The words spoke to something deep inside her, something she didn’t want to acknowledge. She looked away from him. “I think you should leave.”
He was silent for so long she almost wondered if he’d managed to leave while her head was turned. Then she heard the sound of the microwave opening, knew he was taking his phone.
“I love you, Lex.” She couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I love every part of you. Nothing will change that. But you have to love me too. You have to love the broken parts of me and the parts you disagree with and the parts you don’t understand. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
His footsteps were muffled on the carpet. A moment later the door shut behind him.
17
Nick could barely control the shaking of his hand as he inserted the key card into the door. It took three tries for the light to turn green, and he fought a swell of frustration as he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him.
The room was nearly identical to Alexa’s, with a living area overlooking the city, a small but functional kitchenette, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It wasn’t home but it would do until he could figure out where things stood at the house with Ronan and Declan.
He dropped his duffle and paced the room. The anger he’d kept at bay during the conversation with Ronan rose inside him like high tide and he slammed his fist into the wall without thinking, half-surprised to feel it sink into the drywall.
He sat on the edge of the bed and dropped his head into his hands, his breath coming fast and heavy as Alexa’s words rang though his mind. One of the night’s revelations would be a lot for anyone to handle, but the conversation about MIS on the heels of Alexa’s confession about her inability to have children was almost too much to take in.
He wondered if her reaction to the news about MIS was in any way connected to the secret she’d revealed about her accident. She could say he didn’t know her all she wanted, but it was a lie. Maybe he didn’t know everything — that was part of what he loved about her, the feeling that they could grow old together and he would still be learning about her — but he knew enough to know that she acted pissed when she was scared.
And he knew nothing made her more afraid than the possibility of rejection, than someone finding her wanting because of what had happened to her, because of the scars, real and figurative, left by the accident.
He sighed and scooted back on the bed. He was deluding himself.
This had been inevitable. She’d fought her way through law school, won a coveted internship at the AG’s office, earned one of the entry-level positions right after she took the bar, worked her way up to Assistant AG. She’d only done all of that for one reason — because she believed in her work.
She believed in her work the same way he believed in his work. She wasn’t going to suddenly change her mind because of an ex-cop with questionable morals.
He lay back, resting his head in his hands, and stared at the multi-colored lights cast onto the ceiling by the neighboring buildings. The long night played across his mind — the hospital, Ronan’s pride as he’d announced the birth of his son, the littlest Murphy bundled behind the nursery glass, Ronan’s face in shadow when Nick had confessed, and finally her, the woman he loved: Alexa, her posture as she’d turned away, unable to look at him as he left.
He held her face in his mind’s eye. Even now, even after all that had happened, it was all he wanted.
All he needed.
He startled, sitting up in bed. The sun was coming up on the other side of the window, the sky that had been inky when he’d arrived now the palest of blue, a column of weak light shining on the carpet.
A bang sounded from the door of the hotel room and he realized that was what had woken him up: someone was knocking.
He hurried to the door, hoping against hope that it was Alexa, but when he peered through the peephole, it was Ronan and Declan standing on the other side.
“Fuck,” he murmured. He had a feeling he would need coffee for this conversation.
He opened the door. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Don’t be dumb,” Dec said.
Nick stood back to let them in. He couldn’t argue Dec’s sentiment. Finding people was their job, and they’d made finding each other easy for obvious reasons.
Ronan didn’t look at him as he stepped into the room with Dec on his heels.
“I can make coffee if you want it,” Nick said. “I assume there’s coffee here somewhere.”
“We don’t want coffee,” Ronan said.
Dec lifted a finger. “I could use some coffee.”
Now that Dec mentioned it, he did look a little worse for wear. His clothes were rumpled, his hair was uncombed, and he needed a shave. Ronan must have dragged him out of someone’s bed.
Ronan glared at him. “We don’t want coffee.”