before she reached the exit. She kicked out and tried to wrestle free. “Let go of me, you son of a bitch!”
“Not until you hear me out!” He muscled her arms around in front of her until he had them pinned in both of his hands. Groaning from the effort of controlling her flailing, he walked backward and dropped onto the bed in a seated position with her held firmly in his lap.
“Let me go,” she growled again, struggling once, twice more to no avail.
“Not yet.” He tightened his hold, flipped his leg over hers so she couldn’t nail him with her heel. “Not until you listen to what I have to say.”
“Go to hell!” She thrashed against him again, even though she knew it was useless.
“You’ll probably get your wish.” He shifted his head to the side so she couldn’t crack him with the back of her skull. “Until then the least you can do is give me five minutes of your precious time. I’ve given you way more than that over the last two days.”
She ground her teeth together, twisted in his arms, and knew she was stuck. But the minute he loosened his grasp…
In the silence between them, she heard his heavy breathing, mirroring hers, felt the beat of his heart at her back and wanted to scream for him to just get it over with so she could get as far away from him as possible.
But he didn’t. He just sat there until she cooled down.
Which only pissed her off more.
Long minutes later, he finally said, “That’s better.”
“Fuck yo—”
“Kat.” He dropped his forehead against her back, and there was such pain in his voice, she closed her mouth instantly. In that one word—her name—he sounded distraught and…sad. And though she didn’t want it to, it softened her, just enough so she could listen to whatever it was he had to say without a brawl.
He heaved out a breath. “You don’t have any idea what you did to me. What that weekend did to me. It changed everything. I cut off my deal with Busir. I went home to Miami and started cleaning up my business because I didn’t want you to know what I’d been doing. I tried to stay away. God, I really did. But I couldn’t. Do you have any idea how hard it was to stay away from you for two damn weeks?”
Yes, she did. Because at the time two weeks away from him had been like pure hell for her.
“It was worse than hell,” he said, almost as if he’d read her mind. “I knew after we were together you were frustrated with me because I wouldn’t talk to you about the gallery, because I was traveling so much, but I was brokering deals, working my ass off to get Odyssey on the level before your dig was up and you came back to the States. I didn’t want you to know the man I’d been. I wanted to be…better.”
The fight rushed out of her at his words.
“I swear to you,” he said, “I didn’t have anything to do with the smuggling ring or Ramirez’s death or what happened to your roommate. That day you came home from work early and I was packing—shit, I screwed up, Kat. Busir contacted me just after you left that morning and told me he had some new relics. I shouldn’t have gone, but I went to see, and the next thing I knew, I had them. I didn’t know they were from your tomb. I swear it. I fucked up. If I could go back and change that day, don’t you think I would?
“I’ve spent the last six years paying for that one mistake. Knowing if I’d done things differently, you wouldn’t have been in that car the day that bomb blew. You would have been with me. You’ve got no reason to believe me, but I swear to you, I cleaned up my act after that day. Even though I knew it wouldn’t bring you back. I cleaned up because I owed you.”
Kat’s heart skipped a beat at what she heard. Then another. And another. And then it kicked in and started beating fast and erratic as the reality of what he was telling her took root.
He wasn’t a saint. But he wasn’t the sinner she’d pegged him as either. And she’d made her own fair share of mistakes, hadn’t she? Could she really condemn him if there was a chance what he said