Wicked Attraction (The Protector) Read online

  “Nothing.”

  He didn’t have time to press her for a more honest answer, because the transpo had pulled up at the base of his driveway. She waited for him to go first, unusual for her. By the time they got to the house, Ewan had started to worry. Just inside the front door, he turned and took her by the shoulders.

  “Nina. What’s wrong. Is it another glitch?”

  She nodded, then shook her head. “No. I mean, yes. Maybe. I just had a couple seconds of something. I’m fine.”

  “It’s obviously more than that,” he said. “Talk to me.”

  The bare, blank look on her face confused him, because he’d never seen an expression like that on her before. It took him a few seconds to recognize it, and once he did, he wasn’t sure how to process it. Nina looked . . . terrified.

  Ewan’s first instinct was to pull her into his arms. She allowed it, taking the two steps toward him but remaining stiff in his embrace for a few seconds before the tension in her body eased. He held her tightly, more than a little frightened himself. What could be so bad that it would scare her?

  “Nina, please tell me what’s going on.”

  She shook her head after a second, her face pressed against him. “It’s just a glitch.”

  “Does it hurt this time?”

  “No.” She paused, then added, “it would be easier if it was just pain.”

  Ewan didn’t say anything right away. His hand stroked over her back and the softness of her curls, over and over. “I’m sorry, for whatever it is.”

  “It’s like looking up at a night sky, with pinpricks of stars shining, and watching them wink out. One by one. Except that the stars being consumed by the darkness are memories. Small things,” Nina told him in a shaky voice so utterly unlike her usual tone that she sounded like a stranger. “Like what I had for breakfast two days ago.”

  He’d been worried before, but at her explanation, a chill crept over him. “How frequently does this happen? Maybe we need to get you to a doc . . .”

  “It won’t matter,” Nina said, her words low and muffled against his chest. “They can’t do anything about the degrading tech, Ewan.”

  “And I’m the reason why you can’t get it upgraded,” Ewan replied, sick to his stomach at the unspoken accusation.

  She shook her head without moving out of his embrace. “You’re part of it, but at this point, it’s beyond your control, Ewan. There’s nothing you can do about it. I know that.”

  He stroked his hand over her hair when she fell silent. He closed his eyes, sending up a plea to the Onegod or whatever deities existed that this meant what he hoped, that Nina was going to give him another chance.

  “I’m going to—”

  She held up a hand, blocking his words. “Please, don’t. I can’t handle any empty promises right now. I want to believe you, Ewan. I want to forgive you. I just don’t think I can.”

  She pushed out of his arms to look him in the face. Her voice shook, but although her eyes glistened, no tears slipped free. He had time to wonder if that was a measure of her body’s extreme self-control, or if she simply wasn’t crying over him. Them. Over the end of things. He didn’t want her to cry, he didn’t want to know he’d hurt her so badly that she had to weep. But he also didn’t want her to feel nothing, no emotions at all about it, or about him.

  “This . . .” She waved a hand between them. “Sex. That’s all this is.”

  “Not for me.”

  Nina shook her head. “This is all it can be, for me. Just like in the beginning. Before we . . . before it became something else.”

  Part of him wanted to take what it seemed she was offering, something solely physical. With someone else, anyone else, he might have been able to. Not with Nina.

  “I don’t want sex.”

  She lifted her chin. “You didn’t seem to mind about half an hour ago, when you were going down on me.”

  “I don’t want there to be just sex,” he corrected. “I realize you’re angry with me—”

  “It’s not anger,” she interrupted. “If I was only mad at you, this would’ve been over a long time ago.”

  “You’d have forgiven me?”

  She laughed, but it was humorless. “No. Probably not. But I’d have walked out on you the first second I saw you were the one who’d hired me. I wouldn’t have cared, Ewan.”

  “But you do care. Now.” He kept himself from reaching for her again, trying hard to give her what she needed and not simply try to take what he wanted.

  She didn’t answer him at first, and she cut her gaze from his. She didn’t look scared anymore. She looked sad. This was worse. It sliced him bone deep.

  “I’d give my entire fortune to take that look off your face,” he told her. “I’d give everything I have.”

  “What look?”

  “The one that tells me how deeply I cut you. How much I hurt you. The look that says you can’t forgive me, even though you want to, because what I did was so awful it can’t be forgiven.” He drew in a breath and raked a hand through his hair. His throat felt tight, lungs burning. He wanted to scream, throw and break things; he wanted to rage.

  None of that would change her mind.

  “I will never not want to make love to you, Nina,” he said finally. “That will never change. But it’s not enough for me. I know we can’t go back to what we were before. I don’t want to. I understand if you can’t ever forgive me, but if you’re not going to ever feel anything other than physical for me . . .”

  “How can you think that?” Nina demanded, stepping closer. “Of course I feel something for you. I feel everything for you, Ewan! Why am I here, if not because my entire heart is straining, reaching, yearning for you again? How could you think anything less?”

  She put her fingertips to her temple and her eyelids fluttered. She didn’t stagger, but he reached to catch her anyway. She didn’t try to shake off his grip.

  “Let’s get you something to eat,” he said, alarmed but trying not to show it. “A drink. You can sit. We can talk about this more calmly.”

  In the kitchen, she sat with a glass of ice water in front of her while he brewed tea. She watched him. “The glitch has nothing to do with me being upset. It’s not triggered by emotions or stress or anything like that. It’s a simple degrading of the tech.”

  “I know that. I invented it.”

  She gave him a sad smile. “But you didn’t think you’d ever be faced with having to actually see what it meant, did you?”

  “When I saw what that tech could do, I was determined nobody should ever have to be subjected to it,” Ewan said evenly. “So no, Nina, I never thought I’d be standing in my kitchen watching the woman I love more than anything in this world struggle against it.”

  She put her face in her hands. Her shoulders heaved. Tears fell between her fingers to land on the table, and he felt no better at the proof of her grief than he had about anything else.

  Ewan put the mug of hot tea in front of her and let his hand rest on her shoulder for a second or so. He wanted to take her in his arms, but settled for gently squeezing and letting her go. “Drink this. It will make you feel better.”

  Nina shook her head. “In a minute.”

  He took the seat across from her. He hadn’t made a mug of tea for himself. His stomach churned too much to drink anything. He put his hands flat on the table.

  “I want to make things up to you,” Ewan said. “I don’t know how, and in fact, I’m not sure I can. But I want to. More than anything else. I hope you can believe me.”

  “I do,” she answered, still without looking at him.

  “Nina,” he said, desperate for her to see him. “This is hard enough. Please look at me.”

  “I can’t.”

  He waited a second or so before reaching across the table to tug at her hand. “Please? It’s not that bad, is it? Is it so awful that you can’t bear the sight of me?”

  “It’s not that.” Her voice was low. Guttural. She shook he