s new.”

“You’re in love with her,” Kaz says again.

“We established that.”

“I know. I just wanted you to hear it twice.”

I shoot him an irritated glance. “This is why men don’t talk about their feelings.”

“Because men are insufferable about it.”

“Exactly.”