Page 33 of The Pursuit
I crossed the threshold before she could turn and spot me, wanting nothing more than to feel her form against me, to affirm she was safe and real. Snaking my arms around her waist, I pulled her back flush against my chest and buried my face in the curve where her neck met her shoulder. The tension bled from my body as her familiar scent overwhelmed my senses.
This... this was what I’d risked everything to preserve. Not just her life, but her vitality, her spirit. For no idea how long, we remained locked in that embrace, my mouth tracing idle patterns across the warm skin left exposed by her loose shirt collar. Each breath brought her deeper into my body. As long as she was with me, everything was okay in my life.
But where I expected her hands to snake up and hold me in return, to sink into our embrace with the same bone-deep need, she remained unnaturally still and rigid. No welcoming caress, no murmurs of reassurance or affection. Nothing.
Furrowing my brow, I loosened my grip enough for her to turn and face me—only to be met with an expression of simmering anger rather than the relief I expected.
“What’s wrong?” I breathed, confused by her sudden emotional distance.
“You shot Ron?” she growled in a tone usually reserved for hostile interrogations, not romantic reunions.
Ah, so that was the source of her ire. I almost smiled, relieved her anger stemmed from something as mundane as duty rather than a serious matter of the heart.
“You know why I had to,” I replied, my tone hardening to match hers. “Your life was on the line, Trisha.”
She regarded me with steely gaze. “So?”
The sharp rebuke caught me off guard. “So?” I echoed incredulously. “You wanted me to watch him pull the trigger on your head while I stood there like your life meant nothing?”
For the first time, I detected a flicker of uncertainty cross her features before the scowl returned. “What I mean to you isn’t more important than the whole mission,” she shot back. “We’ve vowed to take down the criminal world, not keep protecting each other at the expense of compromising those responsibilities. How many times are we going to be reminded of that?”
The muscles in my jaw ticked. She acted as though the choice to sacrifice her life for the mission should have been a simple matter of duty over personal attachment. As if she were just another asset to be risked.
“Even if I’m reminded a thousand times, I’ll always choose your life over anything else on the line,” I growled, unable to keep the edge from my tone as I grabbed her upper arms in a bruising grip. “That’s what any man who loves you would do. That’s what I would do because I love you, Trisha Chaudhary.”
The moment the forbidden L-word slipped out, her expression crumpled. The word hung in the air between us, heavy with unspoken truths. I had never outright confessed my feelings for her, but in that moment, it felt necessary. She looked at me, tears glistening in her eyes,and I hoped that she understood.
I only wanted Trisha to understand how impossible it would be to just stand by and let her die for any mission. Not when she was my entire universe.
“Love?” Trisha’s voice cracked on the word as she swiped at the tears from her cheeks. “You know that’s not possible for people like us, right? It’s forbidden.”
I stepped closer, cradling her face in my palms as she tried to avert her gaze. “Why?” I demanded, tracing the sculpted line of her jaw until she met my intensity head-on. “Because we’re on some never-ending crusade to save the world from the bad guys? Because you’re just another agent under my command?”
She stiffened at the rhetorical questions. When she remained silent, I pressed harder. “Tell me why you think it’s so damned forbidden for this to happen between us.”
In a swift movement, she twisted free of my grip, putting space between us as she forcibly reassembled her mask of professionalism. “Because I don’t love you, Krish,” she bit out. “I can’t.”
I stared at her, dumbstruck. She... she didn’t love me? After everything we’d been through together, all the life-or-death stakes we’d cheated side-by-side, she was rejecting the love I’d laid bare between us?
“You don’t love me?” I echoed, my voice sounding distant and hollow even to my own ears. Anger surged in the wake of stunned disbelief. “Then what the hell was it between us these past few weeks? The days we’ve spent here showing how much we cared for each other, the kiss, the urge to go beyond the kiss… you’re telling me that meant nothing?”
Trisha’s expression remained stubbornly impassive. “DidI ever actually name it as love?” she countered with brutal honesty. “Did I ever tell you I wanted more than just... that?”
She didn’t have to explain further. She never wanted something more serious and lasting. While I’d been falling deeper under her spell with every brush of skin and heated breath, she’d simply been living in the moment.
“I know it’s not possible,” she went on, her tone softening ever so slightly as she searched my face. “We might be attracted to each other, but we can never settle down, Krish. That’s not on my agenda, not now, not ever. And if you can’t understand or accept that...” Her voice trailed off, accompanied by a subtle shrug of her delicate shoulders. “It’s time we put a stop to this before it gets too complicated. I don’t want you harbouring false hopes that one day we can put this behind us, get married, and settle into some idyllic family dream.”
The words sliced through me, infinitely sharper than any combat knife.
“These missions, this life—it gives me the adrenaline kick I’ve always craved,” she continued in that same level tone that infuriated me. “I’m not ready to sacrifice that for anything. Not even love.”
Love. She spoke the word with disdain, as if it were something distasteful she wanted no part of. At least, not where I was concerned.
I clenched my fists until the knuckles turned bloodless. Of course, I’d seen love blossoming in her warm smiles and gentle caresses, and like a fool, I’d misread all the signs she offered freely with no intention of following through.
When I finally trusted my voice not to betray the stormof hurt and anger raging within me, I spoke in a tone of forced calm. “If that’s your decision, if you can’t even see the possibility of us becoming more... then we should end this.” I gestured vaguely between us, unable to give voice to the physical intimacies she was outright rejecting as meaningless. “Before it festers any further.”
Her only reaction was the slightest dip of her chin, the barest nod of acknowledgement.
