Page 40 of Salvation
“It didn’t work.” He placed one hand over his eyes. Try as he might, he couldn’t dredge up a single memory after the Anferthians toasted him and Sakura. Nothing. “Where’s Saku?”
“In her room suffering through her own private hell. K’rona is with her, don’t worry.” Dante fell silent. Then, “Nick, how long have you two been in a relationship?”
Lifting his hand, he gave Dante deep frown. “We’re not in a relationship.”
Storo chortled. “K’rona and I pulled you two out the bushes. It is well that you weren’t performingmaitz’a, little man. You would have failed.”
Blood rushed from Nick’s head, and the urge to throw up again began to build in his stomach. Fuck. “Did I...did I force her?”
The bed listed under the weight of Storo’s fists sinking into the mattress. “It was clearly consensual, and nothing happened, Nick. Both of you were too drunk to get your clothing off.”
Relief coursed through him. He hadn’t hurt Saku. Thank you, Jesus.
“It doesn’t change the fact that the committee is arguing whether or not to pull you both from your work here,” Dante told him bluntly.
What was the reason they shouldn’t get involved? Right. Administer Corvus . She must think they were idiots incapable of balancing their professional duties with their personal lives. Nick clutched the sheets in his fists. “They can’t do that. The investigation hasn’t turned up anything yet, has it? Until it does, and the perpetrators are caught, there’s still a chance more Anferthians will get ill. If they do, we’re the only two people in the universe who are able to cure them.”
Not to mention that they had yet to come up with the formula foratolce. Anferthians were a people driven by their passions. No way did he want to tellanyof them they couldn’t have sex. That was a sure way to disembowelment.
Dante nodded, mouth set in a grim line. “I am working on it, Nick. In the meantime, you and Sakura need to figure out both your professional and your personal relationships.”
~*~
Sakura sat curled up on the sofa, a pillow clutched to her chest. Three days of her life gone. And the worst part was that she could not remember any of it before waking up yesterday afternoon. She would never touch that horridrymaagain.Ever.It was good that K’rona had been there to care for her, and to deliver the bad news. The committee might terminate the assignment. Were they really that stupid and stubborn? She and Nick were the dissenters’ best hope.
Guilt washed over her and she allowed her shoulders to sag. If only they had not gotten drunk at the wedding. Their behavior had been unacceptable. They had failed the dissenters—and she had failed hertem altrous. She would never be a true healer.
Nick’s bedroom door opened and her heart thudded in her chest like a taiko drum. He was coming, and he was going to tell her things she did not want to hear, but knew were true. They were professionals. They had a job to do. They were just friends. She was not his type.
It was the last one that hurt the most. She was not beautiful, not by a long shot. She was just short, plain, round-faced Sakura. And she had been a fool to ever think Nick would fall for someone like her.
He stopped in front of her. The silence weighed on her like a heavy quilt. How could she face him and the rejection that was coming? If only she could go back to her room and hide under her covers to escape reality, like she had when she was a child. But, there was no escaping this. It had to be addressed. She raised her chin to look into his amazing brown and bronze eyes.
Nick appeared somewhat pale. Probably from his encounter with theryma. She probably did not look any better, maybe even worse, which should make it easier for him to say what needed to be said.
“I can’t do it,” he murmured.
Her heart sank into her stomach. This was it. She nodded and looked down, digging her fingers into the soft yellow pillow. “You are right. We need to keep our relationship professional.”
“No,” he replied, “that’s not…is that what you want?”
She gave her shoulders a shrug. “I do not think what I want matters.”
“Yes, it does,” he said. “Whatwewant matters, too, Saku. And there’s no reason why we can’t have both.”
She jerked her head up. “Both?” Had she heard him right? His gaze held such calm determination, her heart crept closer to its normal place in her chest. “But...they do not want us to bedistracted.” What an ugly word.
He sighed and lowered himself to sit next to her. As in, really close, thigh-to-thigh next to her. His warmth seeped into her and her heart flipped all over inside her chest.
“I know what they want, and they’re dead wrong,” he said. “Look, I’ll admit that when we first met we didn’t get along so great. Sometimes I wondered if we’d get anything done here. But in all this time, did we ever put our personal feelings over our professional obligations to our patients?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“And I can’t imagine that you’re less concerned about potentially being removed from this assignment than I am, right?”
She scrunched her nose. “I do not understand why the committee would even suggest removing us. No one else can help the dissenters.”
“I can’t believeeveryoneon the committee feels this way, do you?”
