She was still whispering but it was fierce when she said, “Never.”

He felt that muscle in his jaw tick.

“But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t—” she tried to go on.

It was jacked as shit, but after their beginning and how Nick had acted out during it, now Nick couldn’t stomach even thinking about the idea of Anya with another man.

So Nick cut her off, “We should stop talking.”

“If you feel something for someone else, Nick, that doesn’t mean—”

“How about feeling everything for her?” Nick asked, definitely laying it out now. Laying it out for Anya and admitting shit out loud he hadn’t even admitted to himself. “When that was only supposed to be for Hettie. What does that mean?”

She looked confused again, and uneasy to the point of looking frightened. “It means I don’t understand why you can’t have her.”

“For her safety.”

“That makes no sense.”

He shook his head again. “Unfortunately, I can’t explain further.”

“No, Nick, what I mean is, there is no safer place on the planet for a woman than with the man she loves.”

Nick stared at his brother’s woman, unable to speak.

She jolted him out of his silence with just, “Nick—”

“I was right there and that place wasn’t safe for Hettie when they took her life,” he stated.

“Unfortunately Hettie isn’t here to confirm what I’m going to say but I figure she’d disagree,” she replied gently. “If her life had to be taken, you being there when it was was the only safe thing she had in her last moments.”

Anya was right. Hettie would confirm that. He knew it the way her eyes never left him. He knew, even unable to save her, he gave her something just by being there and her knowing he loved her and just how much as Harkin raised the gun to her head.

“Your new girl—” Anya went on.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen with her. It shouldn’t happen. It can’t,” he told her.

She glanced briefly toward the kitchen again before looking to Nick and declaring on a squeeze of his hand, “And those are the times when you know it’s real. When it shouldn’t be. When it wasn’t supposed to be. When you aren’t supposed to let it. And there’s nothing on this earth that can stop it.” Her tone went cautious. “Isn’t that what happened with Hettie?”

“This is different,” he shared.

“How?” she asked.

“As much as I love what you said, babe, I am the last thing that’s safe for this woman.”

“I don’t understand.”