Page 78 of Emerald

“You have to come with us when it’s time,” I tell him.

“Don’t worry about me, you worry about saving Pearl. I’ll sort something out. I can look after myself.” Nash scoffs.

“Doubtful, not against the cartel,” I snip.

“I’ve survived here for years.”

“Because you didn’t step on their toes. When they find Pearl and I gone, you will be the person he comes looking for. They won’t stop,” I tell him.

“You kind of sound worried for me.” He grins.

“For some reason, I don’t want them to put a bullet through your head.” Nash blanches at my words. “You have to be on that plane.”

“You want me to be?” he asks, catching me off-guard.

“If the decision is between you alive and dead, then yes, I choose you to be alive,” I tell him. “Also, Brooks will be upset if I leave you behind.”

“Guess, that’s that then,” he says, turning around and heading back to the kitchen, where he is filling up a cooler with food.

“Did you want me to answer another way?” I ask him softly. He ignores me. “You wanted me to say I wanted you dead?” I ask, raising my voice.

“No. I didn’t want you to tell me you wanted me dead. I wanted to hear stupidly that you might want me to come with you,” he yells back. Oh. That. We glare at each other as silence fills the space between us.

“Brooks and Sophie want you alive.” Nash’s shoulders sag at my answer. I close my eyes for a moment and leave them closed while I confess to him, “I’ve shut down, Nash. I have to, to protect my mental stability to finish this mission. The shutters that have been wide open can’t be anymore. I’m sorry.” I open my eyes and see the pained expression on his face as he looks at me.

“What the hell was in those text messages?”

“It’s not just the text messages, Nash. It’s everything. I can’t be detached anymore to do my job. When other men touch me, it makes me sick, I want to murder every last one of them and say to hell with the mission, not because what they are doing to me is bad, but because they aren’t you.” Nash’s jaw drops at my confession. “The only person I want touching me is you, it seems.”

29

NASH

“Elena.”

She shakes her head. “No. You don’t understand, Nash. I have to be detached to go through with what I must do to save Pearl. I can’t react with revulsion when Manuel touches me, he almost caught me in the bedroom.”

“Elena,” I say her name again as I step forward.

“Please, Nash,” she pleads with me. “I’m not supposed to have a heart.”

I reach out and pull her to me, she bumps off my chest. “My heart has been a stone for a long time, too. The thought of those men touching you drove me crazy last night.” Her brows pull together. “I feel like murdering every last one of them for touching you.”

“Do I repulse you?” she asks me.

“What?”

“Knowing all those men fucked me, last night, does that repulse you?” she pushes.

“I’m not happy about it, but I know in that moment it’s not you,” I say, cupping her face. “That you are someone else in that situation.”

“I’m tired of being someone else,” she confesses as her shoulders slump.

“Who do you want to be?” I ask her, my thumb running over her cheek.

“Yours.” I wasn’t expecting that answer. “Too soon?”

“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, “but what I do know is you’re not alone in it.”

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