Chapter 30 Norah #2
“I said it because I didn’t want to be the reason you hesitated,” she said, voice shaking despite her efforts.
“You were running into danger every day, and I was twenty and terrified and completely unprepared to care about someone who lived like that. I think a part of me knew that if I asked you to stay, you would. And that terrified me more than losing you. You were meant to do exactly what you’ve done. ”
His breath left him in a slow exhale.
“I was young,” she whispered. “And scared. And stupidly in love with you, and I didn’t know how to hold all of that at once.”
Marshall’s hands tightened on her hips—not possessive, just steadying—as if the truth she’d just laid bare shifted something deep in him.
For a long moment, he didn’t speak.
Then, quietly, “You weren’t stupid.” His thumb drew slow circles against her side. “You were twenty. And I was a kid pretending to be a man. I thought sacrifice meant disappearing. I thought loving you meant stepping out of your way.”
She lifted her head, eyes searching his.
“I didn’t know how to stay,” he said, voice rough with regret. “Not then. Not with everything in me pulling in two different directions.”
Marshall’s eyes lingered on her. It made her skin prickle, made heat crawl up her neck. She hadn’t been studied like that in . . . maybe ever. Instinctively, her hand flew to her hair, pushing at a loose strand.
“What?” she whispered, cheeks warming. “Do I look as wrecked as I feel?”
A breath of a laugh escaped him, soft and surprised, like the question tugged at something in him.
“I like you in my jacket. I’ve often had the urge to wrap you up in it like a kitten I can shield from the world,” he said with a half-smile.
Her face flared hotter—an involuntary, helpless reaction.
She ducked her head, staring at her fingers swallowed in the too-large sleeves.
The jacket smelled like him and suddenly she was acutely aware of how small she felt inside it.
Small, but not in a way that made her shrink. In a way that made her feel held.
“I don’t . . . think I’ve ever been compared to a kitten before,” she murmured, trying for lightness, failing to hide the tremor of shy delight threading through her voice. “I’m not sure Cleo would appreciate the comparison.”
Marshall’s expression gentled further. “Only because no one else has seen you the way I do.”
His words landed somewhere deep in her chest, loosening something she hadn’t realized she’d kept bolted shut. She swallowed hard, blinking down at the borrowed fabric bunching at her wrists, embarrassed by how much the compliment mattered—and how much she liked that it came from him.
She wasn’t used to being looked at like this. As someone . . . precious. Someone worth shielding.
Her breath shook. “What do you see?”
A faint smile tugged at his mouth. “Do you want the short version or the one that makes me sound completely gone for you?”
He didn’t let her answer.
“I see a woman who doesn’t even realize how remarkable she is,” he said easily. “Who walks into a room and changes the way the air feels without meaning to. Who connects dots faster than anyone I’ve ever worked with.”
His thumb brushed her cheekbone, slow and warm, as if he needed the contact to steady himself.
“And God help me,” he went on, a rough laugh ghosting through the words, “I love listening to you talk about things I barely understand. Shell companies, regressions, whatever financial wizardry you start muttering when you get focused.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“You start speaking that language, and I could listen for hours. I think half the time I’m staring at you because your brain is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Except—” His eyes swept over her slowly, reverently.
“—you’re also gorgeous. The kind of beautiful that sneaks up on a man and won’t let him look away.
Your curves . . . your eyes . . . the way you laugh. It undoes me.”
Her breath stuttered—once, sharply.
He leaned in slightly, voice dropping. “That’s what I see, Norah. A brilliant, fierce, ridiculously compelling woman I can’t look away from. Even when I was supposed to.”
A warmth flooded her cheeks so suddenly she was glad for the dim lighting.
She felt it everywhere—down her neck, across her chest, a fizzy rush beneath her skin she hadn’t felt since she was a teenager watching him climb out of a swimming pool.
Her pulse fluttered, light and ridiculous, and she had to look away before she did something mortifying, like melt into a puddle on the carpet.
She cleared her throat, aiming for steady and landing somewhere near breathless. “Well,” she managed, “that’s . . . a statistically unreasonable amount of compliments for one person.”
It wasn’t gracious or self-assured, but it was the first thing her panicked, over-warm brain produced.
Marshall’s soft laugh told her he absolutely knew what she was doing—and absolutely adored her for it.
“You deserve every single one.”
She exhaled shakily. “We wasted so much time,” she whispered.
His hand came up to cup her jaw, brushing away a tear with the gentlest sweep of his thumb. “Maybe,” he allowed. “But we didn’t lose it.”
Her breath caught.
“We’re here,” he murmured, forehead touching hers again. “We found our way back, despite everything. That has to count for something.”
Her fingers curled into his shirt, right over his heart. “It counts for everything. And the numbers don’t lie,” she said with a smile.
He let out a disbelieving sound that was almost a laugh—pained in the best way. “You have no idea what it does to me to hear you say that. I love when you talk numbers.”
Norah pressed her palm fully to his chest, feeling the steady thrum beneath it. “Oh yeah? Stochastic volatility models. Nonlinear regressions. Quantitative easing anomalies. Differential lag structures.”
His huffed breath warmed her temple, and he let out a groan. “Sassy, smart kitten.”