Page 91 of The Vow

Her understanding of my decision was brief before it became marred by the disastrous consequences. “So how did I become your casualty?”

My throat tightened. “I was going to help them escape, and in my mind, if I was already blowing the mission, I might aswell use my resources—my real identity—to do it. For the information Sandrine could provide, the FBI would’ve been more than willing to protect her and move them both into WITSEC. It wasn’t what I’d been assigned to find on Sinclair, but it was a damn solid second.”

I didn’t know if it was my tone or the look on my face, but something gave away exactly how well that option had gone over.

“She refused…” Robyn’s incredulity made her breathless.

We’d argued many times about involving Sandrine in our mission, Robyn always so sure she would take the chance to get out while I had my doubts. I’d never regretted more being right.

“I thought because she’d come to me for help, it shifted the scales. That she not only trusted me and considered me a friend but needed my help to the point she’d do whatever I suggested because she had no one else,” I went on, a bitter smile stretching my cheeks. “I was an idiot.”

Robyn flinched.

“Maybe she trusted me. Maybe she considered me a friend. But neither held a candle to her concern for her daughter. She point-blank didn’t trust the feds to keep her safe, and there was nothing I could do to convince her,” I rasped, my eyes drawn to the subtle feather of Robyn’s pulse on the side of her neck. “I’ve never had something so gloriously backfire as that night. I offered her the full protection of the federal government, and she turned around and threatened me with it.”

Robyn jerked violently, and this time there was no word to describe the shock on her face. “Sandrine threatened you?”

“She already had a plan, and in her mind, she’d determined it was the only safe one. She said if I didn’t help her, she’d tell Sinclair the truth about who I was,” I continued. “Even then, I still thought I could salvage it. I compromised and said no WITSEC. I countered and said we’d get you, take her andDaria wherever she wanted to go, and then you and I could…get out of this mess.”

In the corner of my eye, I watched Robyn’s hand slide from the bed to her thigh, gripping instead the fabric of her dress as she shook her head. “No,” she croaked, her face blanching. “I read the note, Damon.”

The note…

“I read Sandrine’s note to Sinclair.”

No…

Now I was grateful to have the glass at my back for support, though the realization gusted so strongly I thought it might crack.

“Where? How?” The words barely fit through my locked teeth, my fingers burrowing depressions in the glass where they pressed.

Her scowl dug deeper. “It doesn’t matter how. It matters that I read it, so I know you’re lying to me,” she said, her voice thickening. “I want the truth, Damon. Not just whatever pieces of it make you look like a hero.”

My jaw fired against my cheek. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what happened that night, but no matter what answers I needed to have, I wasn’t going to get them until I’d staked my own heart on a platter for her.

“That note was part of Sandrine’s plan,” I explained, ignoring Robyn’s strangled laugh of disbelief. “She said if we left, Sinclair would know it was because of Daria—because she’d heard him and thought she could escape. She was convinced Sinclair’s ego was too fragile, and if he believed instead that she’d left him for me, that, while he might hate her and me, he’d be too afraid to hunt them down if they were in my protection.” I let out a tight breath. “He’d already seen how far I’d gone to protect you.”

There was no detail too small for me to notice about mywife. From every molecule of oxygen that passed through her lips to the slightest twitch of her ring finger when I mentioned the statement I’d made by marrying her.

“You want me to believe…it was all part of a plan?” she hissed, the teeth of her anger sharpened and bared. “Did she also tell you that you couldn’t tell me? That you couldn’t come for me? Give me the slightestfuckingexplanation as to why my husband—the man I loved—had disappeared with another man’s wife?”

“No,” I said firmly, knowing this was the pain—the burden I’d chosen to carry. “That was my choice.”

“Fuck you.”

She stood, clearly aiming for the door, and my heart rammed against the front of my chest. If I let her walk away now, she’d never come back. I shoved off the window and reached her in a few strides, taking her arm and hauling her against me.

“Let me go.”

“You wanted the truth, Robber,” I growled. “If I don’t get to pick and choose the pieces, neither do you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Damon

Her body trembled against mine like a moth approaching the heat of the flame. She felt the danger, and yet she couldn’t make herself run away.

I should’ve directed her back to the bed, but now that I touched her—held her—stopped her from leaving—I was too weak to let her go.

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