“Abby, I’m so sorry.”
We both paused again, staring at each other in confusion.
“You’re sorry?” I repeated in shock. “Why the hell are you sorry?”
I had been prepared to go all twelve rounds with him—just trying to soften the blow and beg for some kind of forgiveness. That was why he’d left...wasn’t it?
But Nick looked just as confused as I was. He studied my face almost warily, before taking a tentative step forward. “Are you kidding? It’s my dad who’s doing this—”
“Don’t,” I held up a hand, “don’t even go there. I knew all about what kind of man Mitchell Hunter was before I applied for this job. I knew exactly what he was capable of when I signed my employment contracts. No part of this is on you. You’re not responsible for your father’s actions.”
Nick’s eyes tightened, and he floundered in a rare moment of helplessness.
“I told you everything would be fine. That you’d get to control every single—”
I leapt to my feet and flew across the room, unable to let him sit there and punish himself for even a second longer.
“Enough—alright? You’re doing this for me. Don’t think I don’t know that.”
He fell instantly silent, and I lay my hands tentatively upon his chest—lifting my head a little to force him to look into my eyes.
“Nick—truth: if it was any other girl in those pictures, would you even consider going through with something like this?”
He sighed, a deep tired sigh that broke my heart all over again just to hear it. His head shook slowly back and forth, and without seeming to think about it, he brought up his hands to close them over mind.
“If it was any other girl in those pictures, my father would never have even tried.”
Another strange compliment. And the last thing I was expecting.
We stood there for a full minute. Holding hands. Holding our breaths. Heads bowed so our foreheads touched in the center.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” I whispered, unable to keep it in.
His body stiffened for a minute, before his fingers squeezed around my wrists.
“It’s going to be okay—I promise. We’re going to think of something. Together,” he pulled in a quick breath, “together I’m sure the two of us can think of something.”
I nodded a little shakily, and we lifted our heads at the same time. So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours, I didn’t even know where to begin. But right there in that moment, as strange as it sounded, I felt a strange sense of calm.
Nick was right. We could get through something even as crazy as this. Together.
“Where did you end up going?” I asked softly, stroking back a wave of his hair.
We were just inches away from each other. And no matter how shaken up we might have been, no matter how big a bombshell his father might have just dropped—we couldn’t stop staring at each other’s lips.
His eyes flickered down, before he flashed a quick grin.
“An ice-cream vendor by Central Park.”
I let out a sudden laugh. Of course he did. Because Nick was twelve.
“Try anything good?”
He leaned down an inch or two farther, the grin still playing about his lips.
“Maybe...you can probably still taste it...”
Needing no more invitation than that, I stretched up onto my toes and gave him a swift but tender kiss. Jokes aside, it was exactly what the two of us needed. A momentary respite from the emotional chaos. A fleeting sense of calm before we plunged headfirst into the storm.