Which meant packing up all the things Darby might need for the foreseeable future.

He parked and climbed out into the Arctic breeze, strode across the parking lot of Darby’s apartment building. He pressed the buzzer for the building manager and tucked his bare hands into his sleeves. Frostbite was a definite danger, especially now the sun had gone down.

“Hello?”

“This is the FBI. I’d like to look at Ms. O’Roarke’s apartment if you don’t mind opening up.”

“I thought you guys were all finished?” said a disgruntled female voice. The buzzer sounded and the lock released. “She’s on the top floor. Four B. Door should be unlocked.”

Eban refrained from demanding why the woman hadn’t locked up after the cops had gone through. “Thanks.”

He took the stairs and let himself into Darby’s small two-bedroom pad. It was neat and tidy, although it was obvious where the police had been searching as they’d left drawers open and scattered her belongings.

He’d seen this place via video call many times, but he’d never been here. And he’d wanted to come, wanted to visit, wanted to start something he knew he shouldn’t. She was too vulnerable, too young, he was in a position of power that put the balance of the relationship too much in his hands. He’d helped save her and there was a danger she would see him more as a hero and less as the flawed human he really was.

The idea of having a relationship with this woman at once terrified him and made him burn. Ever since she’d propositioned him, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her and unable to think about any other woman that way.

It hit him again that for months he’d been torturing himself, making himself stay away because he’d thought that was best for Darby. And he’d been miserable. He’d been a fucking nightmare to work with even though he loved his co-workers. He’d deliberately started a fight with Charlotte’s new boyfriend because he’d thought the guy wasn’t good enough for her. In reality he’d been jealous and resentful that she was getting the happy ending she deserved whereas he was wallowing in a blackhole of loneliness, and he didn’t know how he could hold onto both his ethics and the thing he wanted most in the world.

Darby.

There was a photograph of her and Haley and Quentin stuck to the fridge. Taken at Christmas by the look of it, at the borealis observatory where they’d camped overnight in little pods. It had looked like a lot of fun. She’d asked him to come too, but he’d had to work.

He closed his eyes and drew in a heavy breath.

Regrets tore through him. All the time he’d wasted.

He slipped the photograph free of the magnets that held it in place.

The problem remained that their lives were still generally incompatible. Nothing had changed. He wanted to settle down and start a family. She was pursuing her life’s dream, a Ph.D. in volcanology.