And he hadn’t answered her question. “Cole? Aren’t you going to get into trouble for what we’re doing?”
He was straightening the papers on the coffee table, his drawings of how and where he thought their plan would take them once she left his cabin. They’d discussed several alternatives and countless escape options if something went wrong.
“If this goes down the way I expect it to.” He looked up, his expression unreadable. “I’m gonna be suspended. I’m blowing half a dozen regulations with the stunt we’re about to pull. My brand of insubordination gets put up with on a lot of assignments because I always deliver what my chain of command wants. This time, that’s not going to happen.”
“What’s not going to happen?”
“I’m not going to give them what they want—you in prison. Dawson’s already pissed, but he’ll get over it after a while. So will the Bureau if our intel gives them a leg up on the espionage. But my ass is grass for a while, once a task-force team gets here.”
“You say that like you’re not one of them.”
She realized she’d shifted closer to him.
She was perched on the cushion that had at first separated them. She wasn’t leaning into him. But she was no longer so tense she was in danger of toppling onto the floor just to stay out of his reach. The instinct to inch even closer was there, strong enough to make her feel needy and pathetic. Weaknesses she couldn’t afford to take with her into what they were about to do.
“I’ve never been one of them,” he said, releasing the same easy laugh he’d used when he’d talked about the burns on his back. “Not from the first day I was accepted into the FBI Academy. On every assignment I’ve caught hell for my rule breaking, even though it always achieved the desired results. I’m simply good enough at what I do for the powers-that-be to keep me around.”
He saw himself as an unwanted man. He seemed to go out of his way to create that reality. He’d survived an unwanted childhood, and he was still fighting back against the neglect and betrayal that had shaped him. Including her own. A part of Shaw wanted to applaud—the place inside her that identified with Cole’s determination never to go under.
She was a piece of the past that had damaged him. She hadn’t been strong enough to fight for him when he’d counted on her to. Her childish inability to deal with the fire and her brother’s death had played a major role in Cole becoming the closed-down, ruthless fighter he’d become. The warrior now fighting to save her. And their history was a big part of the reason he’d done what he had. Cole had learned at too young an age that he could never completely depend on anyone but himself—not even her.
She laid her hand on his arm, the hand he’d so gently tended to when the bath water had scalded her. To hell with putting off absolutely everything they needed to say to each other.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He reached for her and tangled his fingers with her own. She didn’t trust herself to look into her protector’s face. If she didn’t see a reflection of the confusing wave of feelings swallowing her, she might burst into another humiliating flood of tears. But she wasn’t holding back what she needed to say this time. He deserved better than that.
“For everything,” she continued, holding onto his hand. “I should still be angry at you, and I guess I am. But I’m sorry, too. You didn’t deserve what happened to you when Sebastian died. You were trying to care for me. You almost died for me. And I abandoned you, like your father did. I’m sorry for what that did to you. Whatever happens next, I need you to know that.”
He squeezed her fingers, too tightly.
She flinched, her gaze jerking up.
“You don’t owe me an apology.” He was angry, furious, but she sensed not at her. “Don’t think for a minute that you have to say things you don’t mean just to make sure I’m there for you when this goes down.”
“I’m not saying it because…” But of course he would think that. Hadn’t he always believed the worst, just when she’d needed him to see the very best of who they could be?
“You have to trust me, darlin’, or this won’t work.”
“I do.” Maybe after everything, she shouldn’t, but her faith was rock solid in this exasperating man’s good intentions where her safety was concerned.
His other hand lifted to caress the newest of her injuries, the bump over her eye.
“The last thing I want,” he said, “is for you to be hurt again.”