“True, but I refuse to ignore every other day of your life too. If you were as vile as you want to believe, you would have killed Reed Harris and left him in the woods. You didn’t. My mother did what she had to do, and I know you well enough to know that if there were any other way to bring Mikhail to justice, you would have taken it.”

He gave her a quiet smile, one with roots that reached down to his heart. Something had lifted inside of him, and he felt light enough to float. She had found him, and she brought to him the absolution he’d been waiting for all that time. He felt mended. He felt… happy.

And now Niki stood a mere ten feet away, leaning against the door—tough, witty, beautiful, and wise beyond her years. She meant more to him than he had ever let himself believe, but to admit it—even now—felt like stepping off the edge of a cliff. He loved her. He wanted to go to her, to tell her, but when he opened his mouth, what came out instead was “So… now what?” God, he was an idiot!

Niki shifted her weight from her left foot to her right. She folded her fingers together and then unfolded them again. Finally, she said, “I drove two hundred miles to be here… with you. These last ten feet… that’s up to you.”

Ten feet. Four short steps. The walls had fallen away and his rules lay in ashes on the floor. Max moved to her as though she were gravity itself. He stopped so close that he was sure she could hear his heart beating. Then he lifted a finger to her chin, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her gently, tenderly, her lips soft, and warm against his. And when the kiss ended, he felt dizzy. “That was nice,” he said. Nice was a hulking understatement.

“Yeah.” Niki was slightly out of breath. “It was.”

He held her gaze. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she whispered.

He was about to kiss her again, but she raised a finger and said, “Before we get carried away, I think you should take me…” She looked up at him in a way that melted something inside of him. “To the kitchen.” Her mouth curved into a smile. “I’ve been here all day, and I am starving.”

Max closed his eyes and laughed. It felt so good to laugh again. Then he wrapped his arms around her and said, “Will bacon and eggs do?”

She rested her head against his chest. “That would be perfect.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Once again I find myself indebted to a small army of people who have helped me create a novel of which I am very proud. First and foremost, I want to offer my undying appreciation to my wife, Joely, for being my sounding board, my first editor, and my most endearing and enabling companion. Thank you. Also I want to thank Amy Cloughley, for being an agent extraordinaire and always having my back. Helen O’Hare, my editor at Mulholland Books, was remarkable in helping me put this story together, and I owe her a great debt of gratitude, as I do my whole team at Little, Brown/Mulholland: Michael Noon, Allison Kerr Miller, Bowen Dunnan, Gabrielle Leporati, Josh Kendall, and Lucy Kim.