Page 37 of Kiss of Steel

“I haven’t bought you anything other than a meal yet.” In three more days, they would get paid, but the way he ate, he’d need his entire salary for food.

They’d been at Haven for six days, logging four official workdays, with one more to go before they got two days off. The first day back was payday.

“The meals are more than enough.” He swallowed.

“Tell me what’s wrong. If I said something, did something to upset you—”

“Noth—”

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “Don’t you dare tell me nothing, when obviously it’s something! Don’t tell me you’re tired after working all day. That’s bullshit. Don’t try to make me doubt myself or my feelings. I know what I know, and I feel what I feel. Something is going on!”

He set his fork beside his plate and bowed his head. “You didn’t do anything.”

“You say that, but you won’t even look at me.” Her heart fluttered with anxiety. “What am I supposed to think?”

He didn’t answer. An alien man looking for a place to sit approached with his tray of food, and she glowered at him until he scurried away with his tail between his legs.

Jason lifted his head to reveal haunted eyes. “Don’t leave me. Please, don’t leave me.”

Chapter Sixteen

Honoria’s jaw dropped. “Leave you? I’m not going to leave you.” She reached across the table and grasped his hand.

“You would if you knew what I’ve done,” he said miserably.

“I doubt that. But, tell me. What have you done?”

Did she notice how she retreated from certainty? From an unconditional,I’m not going to leave you, she’d shifted todoubtingshe would, which left open the possibility she might.

She totally would. Staying married was no longer about maintaining sanctuary but because he couldn’t live without her. Living without her wouldn’t be living.

“I can’t tell you,” he said. “I wish I could, but I can’t.”

He’d vowed vengeance against every Solutions employee. When Honoria mentioned she’d worked for them, an almost-murderous rage had ignited in his gut, but then, thankfully, sanity and reason had prevailed. She had worked for the company, but she hadn’t been a party to their heinous acts. Heknewthat. She was good. Decent. But he could never tell her he was a cyborg, let alone any of the other stuff. A person as pure as her would never understand, would never be able to accept him.

Her boss at Solutions had intended to have her killed. If not for the Chicago incident, which forced the company to temporarily deactivate its cyborgs, Blane Anton might very well have dispatched a cyborg to neutralize her. They might have senthimto kill her. He shuddered. He might have done it. The guilt ate him alive.

If she ever learned he’d been an assassin, she would leave him. And rightfully so.

Squeezing his hand, she leaned over the table and stared into his eyes. “I wish you trusted me enough to tell me, but it’s okay. I hope someday you will be able to share it. But if you never do, I understand. We both brought baggage, but we came for a fresh start. I don’t want our pasts to affect what we have now. We must let go of what happened to us on Earth and focus on buildingourfuture. The slate is wiped clean. What goes on it now, we will write together.”

I don’t deserve you.“Thank you.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles. Her reassurance lightened his despair, but hope did not come without reservations. It was easy to say past is past before you learned what that was. As long as he made no confessions, his secret would be secure, and maybe, over time, the burden of carrying it would become lighter.

“But you can’t just clam up and not talk to me. I still have no idea what I said that bothered you.”

“Not you. A bad memory,” he prevaricated.

“In the future, at least tell me that. Don’t shut me out. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She laced her fingers through his, the simple touch causing his heart to zing. He studied their joined hands. The enjoyment of physical contact was another first for him. He’d experienced so many firsts. He hadn’t been living until marrying Honoria. He’d only been existing.

He raised his head. “Nobody has ever meant as much to me as you do.”

“Same. You’re the most important person in the world to me—in two worlds.”

He excelled in logic, analysis, and strategy, but he lacked emotional intelligence. He foundered in the uncharted waters of feelings. But her soft, gentle gaze was like a lighted beacon showing him the way. “I don’t know what love is. But I am wondering if what I feel is that.”

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