“Made me into something new,” she said.
Ewan made a low, strangled noise that sounded like her name.
She looked at him. “You touched me, and I became something new.”
“Crosson—”
“I’m not talking about Crosson,” Nina said.
Ewan looked stricken, then nodded. “I know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“All I wanted to do was to help my sister. My entire life, we’d been at odds. She was my parents’ favorite. I was their disappointment. But still, she was my sister. Family. When we lost our parents, she was all I had left.” Ewan filled two mugs with steaming water from the electric kettle and added some tea. He pushed one across the table toward Nina, who did not take it.
She’d showered and dressed in her usual uniform of black leggings and top, but the harness and belt with her gear was folded neatly on the table in front of her. She would not stand by and allow him to come to harm, she’d told him, but she was no longer in his employ. No longer bound to protect him with everything she had.
He was no longer hers.
“She’d done such great work, see. Her efforts with conservation. The environment. She was only eight years older than me, but she’d spent so much of her life doing whatever she could to make the world a better place. No wonder my parents preferred her. Thought she’d left more of a positive impact. She had. I mean, what had I ever done? Sold candy. Drifted around to different apprenticeships. Never stuck with anything. Never thought I needed to.” He blew on the tea to cool it, but could not bring himself to sip. His stomach churned.
Nina sat quietly, her hands on the edges of the table. She looked at him. She listened. She did not speak and had not, not more than a few words or so, since telling him she was quitting. That had been hours ago. She’d waited until they got back to Woodhaven, at least. Until he’d been given the antidote to Crosson’s poison. Until he’d been safe.
“When she first started to forget things, it seemed like she was just working too hard. Had too much on her mind, you know? Maybe using too much candy. But it became rapidly clear that she was failing. She was losing pieces of herself. She was so young, but she was falling into dementia. Nothing worked. All of these medical miracles, and nobody had yet figured out how to stop a brain from forgetting. So I decided I would.”
“And you did.”
Those three words made him happier than any other three words could have, because it meant that Nina was at least going to say something to him. “I tried.”
She drew the mug toward her and drank from it without bothering to cool the tea first. If it burned her, she showed no sign. She drained the mug and went to the sink to fill it with water from the tap. She drank that, too. It was the first time she’d ever been in the kitchen at Woodhaven, and it would also be the last.
“It’s easier to erase memories than it is to keep them,” Ewan said. “As it turned out, the tech did everything it was supposed to, but too well. My sister deteriorated so rapidly I never had time to help her. And after that . . .”
“You enhanced fifteen people who would otherwise have died. You saved our lives.”
Ewan nodded.
“You have the tech upgrades already developed. You’ve always had it.”
“Yes,” he said.
“You know that without upgrades, we’re all going to die. Probably as terribly as your sister did, within the next five years. Or less. There are only thirteen of us left. Some of us might go out on the job. Some might end up in some butcher’s chop shop, so desperate for the chance at new tech they won’t care about the risks. Some of us,” she said quietly, “might simply check out the way Hendricks did. Believe me, I’ve thought about it once or twice.”
The thought of that, of losing her not just for himself but that the world itself would end up bereft of her, shook him to his core. His gorge rose. He was glad he hadn’t drank any tea. It would have come back up.
“Nina,” he said in a voice ragged with longing. “I’m sorry. Please believe me.”
“So change it,” she said sharply. That liquid-dark gaze settled on his. “Change all of it. You lobbied to change the laws. Change them back.”
Miserably, he shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Because you don’t want to.”
“Because it’s not right, Nina. I wish I could make you understand. Watching my sister die that way was horrifying. I thought I could help her, and instead I created something that had no business being used. I saw her lose herself, but only once. I can’t allow this tech out there in the world knowing it could make someone lose themselves over and over again. I can’t, baby.”
“Something happened to me,” Nina whispered, her voice breaking. “I’m so angry with you, Ewan, it’s like a sickness inside me.”
“You can feel again. That’s a positive—”
“I’m sick with it!” she cried harshly, loud enough to shut him up. “Don’t you understand? I love you, but I hate you, and it’s pulling me apart from the inside out.”
She got up to pace, each step a thump on the floor hard enough to shake the table and the teacups. She whirled around at one end of the kitchen and strode back. Her fists clenched and unclenched. She was shaking.
“Something happened,” she repeated, her voice like the grinding of gears. “It hurts.”
That wasn’t what he wanted, and the sight of her distress, the sound of it in her voice, sent waves of sickness all through him, too.
“I can fix you,” he said in a low voice. “We can get the upgrades for you . . .”
Nina whirled on him, her teeth bared, shocking and fierce. “The upgrades you lied about?”
“Yes. I lied to you. I lied to everyone. I’m sorry.” Ewan recoiled from her before he could stop himself.
“Are you afraid of me? Do you think I’m going to hurt you?” She stalked closer, taking him by the front of his shirt. Her fingers gripped, digging deep.
He closed his eyes. “I know you won’t.”
“I didn’t think, I didn’t think you could hurt me.” Her grip loosened. Her breath gusted over his face as she leaned to press her cheek to his, giving him hopes she was going to embrace him that were dashed with her next words. “I love you. I hate you. I hate you.”
