Forbidden Stranger Read online

  Nina shook her head. The server brought their entrees and set them on the table, making it easy for her not to answer right away. She waited until they were alone again before plucking an eggplant disc from the plate and crunching it. Her stomach lurched, and she put the food down.

  “Before you rush to condemn him, perhaps you should ask him what’s going on.” Aggie frowned.

  “I asked him to tell me what was going on many times. So many times, he kept the truth from me. Why would this time be any different?” Nina demanded, speaking too loudly before she forced her voice to lower. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t shout at you.”

  “You know why he had to keep secrets from you on the island. Why all of us did. Anything could have caused you to . . . well. You know full well, I’m sure, what we were so worried about.”

  “There were other things,” Nina said quietly. “Before the island.”

  Aggie shook her head. “Sure and enough, on that I cannot speak. I only know what I saw on the island, when Mr. Donahue loved you enough to do whatever he thought was necessary to protect you.”

  “You think I ought to just forgive him.”

  “I think,” Aggie said gently, “that holding onto anger never does anyone any good, in the long run.”

  Nina thought on that as she tried to nibble at another eggplant disc. Her stomach wasn’t having it. She took a drink of water, instead.

  “I’m not sure I could ever be with him again. I . . . well, Aggie, I love him.” Nina lifted her chin and looked into the older woman’s eyes. “I do. And he loves me. But that doesn’t seem to be enough, somehow. And I’m not sure what to do about it.”

  “If you don’t ask him what’s going on, you’ll never know.”

  “I’m afraid that if I do ask him, he will lie to me out of some misguided attempt at protecting me. Because I’ve still got that programming, Aggie. It could be set off at any time. What’s to stop Ewan from sweeping everything under the rug again?”

  “The fact he’s all over the viddy channels would seem to mean he doesn’t think he could keep it from you,” Aggie said. “Sure and enough, he’d have to know being that public means it can’t be kept from you.”

  “That’s what he’s doing. But if I ask him why he’s doing it, what’s to stop him from lying?”

  Aggie shrugged and tucked a bite of her own lunch into her mouth. She chewed carefully. Swallowed. She smiled.

  “I don’t know, my dear. But unless you talk to him, you will also never know.”

  Nina got to her feet. “Aggie, I’m sorry to cut this lunch short, but I think you’re right.”

  “Go,” Aggie said and stood to hug her, hard. She pulled back to look Nina in the face. “There will always be time for more lunches. Right now, you go talk to him. I’m pulling for you both.”

  * * *

  Nina didn’t know where Ewan was physically, but that didn’t stop her from pinging him from her house. She used the wall comm because she wanted to be able to pace without holding her personal unit. She regretted it as soon as his face came into view—bigger than life-size. Handsome as ever.

  “I tried pinging you, but you didn’t answer,” he said immediately. “I wanted you to hear it from me first.”

  She refused to feel guilty about not taking his call. “You pinged me twice. You didn’t try very hard.”

  “Time is short. I knew you’d see the news story, and if you didn’t . . .” Ewan coughed and cleared his throat. Shrugged, but did not look apologetic. “I was going to try you again.”

  “You’re pushing for Jordie’s release?”

  “It’s done,” Ewan said.

  Nina winced. “I don’t understand.”

  “Katrinka’s team found a way to destroy the self-termination programming. Her conditions for it to be released to all of you was Jordie going free.” He paused. “Her condition for it being released to you was my public apology and support of his exoneration.”

  I’m sure he has a reason.

  “Oh.” Nina didn’t have more to say than that.

  “You need that new programming. I did what I had to do. My team is still working, Nina, but if Katrinka has something that can help you, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you get it.”

  She nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”

  “You know you don’t have to thank me,” Ewan said quietly. Through the screen, his gaze burned her. His smile seemed sad. “You look good. How’ve you been?”

  “Terrific,” she answered, too fast. Too harsh. “Thank you for the money. It wasn’t necessary.”

  Ewan frowned. “I already told you. You don’t have to thank me.”

  “Yes, I do. You have done nothing but try to take care of me in ways I’m sure I still don’t even know about.” She swallowed against the rush of emotions tightening her throat. “You look good, too.”

  “I don’t feel good, Nina. I feel sad.”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment before answering. “Yeah. Me, too.”

  “I love you. I want you to know that. If you can never forgive me, I understand. But you should know that I will do whatever is necessary to make your life easier. Better. If you don’t want to be with me . . . could we at least be friends?”

  Nina’s snort of laughter took her by surprise. “Does that ever work for anyone? Being friends after . . . well. Just after.”

  “We were friends on the island.”

  “I didn’t know then what I know now,” Nina told him.

  Ewan sighed and rubbed at the spot between his eyes. “All I know is that I would rather have you in my life in any small way, any way at all, than not in it. I’ve missed you, so onedamned much.”

  “I miss you, too.” It was the truth. It was going to take a lot more time for her to work through her complicated mess of feelings about him, and she wasn’t sure they would ever be able to resolve them. Beyond the ways she felt he’d let her down and betrayed her, there was the very real possibility that they were simply incompatible for something beyond the bedroom.

  Thinking of that, his kisses, his touch, his smell and taste and the feeling of his body against hers, Nina shivered. It was a good thing she’d chosen to connect with him over the comm and not in person, because right now if he’d tried to pull her into his arms, she would have allowed it. He probably knew it, too.

  It was not only the comfort and pleasure his body provided, though. She missed the back-and-forth banter she was remembering more of, every day. She missed the way he’d made sure she was cared for on the island, when she’d known him only as a stranger, forbidden to her because he was her boss. He’d been there for her, all along, doing his best to keep her safe. Yeah, he’d messed up, but like Aggie had said . . . hadn’t he always had a reason?

  “When do we get the new programming?” she asked instead of saying anything else about their relationship.

  Ewan nodded toward the screen. “Katrinka’s team is running some final tests, but it should be within the next week. It’s going to be a small patch, a few lines of code.”

  “That’s it?” That didn’t sound right to her, but unlike some of her peers who’d made it their duty to understand everything about the enhancement tech, Nina had never been a techie. It worked, or in some cases, did not work, and that’s all she needed to know.

  “Yes. Simple.”

  “Yet it took so long for it to get figured out.” She hadn’t meant it as a criticism of him or his team, but Ewan’s expression said maybe he’d taken it that way.

  “We had a different set of protocols in place that Katrinka did not,” Ewan said, but no more than that.

  Nina moved closer to the screen without thinking before remembering that he was on the screen, not in front of her. He could be on the other side of the world for all she knew, and felt that possible distance keenly. “What does that mean?”

  “Her team got there first,” Ewan replied evenly. “That’s what counts. All the rest of it is just words.”