Chapter 4 Collateral Damage
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
DOMINIC
Ihear what she says to Ruiz.
“Tell him that even though what he did was morally reprehensible, I forgive him.”
She said she forgives me, and maybe she does, but I can’t ever forgive myself.
Enya isn’t the first target whose bed I slipped into for an op—but she is the most innocent…beautiful, smart, sensuous…mine.
“Once I forgive myself for letting a man like him into my life, I won’t be thinking of him ever again.”
I wish that for her because, even though she sat there with her queen-to-servant mask on, her pain was evident.
“I was fucking him.”
Jesus.
Ruiz comes into the observation room and stands next to me. We both look at the empty interrogation room, where minutes ago Enya had been answering Ruiz’s questions—all of which I helped him put together because I know her best.
“I cared about his dick, and that operated just fine.”
Even that—her attempt to strip our connection down to something crude and transactional—was soaked in pain.
Ruiz turns and leans against the two-way mirror, facing me. “She handled herself well.”
“Yeah.” I tuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans.
I don’t have to wear a suit unless I need to because I’m done pretending to be an art expert for the Smithsonian. I’m in black jeans and a black shirt. My sister Daisy calls it the Steve Jobs look, which I take umbrage at. I dress for the shadows, not to show off my prissy tech ass.
“She’s not doing well, though,” Ruiz adds in case I’m too blind to see it.
I am not.
“No, she isn’t.”
Ruiz studies me for a long moment. “Will she….”
“Self-harm?” I shake my head. “No. She’s one of the strongest women I know. And she has too much love for life to do that.”
Ruiz lets out an exasperated breath. “She didn’t deserve that and…neither did you.”
“She was going to get hurt no matter what.” Pressure clamps down behind my sternum. I want to fall on my knees and beg forgiveness from whatever gods, who I don’t believe in, are listening.
Ruiz rubs a hand over his jaw. “For what it’s worth, and I know it isn’t worth much, she broke my heart.”
“The one you don’t have?” I shoot back, eyebrow raised.
He snorts. “Yeah, that one.” Then he huffs and gives his head a quick shake. “She thought she was boring. Did you hear that part? Thought she was forgettable.”
I give him a tight-lipped look that conveys things I don’t know how to say aloud.
Enya isn’t boring in the least.
She’s fascinating, with a kind soul and a lovely sense of humor.
She’s special, but everyone in her life—her father, the men she dated, her sister, and now me—we all have made her feel like she’s less.
The door opens, and Kiera steps in. She looks inquiringly at us. “Well, she refused a ride and ordered an Uber.”
“You talk to her?” I ask, my legendary control slipping. I don’t want Kiera anywhere near Enya.
Kiera frowned. “No, of course not. I just made sure she left the building and had transpo.”
I sigh with relief—or an emotion similar to it because, honestly, I am not going to be relieved any time soon.
“She held herself together.” Ruiz is obviously impressed. “Better than most people I see in that chair.”
“She was nervous,” Kiera points out.
“Yeah, she was, but she didn’t show it.” He smiles sadly at me. “I don’t know how you did what you did because that woman is the kind you cherish.”
Yes, she is.
“I did the job,” I say hoarsely.
Ruiz lets out a dry, cutting chuckle. “She was more than the job.”
I let the self-loathing wash over me. “I kept up the wall…and climbed into her bed.”
Kiera groans, throwing her hands up in annoyance. “Oh my God! Can we stop with the self-flagellation, and the loving on the target?”
“Shut up, Kiera,” Ruiz says good-naturedly.
Kiera glances over, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. “Ruiz the Romantic, I expect this from, but Dom? You?”
“Shut up, Kiera,” I echo Ruiz, but mine is more an order than a tease.
Kiera gapes at me. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“As you said, you did the job.” Ruiz pats my shoulder, ignoring Kiera. “And she forgave you. That was classy.”
I hear Enya’s last words again, and once again, they cut through me.
“She means it.” I run a weary hand over my face. “She did forgive me, you know.”
“I know,” Ruiz agrees.
Kiera growls, her expression already loaded with disdain. “Look at you two, getting all sentimental. What’s next—group therapy? Should we hold hands and sing ‘Kumbaya?’”
Ruiz doesn’t take the bait. “Kiera, she held us accountable. And she walked out with more dignity than”—he gives her a pointed look—“most people I know.”
Kiera lets out a long, exasperated noise. “Why don’t you both start the Enya Cahill fan club!”
I don’t blame Kiera for her acidity because she’s never seen us behave this way. But then we’ve never had to taint the innocence of a woman like Enya.
“Kiera, cut the ‘I’m the biggest bitch in the room’ routine,’” Ruiz snaps. “We don’t get to pretend this was clean. That woman lost something she can’t get back.”
Kiera scoffs. “We all lose things on the job.”
Ruiz’s gaze sharpens. “Not like that.” He shoulders past her, pausing at the door. “I hope you can sit with that and feel it.”
Kiera arches an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because without a conscience, darling, we’re all pretty well fucked,” he replies and walks out.
The door shuts behind him.
Kiera studies me like I’m a curiosity. “You’re compromised.”
I laugh under my breath. It sounds broken. “I’m human.”
“That’s worse,” she says coolly. “Humans hesitate.”
“Well, then maybe it’s time for me to quit.” The words are out, unplanned and unpracticed, and yet, they feel right.
Is it really time for me to leave?
“Because of her?” Kiera grabs my chin, forcing me to look at her.
“No.” I move away from her touch. “Because I hurt a woman who loves me, and as a human being, that pains me.”
Kiera shoots me a glare brimming with anger. “She isn’t in love with you, she’s in love with Nick Smith, the legend who has nothing to do with you except you look the same.”
But I wasn’t Nick Smith with Enya. I was me. I was Dominic Delacour. I was a tired man who found respite in the arms of a kind, honest woman. And now it’s gone, and with it the sense of peace I had started to feel.
“Maybe,” I say resignedly. “But I’m not going to pretend that this time it didn’t cost me.”
Kiera stares at me like she’s seeing a liability where an asset used to be. “Please tell me you didn’t fall for her.”
“I can’t,” I reply truthfully.
Kiera shakes her head. “Dom, go fuck someone’s brains out, okay? Someone hot you pick up at a bar like you usually do after an op. You’ll forget the boring Miss Enya Cahill in no time.” She giggles seductively. “Hell, we can go to my hotel room and fuck. I promise it will ease you—”
I step away from her. “Not happening ever again.”
Kiera and I’ve fucked to release stress plenty of times in the past decade we’ve worked together—during, and after an op. But that was then.
Her expression twists in puzzlement. “What does that mean?”
I send her a flat, unimpressed stare. “You know what it means, Kiera.”
I leave her standing, aghast, in the observation room, and head out of the building, wanting desperately to have the right to go to an apartment above a flower shop, and bury myself inside the woman I fell in love with.