Page 70 of Breaking the Sinner

“I didn’t think you’d come,” Gen said quietly, arranging the flowers.

“Yeah, well…” He rapped his knuckles on the island. “I almost didn’t.”

“Figured.”

“Yeah?”

She shrugged. “I’m starting to learn how you do things.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And how’s that?”

She sent him another private smile. “I can’t give away my intel. I’m still gathering data.”

“Well, I don’t have you figured out.” He slid onto the stool facing her. “Thought I did. But Little Miss Genny surprised me.”

“I’m not so mysterious,” Gen said, coming around to sit on the stool next to him. He ran his knuckles over her cheek, unable to stop himself. Unable to do anything but admire her. “I’m about the plainest, most open book there is.”

He shook his head. “Not true.”

“Oh yeah? What’s so mysterious about me?”

He dropped his hand. “Why you keep coming back for more.”

She didn’t speak for a few moments. The silence stretched between them, both comfortable and pronounced.

“There’s something about you that feels familiar,” she finally said, jerking her gaze down to the island countertop. She swirled an invisible pattern there with her index finger. “Something that I want to protect.”

“Protect?” He snort-laughed. “Protectme?”

She jerked her head into a nod. This innocent, real-world virgin wanted to protecthim. The irony made his head spin.

“I don’t need anybody to protect me,” he went on.

“That’s not what I mean.” She sighed, tipping her head back, as though searching for the explanation in the ceiling. “There’s something inside you that I want to protect. Like, your spirit.” She jerked her emerald eyes to find his, and suddenly he was rooted. He knew what she meant. His chest tightened.

“Well, thanks,” was all he could say.

She smiled so genuinely that his fingers twitched, wanting to take a picture of her. To remember the purity of her interest. The depth of her recognition of him. The way that she could reach parts of him that nobody,nobody, had even come close to touching.

“You’re really special.” She reached for his hand, threading their fingers together.

“So are you,” he said quietly.

She tilted her head. “We’re special together. Know what’s great about you?”

He dipped his gaze, shaking his head.

“You accepted me from day one even though you thought I was an alien.”

A tiny laugh escaped past the boa constrictor–grade tightness of his throat.

“It takes a really open heart to do that. And it’s not just an open heart you have. You have an open future. You should show up to work on Monday.”

He watched as her creamy fingers brushed his rough, battered hand. The knobs of his knuckles, the cuts that betrayed the last three days in the sinkhole of his home. He’d taken a sabbatical—that’s what Klay had gleefully called it—but really it had been more like a visit to an insane asylum.

A visit that had thankfully been cut short.

Because of her.

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