Chapter 35 Nina
Nina
Both men turn, identically startled.
“Nina,” Chris says. “How long have you been—”
“Long enough.” I move to the kitchen, fill my glass from the filtered carafe in the fridge. My hands are remarkably steady. “But not long enough to understand what you’re talking about.”
When I turn back, they’re both watching me from the sofa with identical expressions of guilt and concern.
“Go back to bed.” Chris’s voice is controlled. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“Will we?” I meet his eyes. “Or will you leave the room again the next time I ask questions?”
He flinches like I’ve hit him.
“That’s not fair,” Wyatt starts.
“Isn’t it?” I look between them. “You two are having conversations about my cases. About my clients. Making decisions about what I should and shouldn’t know—”
“To protect you,” Chris interrupts.
“I don’t need protection. I need honesty.”
“You need to be able to do your job without complications.”
“My job is already complicated. Having my boyfriend’s past with my client hidden from me doesn’t make it simpler.
It makes it dangerous.” I pause, frustration building.
“And it’s an ethics nightmare I didn’t sign up for.
If I’d known about your history with Vicente, I never would have taken this job.
But we’re past that point now, and operating blind doesn’t help anyone. ”
Chris exhales hard. His jaw works. For a moment I think he’s going to shut down again, but he doesn’t. He stands and closes the distance between us, pausing at the edge of the kitchen counter.
“I’m trying to protect you,” he says. “From me. From what knowing the full truth about what I was with him would do to how you see both of us.”
The admission hangs in the air, raw and painful.
Wyatt moves closer, standing but not approaching either of us. His gaze lands on Chris for a beat before he turns to me. “Maybe we should all get some sleep. Talk about this when Nina’s not barely twelve hours post-op and we’re not all running on fumes.”
“Good idea,” I say, though I’m not tired anymore. Adrenaline has burned through the lingering anesthesia fog.
Chris nods stiffly. “Yeah. Sleep.”
But none of us move.
Nikita appears, winding through my legs with a questioning trill. I pick her up, carefully, hoping she’s under the ten-pound lifting limit, but grateful for something to hold.
“I’m sorry,” Chris says finally. “For leaving. For shutting down. For all of it.”
“I know.”
“I just—” He looks at Wyatt, then back to me. “I need to figure out how to talk about this without destroying everything.”
“You won’t destroy anything.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.” I move closer, Nikita purring in my arms. “Because whatever happened, whatever you think I can’t handle, I can. We all can.”
He wants to believe me. I can see it in his eyes, the desperate hope warring with deep-seated fear.
“Tomorrow,” Wyatt suggests. “Let’s try again tomorrow. When we’ve all slept.”
“Okay,” I agree.
Chris doesn’t argue.
“Come on,” Wyatt says finally. “Back to bed. All of us.”
We stand there for another moment, none of us quite ready to move.
As we start toward the hallway, I catch Wyatt’s arm. “Wait. I mean—would you both stay in my room? At least until I fall asleep.”
Wyatt stops, studying my face. “You sure? We don’t want to crowd you while you’re recovering. You need space to be comfortable.”
“I’m sure.” I don’t know how to explain how desperately I’m trying to hold us together. That having them close feels like proof this is real, that we’re building something that won’t fall apart the moment things get hard. “Please.”
Chris nods without hesitation. “Okay, but if you need us to leave at any point, just say so. We have our own rooms.”
“I will.”
We make our way back to my bedroom. The bed is big enough for all of us, though Nikita complicates the arrangement. She’s sprawled across what would be Wyatt’s side, taking up far more space than a small calico cat has any right to claim.
“Demanding little thing,” Wyatt murmurs, working around her. He settles behind me, spooning against my back. Nikita relocates, climbing over his side and stretching out again atop him like he’s just an extension of the furniture.
Chris takes the other side, leaving careful space between us.
“This okay?” Wyatt murmurs.
“Perfect.”
Chris stays on his back, not quite touching. I reach over, find his hand.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him.
He doesn’t answer. Just squeezes my fingers.
We lie there in the dark, three people and a cat, pretending sleep is coming easily.
The next two days pass in a haze of medication schedules, soft foods, and learning how to be together without sex as the connecting thread.
