Aequitas, Hope Anika [android pdf ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Hope Anika
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Selfish and stupid. You’re an asshole.
She couldn’t seem to shake the searing wave of regret and shame that lashed through her when she remembered the look on Cian’s face when he’d realized she was running from him, the flicker in his rich hazel eyes when she’d mocked him.
Cold, she’d told herself. A stranger. But she’d seen his pain, and when her own had finally stopped blinding her, his had stabbed through her like the sharpest blade. The memory of it played through her head in an endless loop; there was no escape.
She’d come here, thinking it would diminish. That focusing on Sam and his wedding would somehow make everything that had happened in the last week fade, like bright paint exposed to harsh sunlight.
Another selfish act. Because her being here wasn’t about Sam or his happiness. It was about running.
Because that’s what you do.
“I’m a shitty person,” she confessed. “And I deserve what I’m getting.”
“You’re not a shitty person,” Sam argued mildly. “You just made some shitty choices. We’re all guilty of that, kid.”
Honor only shook her head.
“The question is what you’re gonna do now.” Sam nudged her shoulder with his. “Life is fluid, honey. Always changing. Nothing says you can’t pick up a phone and say you’re sorry.”
Something she’d thought about over and over but it seemed…impossible. Not only would that mean accepting responsibility for the disaster she’d created—it would mean making a choice to move forward. To put herself out there—and risk.
No matter the repercussions.
Computer keys, she understood too late, were easy to push. One stroke of her fingers and any stratagem she’d conjured simply was. But to have to act—to accept blame, to trust, to bare her deepest self on the altar of admission—that took true courage.
I thought you were braver, a rứnsearc.
You and me both, Honor thought.
“If Hannah decides she wants to see you, he’s the one she’s going to go to,” Sam pointed out quietly. “Do you really want to close that door?”
“No,” Honor admitted, her voice low. But Hannah wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want that door closed.
No, she wanted Cian. All of that crazy stuff about marriage and babies and ‘til death do them part…
Crazy claptrap. But she wanted to at least try.
She just had to be brave enough to reach out.
“Then you know what you need to do,” Sam said. He slid an arm around her shoulders and hugged her to his side, and tears suddenly welled in her chest. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“Me, too,” she whispered.
“And I’m glad your mystery man pried you out of your hole,” he added. “That’s no way to live.”
“I know,” she said. Her dark, safe cave.
She would miss it…but she wanted to walk in the light.
Sam leaned over and pressed a kiss to her head. “You’re one of the bravest people I know,” he told her softly. “You can do this.”
His faith made her throat swell. “You think so?”
“Honey, you can do anything.”
“So that is it. You are just going to let her go?”
Cian didn’t bother to respond. Akachi had been asking him that same question non-stop for the last twenty-four hours, and Cian had no more an answer now than he had when his friend had begun asking.
“Cian.”
“Let it go,” he growled. “She’s gone.”
He ignored the whip of anger and pain that snapped through him. Honor had made her choice; they would both live with it. Perhaps her ire would cool, and in time, she would return to him.
But Cian wasn’t holding his breath.
“You must follow her,” Akachi said, and his tone made Cian look up sharply.
“Must I?” he demanded.
Akachi stared at him, unblinking. “Yes.”
“Butt out,” Cian told him.
“I cannot.”
“You will not,” Cian corrected, annoyed.
“She ran because it is all she knows,” Akachi said simply. “But you know better.”
“Fuck off,” Cian snarled. “I’ve some bloody pride, you asshole.”
“Pride will not keep you warm at night.”
Cian’s hands clenched around the papers he held. The file Honor had assembled on Andrei Petrov, which Cian had perused again and again and found nothing. He hadn’t been wrong; there was no legitimate reason to go after the man, and if he’d let Honor do so, she would’ve ruined any chance she and Hannah had, and she would have bitterly regretted it.
The right thing. For all the good it had done him.
And it might well have been for naught; Honor could be constructing a conspiracy even now, some ruse that would destroy Petrov—and Hanna’s—life.
Cian wouldn’t put it past her. He only hoped her head kicked in before her heart took her over the edge. Because while she was hot blooded and willful, she was also incredibly intelligent, and that heart was good. So long as smarts won the race, no one would get hurt.
“Cian,” Akachi repeated in a tone so patient and patronizing Cian wanted to punch him in the face, “you must go after her.”
Cian said nothing. He’d been battling with himself for hours; it was everything he could do to not to go after her. Because he knew where she was. Tracking her back to the US—to Washington State—had been child’s play.
Sam. That’s who she’d run to. The man who’d saved her all those years ago, the sole person she considered family.
Cian didn’t want to be jealous, but he fucking was.
And he did have some goddamn pride. If Honor wasn’t willing to fight for them, what was left to him? If she would run every time they disagreed or she grew frightened, they were doomed before they even began.
The lie didn’t help.
No. But he’d apologized; other than that, there wasn’t much left to him. If she couldn’t find it within her to forgive him, nothing he said or did would matter.
No matter that he could still taste her. That her soft cries haunted him when he closed his eyes; that her hunger and need and the incendiary heat between them had sunk into his bones and taken root.
He wanted her to come to him. To come back.
Pride. To chase her like some lovesick fool was not on his to-do list. Fuck that.
“What is there to lose?” Akachi asked softly. “Not your life.”
“My bloody self-respect,” Cian muttered.
“And the regret you will carry if you do not go after her?” his friend continued soberly. “Some things are unalterable after they occur, and we can never make up their difference.”
Cian looked up and met that black gaze, so deep and layered it was like looking into the depths of the deepest well. “It’s not the same.”
“Yes, it is,” Akachi said easily. “It is exactly the same.”
Cian stared at his friend, and for a moment he was back in Sudan, struggling to tear a screaming Akachi from the side of his dead brother. Gunfire spat in Cian’s ears; Akachi’s piercing cries. Bile in his throat; grief in his heart. If he had it to do over…
“Goddamn you,” Cian told him. “Goddamn you to hell.”
Akachi only stared at him.
“Call Montenegro. Tell him to get the plane ready.”
Akachi eyed him. “And what should I tell him is your destination?”
“Seattle.”
“Very good.” Akachi turned and headed toward the door, but as he reached it, he paused and looked back. “By the way, Anna Petrov is waiting for you in the solarium.”
Cian started. His gaze narrowed. “You couldn’t open with that?”
“No,” Akachi said. “You had to decide for yourself. She could not be your excuse.”
Then he turned and walked away.
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