took him by the arms, trying to ground him in the here and now.
She wasn’t dead. She was here. Alive and protected because of him.
“Even if this person is targeting you, Simon, it doesn’t make these murders your fault. You’ve been telling me that this whole time, and you need to listen to yourself. If you’re having trouble remembering that, I’m here to remind you. You can lean on me now, just like you’ve allowed me to lean on you.”
He stared at her with a slight frown on his face, almost as if she wasn’t speaking English. Slowly, he said, “I appreciate that.”
The words themselves didn’t alarm her, but the way he said them, and the way he wouldn’t look at her as he did so, did.
“What’s going on here, Simon?”
He took several steps away from her, causing her hands to fall away from him. “You were right before, Nina. About things having to end between us. We let our mutual attraction get out of hand because of all the things that have been happening.”
“And what? Now that you think you’re personally connected to these murders, things are somehow different and you’re suddenly willing to agree with me?”
“I don’t want to pull you into this more than you already are, Nina. If someone is targeting you because of me, then the best way to protect you is to get you away from me.”
His words made sense, but his timing and the detached manner with which he spoke made her instinctively rebel against them. “Are you sure that’s what this is about?”
“What else would it be about?”
She threw her hands up in frustration. “I don’t know. Maybe the fact that I said I loved you before. Maybe hearing that freaked you out.”
“So what if it did?” he snapped, his eyes momentarily flaring with anger. “It freaked you out, too. So much so that you attributed your words to a really good orgasm.”
“That’s because it scared me. How much I was starting to care for you. But whether we call it love or not, whether it was the sex talking or not, I do care about you, Simon. I need you to know that.”
“I do know it,” he said quietly. “And you know I care about you, too.”
“But you want to walk away from me. After everything we’ve been through together? Just like that? Before you’ve even caught the person responsible for the murders? You’re determined to do what? Leave me alone? Hand me off to another protective detail?” Because I won’t feel safe, Nina thought. Not the way she felt when she was with him.
“Besides the cards and letters, there hasn’t been a direct threat against you,” he reminded her. “I can call in favors. Talk to the members on my team. They’ll help me out. For now? You mentioned your friend Karen before. Can you stay with her? I have to go to this fundraising gala, anyway. It’s not social. It’s work. If I can, I’ll have a patrol officer drive by Karen’s house to check on you.”
“And what about next week? I have to go back to work, too, remember? Will there be a patrol officer checking in on me there, as well?”
“We’ll do the best we can to make sure you’re safe.”
“Physically, yes,” she said almost bitterly.
Her bitterness punched a hole in his composure. Once again, his eyes flared with emotion, but just as he had before, he quickly banked it. “Damn it, this isn’t easy for me. I’m trying to do the right thing here and that means protecting you. If I have a target on my back, I don’t want you anywhere near me.”
“Fine,” Nina said, instinctively responding to his desire for separation when before he’d sworn he wouldn’t leave her alone. It didn’t matter what his motivation was; her heart was bleeding. “Then I’ll be sure to stay as far away from you as possible.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SIMON WOULD HAVE PREFERRED to assign a patrol officer to watch Nina, but getting her to agree to stay with her friend Karen was the best he could do right now. Still, before he left, Simon warned Nina to be careful.
“Don’t take any unnecessary risks,” he said. “Please.” It was like the first day she’d come to shadow him all over again, when he’d warned her not to endanger herself in an attempt to help someone they encountered on a call. He hadn’t known it at the time, but despite being one of the most compassionate women he knew, she