She pushed away from him and began pacing again. This time, Ewan got to his feet and stood in front of her. He took her by the upper arms to keep her still. Beneath his hands, Nina was trembling. Tears welled in her eyes but didn’t slip down her cheeks.
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” Ewan told her. “But I can fix you, Nina. I’m going to fix you, I swear.”
“And the others?”
He shook his head. Nina tried to jerk herself free of his grip and step back, but Ewan refused to let go. The second time she moved away from him, it was hard enough to make him stumble forward.
“Even if I could change the laws, I can’t in any good conscious agree to make a wide release of any upgrades to that enhancement tech!” he shouted. “It would not end with the thirteen of you, and you know it. We should not have the ability to wipe anyone’s memories. Or to control them. It’s wrong, Nina. At the end of my sister’s life, if there’d been any way at all for me to help her regain her memories, to hold onto what she had left, I would have given anything. But that’s not what that tech does, and it’s not right to be able to take something like that away.”
She put her shaking hands to the sides of her head. “Even the bad memories? Don’t you think there are people who’d be so happy for the ability to get rid of the things that hurt them?”
“And there are people who have decided that there are things you’re not allowed to remember. What happens when they choose to take away something you want to keep?” he shot back at her. “Because that’s what they can do.”
“Will you?” she demanded. “Reset me? Wipe this assignment? You could. You probably should,” she added flatly and stood up straight, hands at her sides. “After
all, I know more about you than can possibly be comfortable for you.”
“I don’t want to wipe your memories. Not of me. Not of anything. More importantly, I don’t want anyone to ever be able to do it to you again. Or to anyone else, ever again.”
“You could work to change the laws to accommodate us. All of us. Nobody else.”
He shook his head. “You know that wouldn’t work. Even if we restricted that use, there would always be a way to hack it.”
“There are ways to hack it now, and they’re all dangerous!” she shouted.
Seeing her angry was breathtaking, even though it sliced him with a real, physical pain. Ewan reached for her again; this time, she slapped his hands away hard enough to send shocks of more pain up his arms. He didn’t try again.
“There are only thirteen people in the entire world to whom it makes a difference, Nina.”
Nina drew in a breath. “And I am one of them.”
“I told you, we can make it work for you. It would have to be a secret. But we could work on it.”
“I don’t want it to be a secret. I don’t want it if the others who are like me won’t get it. I don’t want the privilege of this just because I happen to get your cock hard.”
He flinched at that, hating himself for doing this to her. Hating her a little for being so justifiably cruel. “If you think that’s the only reason why I would want to do this for you, Nina, then you have no idea who I am.”
“That’s the truth,” she told him. “I thought I knew you, until I found out that you’d been keeping this a secret from me the entire time. You had chances to tell me, Ewan, and you never did. Maybe you never lied, but it feels like what you did was even worse. So I guess I really have no idea who you are at all.”
From outside came the rev of the transpo’s engine that would take her away from him. Both of them looked out the window toward the sound, but Nina was the first to leave the kitchen and head for the front door. Ewan caught up to her in the driveway, reaching her but deciding at the last moment not to grab her. He remembered all too well what she’d done to Blakely.
She saw his expression when she turned. “You are afraid of me.”
“I know you could hurt me,” he said. “I always knew it, from the first minute I met you.”
She smiled, humorless and still so beautiful it broke his heart. “Funny, from the start, I had no idea how much you would hurt me.”
“Nina!” he called after her as she got onto the transpo.
She turned. At least she gave him that.
“If you could erase the memories of us,” he said, “would you?”
She did not answer. Instead, she got into the transpo. She closed the door.
She left him behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Nina didn’t need to take another assignment. The money she’d made from working for Ewan would last her a good long time, even if she lived a life of extravagance and indulgence for as long as she could, which wouldn’t be very long. She didn’t need to work, but she wanted the distraction.
This job had taken her all over the world. Literally. She’d spent twenty-two out of the past twenty-four hours on planes or trains or luxury cars, sitting by the side of one of the wealthiest men on the planet. Roger Germain was easy to get along with. Did as he was told, in regard to his personal safety. Didn’t talk much and therefore, didn’t expect her to have a conversation with him. He let her do her job as needed, which fortunately for both of them, wasn’t really needed.
He’d given her a nice bonus, too, along with a stellar review. It didn’t necessarily matter in the long run, not when there were only a few people in the world who were capable of offering the services she could provide. One less, now that she’d taken out Blakely. Still, the glowing words had lit her up a little inside and made her remember why she did what she did.
They hadn’t stopped her from thinking about Ewan, but Nina had already figured out that she was going to have him on her mind for a long time. If she got lucky, maybe she’d get a top-secret assignment that would reset her memories, including the ones of him, but something told her she wasn’t going to be that fortunate. Life didn’t work that way.
The pain of his betrayal had not eased. If anything, as time went on, the ache in Nina’s heart grew. Deeper, wider, longer. It had wound its way all through her in ways she’d never imagined.
