Page 38 of In The Darkness

With a smile, he joked, “I’m not sure there are many men like me, but we can give it a shot.”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “I didn’t mean just like you. You’re one of a kind, for sure. But men who are skilled in things you are. I want to set up an organization that can help women wherever they need it. I have more money than I could ever spend, so cost isn’t an issue. I’m planning on buying an estate I found out about yesterday. I want that to be the organization’s headquarters.”

She stopped for a moment and then said, “And I want you to be by my side there. You’d be in charge of the men who work for us, and I’ll be the money and contacts part. I might as well use my father’s connections for good. Maybe I’ll be able to prove people wrong and show them money doesn’t have to corrupt.”

In all that, the word us stuck out to Nick. Us. The two of them working together to make this plan of hers to help women like he’d helped her come true.

He’d never thought of himself as a particularly honorable man, at least not since what happened that made him leave the bureau. The thought occurred to him that maybe he wasn’t the best man for this job.

“I don’t know if I’m good enough for this, Persephone. I’m a hired gun. I have been for years. It sounds like you need someone more for what you have in mind.”

Cradling his face, she looked up into his eyes. “You’re exactly the man I need for this, Nick. I don’t need a saint in my life or in my bed. I need you.”

He definitely wasn’t a saint.

“Then I guess you came to the right man.”

She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Do you want to hear what I want to do?”

Enjoying the sight of her so eager and happy about this project, he leaned back on the pillows and folded his arms behind his head. “I can’t wait,” he said with a smile. “But maybe after another round?”

“I really want to tell you about this, Nick. Sex isn’t anything as important as what we’re going to do,” she said before she kissed him on the lips.

“I’m getting the feeling we need to have a meeting of the minds on this sex thing,” he joked.

“You’ll have a chance to have me in bed every night for the rest of our lives, but this means a lot to me. I want it to mean a lot to you too.”

He knew it was probably the craziest thing he’d ever thought, but something in his gut told him to trust Persephone’s vision for this group she wanted to assemble. It had been a long time since he worked with a team. Maybe it was time to stop being a loner once and for all.

Pulling her on top of him, he kissed her long and deep like he’d wanted to every minute since falling for her. She brought out a passion in him for more than he’d had in his life for years, so it felt right to go along with her on this idea of hers.

“Okay. Tell me what you want to do. I’m in.”

Her dark eyes opened wide, and she smiled so sweetly he couldn’t have stopped himself from loving her if he wanted to. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. It’s because of you that I can do this at all. You’re the inspiration behind this, Nick. I hope you know that.”

Never one to inspire anything, he didn’t know what to say to that. “I just did my job, Persephone. I’m not sure I’m any kind of inspiration.”

The smile slid from her face, and her expression turned serious as she shook her head. “You were so much more than that. You were sent to rescue me, but you didn’t just do that. You gave me hope when I didn’t have any. You made those nights and days bearable, Nick. Don’t diminish how important you were to me.”

Nick didn’t know how to react. No one had ever said anything like that to him in his life. Not when he tried to do good whenever he could and stay on the straight and narrow so the bureau would take him. Not when he proudly worked for the FBI trying to protect his country. Certainly not when Tanya was killed and he left it all behind to become a hired gun to anybody with enough money to hire him.

“I just did what I had to do to protect you,” he said, not knowing how to tell her how much her words meant to him.

“Well, I want that for any woman who needs help. For the woman who is being stalked by some crazy neighbor or an ex-boyfriend who can’t let go, and for the woman who turns to the police but they can’t help her because there’s not enough proof she’s in danger. I want those women to have their Nick like I had mine. I want them to have the hope you gave me. I have the money and the ability to do my part, but this only works if you’re by my side helping me. I can’t do this without you, and even more, I don’t want to. So if you need more convincing, I’m here to tell you I plan on convincing you to do this with me.”

He looked at her beautiful brown eyes so full of that hope she claimed he gave her and couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. Nick wanted to share that hope she had and let it into his life again.

To believe that he could make a difference once more when it counted most to the one person who made him want to hope again.

“You don’t have to convince me. I’m in. All in.”

“All in? I haven’t mentioned the fact that you’re going to have to convince these guys to live on an estate in rural Virginia.”

Nick had a feeling the men he had in mind wouldn’t have any problem walking away from their lives and starting over on some multi-million dollar estate. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure out a way to make them see they should. Paying them handsomely would be a good start.”

Persephone smiled broadly. “That I can do. It’s one of the benefits of being a very wealthy woman. Anything else you want me to do, just say the word and it’s done.”

“It must be nice having that much money that you can say something like that and mean it,” he joked as he brought her mouth to his in a kiss again.

---