He turned his head and kissed the top of hers.

“Yeah,” he answered and shared, “Take you to the mountains, maybe next month.”

“That’d be nice,” she murmured, tightening her fingers in his hand.

He didn’t reply, just watched the flight attendant going about her business.

“I wanna be safe.”

He again turned his head, this time to look down at her as she lifted hers from his shoulder and looked up at him.

“I wanna be free,” she went on.

“I’ll get you there,” he promised.

“No, I mean, I…it’s…” She shook her head but kept at it. “It’s not your job. I need to sort it out. I don’t know how I’m gonna manage that…the last time I tried to leave the family, it didn’t go too well—”

Nick cut her off, “Babe, it is my job.”

Her gaze grew confused. “It’s my life, Nick.”

“Not anymore.”

She continued to look confused with the addition of mildly annoyed. “So now that you’ve decided where we’re heading, my life is yours?”

She’d had enough of her life being anyone’s.

But she was sort of right.

“No,” he answered. “Now that we’re on the same page about where we’re heading, that future is ours. It’s not just you anymore, Liv. And it’s not just me. It’s us. That future, our future, is about the both of us. I want you to be safe and free and have your own life, but if I’m not wrong, we’re both agreed that life is gonna have me in it. If that’s the case, it’s my job to look out for you. There’ll be times and ways you’ll look out for me. But now, with this, with what happened the last time you tried, I want you safe while I pull it off. So this time, it’s my turn.”

“You’re not wrong,” she said softly, something new he liked a helluva lot shining from her eyes. “We’re both agreed.”

He grinned. “I know.”

She grinned back, it was small but it came easy.

He still felt it in his gut.

He hoped he made it so her happiness came at him so much, that feeling stopped, at the same time he hoped it didn’t.

“Just so you know, I love Vail, but my favorite is Winter Park,” she announced. “It’s fun and beautiful and not as hoity-toity.”

His grin got bigger. “So noted.”

“You want me to find a VRBO?” she asked.

“Knock yourself out,” he answered.

“You’ll have to give me some dates,” she told him.

“I get to the office, I’ll get them.”

She gave him bright, happy eyes and a hand squeeze before she dropped her head on his shoulder again and fell quiet.

He held her hand.

They landed.

Nick hung back so she disembarked before he did.

He knew (and didn’t like) that she’d have to get her bag alone and lug it to her car alone.

He simply went to his car alone, something he also didn’t like.

Twenty-five minutes later, he slid through the back gate of her house and let himself in one of her pool doors with the key she’d given him. He also turned off her alarm with the code she’d given him.

She joined him fifteen minutes later.

When she did, they shared a drink in front of the TV. Olivia conked out during the news. Nick woke her and helped her to bed.

Her head hit the pillow, she crashed.

But Nick lay with her pressed against him, staring at the ceiling, knowing the time had come for him to get shit done.

He lay there knowing it and wondering how the fuck he was going to get her safe and free.

He lay there knowing it, needing to do it, and also knowing he’d spent a weekend with his woman in Vegas, two two-hour plane rides where they weren’t fucking, eating, drinking, whispering about important shit or having fun, and he still had not come clean about where he was with her when they began.

It was good they’d had Vegas. She was relaxing into what they had. She was believing. She was trusting.

Tomorrow.

That shit had to come out tomorrow.

They’d needed Vegas.

Now it was time.

Nick had learned a lot since sorting his head and his life.

Unfortunately, the last lesson would be the hardest.

That lesson being he shouldn’t procrastinate.

Chapter Twenty-Two

The Brightside

Olivia

10:23 – Monday Morning

I was coasting into the parking area around the warehouse when my phone rang. I saw on my dash computer it was Nick so I took the call as I guided my Evoque to a spot.

“Hey,” I greeted.

“What are you doin’ at the warehouse?” he asked curtly in reply.

He still had a man following me.

His men had to have better things to do. Not to mention it was expensive to waste one following me everywhere.

And having one tail me was a reminder of why I needed to be tailed, which wasn’t pleasant.

I would be glad when those days were at an end.

“Georgia texted,” I began to explain. Having glided into a spot, I threw it in park. “Wanted a meet. Her schedule today is such she couldn’t get to me, so I’m coming to her.”

“My guy can’t get anywhere near that warehouse, Liv,” he told me.

“It’s just a meet with my sister. Not a big deal. She wants to go over some new investments I’m suggesting.”

“I don’t like this,” he muttered like he wasn’t talking to me.

I didn’t like it either. I never liked being at the warehouse.

But this would one day come to an end.