He said, “I didn’t intend for that, either. For you to think that, to be upset over it.”
“I know,” she said with a nod.
His fingertips swept away a teardrop. Then his hand slipped around to her nape and he gently pulled her to him.
His lips brushed hers as he said, “I’m not sure you’re ever going to forgive me.”
She gasped, softly. Stared deeper into his eyes.
She knew there truly was nothing he needed to be forgiven for—none of this was his doing, in the grand scheme of things. Damen Castillo (and Nico Valdiviesio before him) was doing his job, his civic duty. Saving lives.
She was entangled in all of that again, as she’d been with Conner.
And perhaps that was what Damen was truly apologizing for, seeking atonement for; that she was caught up in another perilous plight with another daredevil man.
She couldn’t let him shoulder all the blame there—not for her choice in men or for the fact that she had remained with him all this time.
She told him, “I’ve had options along the way, since meeting you. No one has forced me down a specific path. I could have gone with the FBI at the airport. I could have found some other source of protection. I could have asked Jude to meet me in New York and find a solution for me that didn’t involve—”
“Yes?” Damen carefully, cautiously prompted with a crooked brow.
“That didn’t involve you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t.”
He held her gaze steady as he asked, “Why not, Nik?”
“I didn’t want my laptop out of my sight, remember?”
He continued to stare at her, not saying a word. Just silently challenging her.
Nikki wasn’t sure she could articulate all the emotions she’d experienced since that moment when she’d realized it was Nico sitting next to her on the airplane.
The shock, the relief, the…
The emotional pull.
It’d been strong, inherent, fucking cosmic when they’d been at the hospital.
Then as she’d run the gamut of who he could possibly be and how the hell he’d possibly ended up on the same flight as her, in the same row with her, and then the acceptance that he was, indeed, serving a higher purpose than himself, than her…
She was instinctually drawn to that sort of selflessness. For better or for worse.
And Nikki was smart enough, seasoned enough, to know it was usually for the worse.
She’d known from that first conversation she’d had with Kate and Jude about Nico, as they’d learned of his heroism and the people he’d rescued during the explosions, that he was a breed she connected with, one that she was fully simpatico with.
She’d also had to assess that engaging with a man like him… It ran the high probability of being a recipe for disaster.
Of the heart-shattering variety.
And yet what Damen wasn’t saying, what he wanted to infer but apparently needed her to recognize and state herself, was that she had, indeed, remained with him. She was here.
With him.
She’d chosen him.