She’d wished for this, she reminded herself. In the days when she’d been incapable of the highs and lows of true, full emotion, she’d regretted the loss. Now, when every minute was a challenge to get through, when she spent her days forcing herself not to curl up in a ball on the floor of the shower and sob until she made herself sick . . . now, she wondered how she could ever have wanted this.
She’d been home for less than a day when the next job came in. A standard assignment. Another rich guy who’d pissed people off. Open-ended, which didn’t interest her, so she declined. Moments later, her housecomm was pinging with a call from her boss.
“Leona,” Nina said as she poured herself a glass of well-deserved wine. She lifted the glass to the video screen so the younger woman could see it. “You know what’s the worst thing about some of these jobs? All the good booze I can’t drink. Roger Germain had exquisite taste in wine. He sent me a case of this as a thank-you gift, but it’s the first time I’m getting the chance to drink some. In other words, this better be really important.”
Leona shook her fall of blond hair. “Sweetie, would I have called you at home if it wasn’t?”
“Honey,” Nina answered with a bitter smile and another raise of her glass, “petal, dove. If it’s about that new assignment, the answer is still no. I have no desire to get into something open-ended right now.”
“I don’t blame you, not one bit. If anything, I think you should’ve taken a nice, long vacation after coming off the Donahue job.” Leona paused. “Which, if you want to talk about . . .”
“You know I can’t talk about it.”
Nina’s boss frowned. “And you know that the nondisclosure agreement doesn’t apply to me. I already know all the details about the assignment, and about him.”
“So there’s nothing for me to say about it, is there?” Nina sipped the earthy red wine slowly, savoring it. “You know one of the reasons why I don’t drink a lot anymore isn’t so much to stay sober. It’s not even because it’s almost impossible for me to actually get drunk for more than a few minutes. Nope, it’s because of the flavors. Bad wine is really, really bad.”
“There’s still plenty for you to tell me, Bronson. Like for example, what happened between the two of you at the cabin.” Leona gave Nina a steady stare.
Nina shook her head. “I made my report. I disclosed everything.”
“Yeah, I read your report. It was very . . . mechanical.” Leona shook her head. “That’s not what I’m talking about. Punkin—”
“Poodle,” Nina added.
Leona raised her brows. “I know you’ve had physical relationships with clients before, and of course that’s never been against company policies or anything like that. But there’s more to this than what you put in the report.”
“I put everything in there.”
“Sure, all the details. It’s not what you put in there, it’s what you left out. About how it made you feel.” Leona frowned. Nina had never told her about her inability to experience strong emotions, but she might have guessed it. “I’m here to listen, if you need me to.”
Nina nodded. “I know you are. But I don’t have anything I want to talk about. Truly.”
“It might help.”
“It won’t,” Nina said bluntly. A fresh wave of agony threatened to surge up from her guts and out her mouth, burning and sour. “Talking about it won’t change what happened. It won’t make it better. Time might do that, but you can’t make it pass any faster than it already will.”
“He’s a sphincter,” Leona said.
Nina shook her head. “No. He’s just .
. . he’s a person. That’s all. Sometimes, most times, things don’t work out the way you think they will. You move on. That’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” Leona said.
“Yeah. Me, too.” Nina shrugged, pushing away the rush of emotions trying to choke her. She’d always liked Leona. Her boss had become a friend over the years, and if there ever was someone in her life that Nina would’ve confided in, Leona might have been that person. Except that Nina didn’t want to talk about Ewan or what had happened, or anything else about it.
She couldn’t. It was hard enough to get through it. Talking about it felt like it might kill her.
Leona sighed when Nina didn’t say anything else. “Look. The client really wants you, and he’s willing to change the open-ended assignment to a limited term. A month. Double your fees.”
“Interesting.” Nina took another mouthful of wine, letting the liquid wash over her tongue. “Nobody else can take it? What about Peters?”
“The client wants the best. That’s you, babycakes.”
Nina laughed, humorlessly. “Thanks, but you know perfectly well that any one of your staff is beyond competent. Why not give the assignment to someone who could use the cash, anyway? Maybe it is time for me to take a vacation.”
Leona rolled her eyes. “Sure. That’s so you, Nina. Taking a vacation, right. Where are you going to go? Let me guess. A tropical island. Gonna bake on a beach in a bikini with a smutty novel? Maybe a cute cabana boy?”
That actually didn’t sound half bad. “Good idea.”
“You’ll be bored,” Leona pointed out. “In about a day.”
“Might be nice to be bored.” Nina poured herself another half glass of wine.
“If you change your mind, let me know.”
Nina’s grin stretched her lips over her teeth. It felt fake, but must have passed inspection, because Leona didn’t look taken aback. “You know it, boss.”
“Yeah, yeah. Take care, honey.”
The comm went dark. Nina let her head drop back against the couch cushions, the glass in her hand. If she drank a little faster, she could get a hint of a buzz, at least, but gulping wine this good seemed more of a crime than the fact she couldn’t get drunk. She sipped slowly, instead, staring at the ceiling and studying the pattern of circles in the plaster.