No Fair Lady

This man.

This marvelous, bullheaded, wounded, marvelously stupid man.

Reeling is the only word that describes this state of being.

How can I lose my daughter again, and get Oliver back in the same day?

Durham, I’ll never get close to him again. I’ll never pry whatever he knew out.

Not even if Oliver’s FBI contact locks him up.

“I always wanted to be with you, if you’d just told me! If you’d just…found me…” So much for not breaking. Everything’s going blurry, my mouth salty and my eyes burning. “Fuck, we could’ve been—”

“Living on the run? Isn’t that what you’ve been doing since that last big romp in Heart’s Edge?”

He doesn’t say it—how’s that working out?—but the fact that he doesn’t need to is totally Oliver.

And the fact that he’s right, that the answer is not fucking well, hits me so hard I sway on my heel.

He catches me effortlessly.

I’m a wanted woman, however resourceful.

In hindsight, it’s nothing short of a miracle I was even able to get to Durham without winding up arrested, living a life in the shadows and always focused ever since the truth came spilling out about Galentron and my presence in Heart’s Edge over the past year.

I can’t even tune into Blake Silverton’s stupid conspiracy love line radio show without hearing my name and the latest salacious rumors at least once a week.

I don’t know how Leo Regis pulled off living in the wild as a fugitive for eight freaking years. I haven’t even hit the one-year mark, but I know it’s just a matter of time before my luck runs out.

And unlike him, no heroics in the world will redeem me.

No judge would exonerate a Galentron agent who did the unforgivable several times over.

The truth is a cold, practical splash of reality—but there’s nothing icy at all about the huge arms that come around me, wrapping me up in Oliver.

In his familiar warmth, his strength, his indescribable scent. That smell always makes me think of a warm day deep in the forest, steady and soothing and just a little sharp.

It guts me.

And I finally collapse in a wretched heap against his chest, leaning against him, mourning…

Everything.

Her.

Me.

Him.

Time.

An entire life without him or the family I should’ve had.

“Listen.” His voice rumbles against me, soothing and low and surprising. “If you’d been with me, you never would’ve pulled it off. Never would’ve been in the position to do the things you did.”

“What things are those?” I snap. “Building Durham up into a bigger monster? Dragging my heels after I finally got up the gumption to exit? Taking forever to finally do something, and convince the good people of Heart’s Edge that we could put them down, once and for all?”

“Good things, Fuchsia.” His words darken with regret, but they’re so gentle. “I know. I know we’ve lived stained lives. Poisoned lives apart.” He touches my jaw, then, stroking gently, nudging me up to look at him, at that lonely remaining hazelnut eye that’s so warm with emotion. So filled with the acceptance that’s always been a part of who he is, who we are. “Do you know how many people you’ve saved by working to take Galentron down?”

“I couldn’t save her,” I choke out miserably, swallowing against my tight throat. “I couldn’t save our baby girl.”

“No,” he says. “But someone did.”

I look up sharply. That edge in his tone is too knowing.

I’m afraid to feel hope.

I’m afraid to be shattered again when I’m holding together beneath a skin thinner than fine crystal.

But I can’t help how my heart freezes, how my breath catches, as I stare at him.

“…what?”

“Guess what else I’ve been doing all these years? I had a lot of time to keep tabs. And five or six months back, I made a breakthrough. I found her.”

He gives me a one-sided smirk, confident, and so alive with warmth as he steps back, taking my hand.

Then pulls me close and kisses me then and there.

Holy shit.

I haven’t been kissed since the last day I saw him.

No matter where my job took me, no matter who I pretended to be, no matter how I froze over…

What I never stopped being was someone whose lips belong only to him.

Someone who loves him.

It’s like he breathes life back into my heart, into my soul, as his mouth slants hot and hard against mine. Oliver kisses with years of pent-up passion and longing.

I answer with the taste of candy and the desperation of a woman who can’t hold it together without him, my tongue meeting his in a war of need and loss and sadness and hope.

And he’s grinning, breathlessly, his mouth stained with my lipstick and that faint trace of pink sugar and dye.

He squeezes my hand tight and takes another step back.

“We’re not out of the woods yet, wildcat,” he says. “Let’s get out of here without getting caught, and then I’ll show you everything.”