Standing up to Ava would be a piece of cake after this conversation.
He rose slowly from the bed and began to pace around the room, rubbing the back of his neck with one of his hands while he walked. Marin swallowed uneasily. This was much harder than she thought it would be.
Griffin blew out a heavy breath and turned back to face her. “Okay. When will you be back in DC?”
Now they had arrived at the most difficult part of the conversation. Marin buried her hands in the sheets so that he wouldn’t see them shaking.
“I’m not sure.” Her tongue darted out to lick her throbbing lip. “But it really doesn’t matter because I don’t think we should see one another any longer.”
His body jerked to attention. “Why not?” The two words seemed to crackle from his mouth like lightning strikes.
She sighed resolutely and pushed on through. “This”—she waved her hand over the bed—“has been wonderful. You have been wonderful. I couldn’t have gotten through any of this week’s drama without you. And I’m so grateful that you were the one here to protect me. But it’s over now. It has to be.”
“What the hell do you mean ‘it has to be’?” he demanded. “What about what you said last night? In the field. With Salenko.”
Marin wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry that he couldn’t seem to get out the word “love.”
“You mean when I told you that I love you?” she asked.
His face looked stricken. Surely, she was imagining it. No man would want a woman gushing about love if he didn’t feel the same way.
“You didn’t mean it?” he asked.
She swallowed roughly, trying to get her voice to remain firm and composed.
“Of course, I meant it, Griffin. I do love you,” she said softly. “And I’m okay with you not loving me back. It’s better than you saying something you don’t mean. I’ll survive. I promise.” She paused to take a steadying breath. “I know the only commitment you ever plan on making is to your career. I get that. I’ve understood it from the beginning. Being a Secret Service agent—the best Secret Service agent, in my humble opinion—is who you are. And it’s also one of the things I love about you. I couldn’t ask you to give that up and still live with myself.” She paused again.
The air had gone still in the room. Griffin’s expression was fixed and stoic.
Marin gulped in another breath and pressed on. “But if we continue this, whatever this is, I’d always want more than you’re prepared to give. And that’s not fair. To either one of us.”
Griffin opened his mouth and then promptly closed it again. Marin ached to touch him again, to have him hold her against him.
“You’re right,” he finally said.
His words were like a sledgehammer to her heart, shattering it into a million pieces.
“Thank you for your honesty, Marin.” He turned to head for the door.
“Promise me something, Griffin,” she called out to his retreating back.
Griffin turned to face her. “Anything,” he said.
The softly uttered word shattered her heart even further. Griffin was capable of so much love, if he’d only let himself.
“Be safe,” she croaked out.
He nodded. And then he was gone.
Marin sat in the middle of the great big bed in the Queen’s bedroom, tears streaming down her cheeks, trying to convince herself she’d just done the right thing by letting him go.
CHAPTER23
Griffin watched out the small window as the baggage cart snaked along the tarmac just as day was breaking. He blew out an exasperated breath. Why couldn’t they hurry and get this plane’s wheels up? Time was slipping away. He needed to get to Greece so he could bring down the ring of counterfeiters he’d spent nearly two years of his life chasing. And to free Elena.
Elena.
All these months, Griffin has thought of The Artist as some diabolical criminal, not some slave used by a conglomerate of gangsters. According to the agents at Homeland Security who’d briefed him last night, Elena was a twenty-five-year-old woman with the mind of a ten-year-old child. A gifted painter, she was a prodigy who was being manipulated by a gang of greedy thieves. Still, Salenko should have gone to the police to rescue his daughter. The string of dead bodies he’d left behind was unconscionable. Griffin wasn’t rescuing Elena because of the bargain he’d made with the dead man. He was rescuing Elena because Marin had begged him to.