Saturday morning, Chris kisses me awake—gentle pressure on my lips that sparks heat low in my belly despite the lingering soreness.
“Morning,” he murmurs against my mouth.
I kiss him back, deeper, until the heat builds to something demanding. His hand moves to my hip, thumb tracing small circles.
I pull back with real regret. “If you keep doing that, I’m going to want to disobey doctor’s orders.”
He goes still. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Just be aware that you’re very distracting.”
His mouth curves slightly. “Distracting.”
“Extremely.”
“I can work with that.”
But he doesn’t kiss me again. Just tucks my hair behind my ear and goes to make breakfast.
When I wake from an afternoon nap on Saturday, I hear them in the kitchen again, voices low and the clink of cookware suggesting another meal in progress. The smell of broth and herbs drifts into the living room.
“You two are going to spoil me,” I call from the couch.
“That’s the plan,” Wyatt calls back.
“It’s working.”
Chris appears at the top of the rise that leads down to the sunken living room, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. “How are you feeling?”
“Sore. But better than yesterday.”
“Pain level?”
“Manageable. Maybe a four.”
He nods, cataloging the information. Always assessing, always running threat analysis even when the only threat is recovery time.
“Come sit with me,” I suggest.
He considers this, then comes over. He sits on the coffee table facing me instead of beside me on the couch.
“You can sit closer,” I tell him. “I won’t bite.”
“I know.”
“Then why the distance?”
He studies my face. “Because close is hard without crossing into territory we can’t go right now.”
“We don’t have to cross into that territory. We can just be close.”
“Can we?” He looks skeptical, but there’s a glint in his eyes that suggests he’s messing with me.
“Chris, just come here.”
A moment passes while he pretends to think about this.
Then slowly, carefully, he moves to sit beside me.
He leaves space between us, but not as much as before.
When I huff, he chuckles and scoots closer, tucking me against his side.
When I sigh and rest my head on his shoulder, he presses a chaste kiss to my temple.
We sit like that while Wyatt finishes the soup. Nikita joins us, curling on Chris’s lap with typical feline audacity. He scratches behind her ears absently, the motion soothing.
“This is nice,” I murmur.
“Yeah.” He sounds almost surprised. “It is.”
Sunday arrives with better energy. The pain has receded to background noise, manageable without round-the-clock medication. I can move around more easily, help with simple meal prep, feel less like an invalid.
We eat lunch together at the kitchen table—actual sitting up in chairs, not me propped on the couch being waited on.
“Look at you,” Wyatt says, grinning. “Vertical and everything.”
“I contain multitudes.”
Chris makes a sound that might be a laugh. Progress.
We’re clearing dishes when I remember. The invitation Vicente extended on Thursday. The one I’ve been avoiding thinking about.
“Can we talk about something?” I ask.
Both men pause, immediately alert.
“That sounds ominous,” Wyatt observes.
“It’s not. Maybe. I don’t know.” I dry my hands on a towel, buying time. “Vicente and Arturo invited me to Thanksgiving dinner.”
The silence is immediate and total.
“At their house,” I continue. “The compound. They said it’s a whole family thing—all the Santos brood and their partners. Callie and Mason included.”
“Of course they’re going too,” Chris mutters. “Because this family couldn’t be more goddamn tangled if we tried.”
“I think I’m going to go,” I say. “But you don’t have to. I know it’s complicated, but if you’d rather the three of us spend Thanksgiving together, just us, that’s fine too.”
“No.” Chris’s voice is sharp. “You can’t go.”
I blink. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not safe. You’d be walking into their territory, surrounded by their people, with limited backup.”
“I’d have Darius and Lucia.”
“Who’d be outnumbered twenty to one in a fortified compound we’ve never mapped. If something goes wrong, extraction would be nearly impossible.”
“Chris,” Wyatt says carefully.
“Don’t.” Chris turns on him. “Don’t tell me I’m overreacting. We just spent days talking about Rafael, about potential threats, about how Nina’s the soft target. Now she wants to walk directly into the center of their world?”
“Who’s Rafael?” I ask.
“A ghost,” Wyatt says.
“A threat,” Chris says at the same time.
They exchange a look. I wait, but neither elaborates.