“Maybe sharing, I could have helped you sort it out,” she pointed out. “This way, you’re carrying that burden alone. Since Donovan wanted to talk alone to you and you allowed that not just once, but twice, I would presume whatever job he’s offering you, I’m not a part of and I’m not needed.”
His chest constricted. Her tone was soft but there was an edge to it. Something different he hadn’t heard before, just like the expression on her face. He started to open his mouth, give an immediate rebuttal, but he needed to listen to her. This had cut deep. He could see that it had. He hadn’t meant it to hurt her. Damn it, when he didn’t know what to do, he fell back on old habits.
Meiling sat up and scooted away from him, up toward the headboard. She settled there, pulling the sheet up to her waist, taking that from him. In the moonlight spilling from the open porch, she looked almost ethereal. She also looked sad.
“Donovan is offering me a job. I don’t know if I even understand what he wants from me. It doesn’t make sense. Well.” He sat on the edge of the bed and then stood so he could pace, suddenly restless. “Maybe it does. I would never do the job without you. I just needed time to process what he was saying to me because, like I said, it didn’t make sense.”
“He’s offering you the job. Not us,” she qualified. Her gaze didn’t leave his face. “Did you think about that, Gedeon?”
He had. He’d thought about that and how she wouldn’t be in danger the way she was every damn time they took a job, although he wasn’t sure what Donovan was offering would make things better. “What I thought about was keeping you safe. Knowing you’d have the friends you’ve always wanted. I didn’t think in terms of who was doing the actual job because, like I said, I wasn’t certain what it actually entailed.”
“It sounded, from the text I received from Evangeline, like you had taken the job.”
“I said I’d think about it. I would never take a job without talking it over with you first.” He had told Donovan he was willing to learn more about the job.
Meiling remained silent and just looked at him. It was impossible to keep anything from her. She knew he wasn’t telling her the entire truth. He didn’t want to share. She wouldn’t like it. Why was he even considering it? Because he needed the adrenaline rush.
“Tell me, Gedeon. All of it.”
He turned back to her. “I’ve lived too long being a fixer, Lotus. I can’t just retire. I know myself. I need the rush. The physical and mental activity.” He made the admission reluctantly. With the admission came the reality of being who he was. What he was. Fixing problems didn’t just mean negotiating. Calling in favors or trading them. Sometimes—often—it meant killing someone.
She didn’t move or take her gaze from his face. She simply listened to him. He couldn’t find judgment in her expression or in her mind.
“Donovan came to me and said he had a proposition. He noticed the way we were able to move so fast. He has been slowly taking out the heads of crime families and replacing them with men who will keep the crime from spilling beyond a certain level. I’m not explaining this very well.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “There’s always going to be an underworld, with criminals exploiting good people. The goal is to minimize the damage to those people, by controlling the underworld.”
Her dark eyes stayed on his green ones. Focused. No blinking.
“They have people in place to stop human trafficking, but at the same time, they have to appear to be criminals. They work with other criminals. That way they always know what’s happening in that world.”
“What does Donovan want you to do?”
“He’s setting up another one of his men to take over a territory. It’s a particular brutal one that needs cleaning out. His man needs someone to head up his security detail. He’d like me to be that man. I thought if we liked the idea, we could take the job together. At least until you know if you’re pregnant or not.”
Her dark, feathery lashes fluttered. “Is that what this is all about? You’re worried I’m pregnant? You’re concerned I can’t back you up properly anymore?”
He sank down onto the side of the bed. Close. “No, I’m not afraid of you. Just for you. I can’t live without you, Meiling. As in I wouldn’t want to be alive. I know you think I’m strong and I can do anything, but I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t want to. So best answer, find a profession where I keep you at a distance from it. I put babies in you and hope like hell you want to stay home and raise them.”