Page 165 of Renard's Deliverance

The very last thing he wanted was for her to fear him.

“Yeah, you do.”

“Then why are you leaving? Why won’t you touch me? Why won’t you call me baby or Gem?”

He blinked. “Is that what you meant when you asked why are you Opal?”

She nodded, then winced.

“Careful, I don’t want you hurting yourself. You need to go back to bed.”

“Is it because I’m ugly now?” she whispered.

Oh, fuck no.

“Ugly!” he yelled.

She jumped.

Calm.

Shit.

You can do this. Softly. Softly.

“You could not under any circumstance be ugly,” he told her quietly. “You’re the most beautiful, sexy, strongest woman I’ve ever met. You call yourself ugly and we’re going to have trouble, you and me. None of what happened is in any way your fault, understand me?”

“I hear you,” she whispered hoarsely, drawing closer. “But what happened to me wasn’t your fault, either.”

“I should have been with you. I nearly lost you.”

Like I lost them.

“You can’t be with me all the time.”

“Can damn well try.”

She shook her head and winced. Fuck. He needed to get her back to bed so she could rest.

“What happened to your team wasn’t on you. No one could have predicted their deaths. And no one had any idea about Barney, not even Mrs. G. So how could you know? And you take care of me in all the ways that matter.”

“I scared you, I made you flinch away from me. You were afraid of me,” he said starkly.

She stared at him for a long moment. “I try to ignore his voice calling me a slut, telling me that I’m ugly and dumb. But sometimes I struggle. When you moved your hand like that . . . it wasn’t you I was seeing and it wasn’t Barney.”

Fuck.

Suddenly, she turned away and he could sense her retreating again.

No.

His heart raced. What was he doing? “Gem, please look at me.”

She turned to him, her eyes wet with tears.

And he took the plunge. Because he realized that walking away right now was the wrong play.

What she needed was someone to fight for her. So, for better or worse, he was going to be the one to fight for her.

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