Page 110 of Deadly Secrets
He was too. She could see it in his eyes, in the way he was throwing back the covers to try to get up and come to her.
She held up a hand. “Don’t. I know you feel guilty about withholding the truth from me, but I do understand. Mostly, anyway,” she fiddled with her purse. “But I’m not cut out for this. I thought I was, but I’m not. I need to go analyze some bones and artifacts and get back to what I’m good at. What I feel comfortable with. I need you to respect that and give me some space.”
He sat on the edge of the bed, holding onto the bed’s railing. “I don’t want you to leave.”
All he had to do was say he needed her. That he loved her.
But he didn’t.
“The taskforce needs you, Brooke.”
The taskforce. Nothim. “No, they don’t. Shane figured out the sigils, not me. I added nothing to solving this operation. If anything, I endangered you and your team, and Jamison died because he talked to me. It felt like a game, a really fun one, until it wasn’t anymore.”
“We wouldn’t have solved the case without you.”
He was being kind. She appreciated it, but what else would the perfect hero do?
Confirmation bias.This time, however, her bias was accurate. “Do you think I’ll ever see Justine again?”
“I don’t know.”
At least he was telling the truth about that.
“What I do know,” he said, “is that she loved you enough to give you up in hopes of protecting your life. She told me to tell you that she really did love Victor, and I believe her. We don’t know the whole story between them.”
“I wish I did, because maybe then, I wouldn’t feel so…lost.”
His face screwed up. “I know.”
“No, you don’t. Your family is nearly as perfect as you, and you should tell them the truth about Percy. Stop playing the hero, Roman, just once.”
He sucked in a breath like she’d slapped him.
Then the surprise passed and he set his jaw again. “Uri and Mikhail are going to prison and Mikhail has given up enough in return for a lighter sentence that the CIA, NSA, and Homeland will be able to systematically disassemble the Zion organization. I was hoping you might want to help.”
Brooke chuckled. The sound was dry and hoarse. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m an anthropologist and its time I quit playing undercover agent. Although I will miss the sex.”
She hugged the damp ice cream bucket to her. “Maybe some day, our paths will cross again, preferably not during a bar shoot out, and we can start over. Until then, I wish you well, Roman. You’re an incredible person.”
The tears she’d held back earlier trickled down her face as she hobbled out and soldiered down the long hospital hallway. Roman hadn’t originally trusted her with the truth about his brother, or her birth mother, and yet she still loved him.
Talk about soft in the head.Maybe I take after my father.
But how could she not still love Roman? He was a hero, if not quite as perfect as she’d once believed.
So yeah, she loved him. To the very marrow of her bones, and she’d always known he had to have a flaw, like romance heroes always did. Even Conrad Flynn had betrayed Julia. Somehow, she’d been able to forgive him and move on.
Unfortunately, real life wasn’t that easy.At least not for me.
If only Roman’s flaw had been something else.
In the immortal words of Conrad Flynn, the only person who can betray you is someone you love.
Boy was he right. The only thing she’d ever wanted since she’d found out she was adopted was to have someone in her life who would tell her the truth. Someone she could trust one hundred percent.
As she walked out of the hospital into the early morning light, she wondered if she’d ever trust anyone again.
Fourteen days later
