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"Not true I find you incredibly disar, Miss West"

She snorted "S to get un Or find my cell phone Or the virus"

"Does that mean you still have the vial? That you didn’t deliver it to anyone here at the rally?"

The casual s left his face, replaced by the hard ass look she knew all too well The impenetrable wall had returned "The less you know the better"

"Mac, please" She didn’t want to push, didn’t want to break the idyllic spell of their lovee of the vial’s contents continued to pound at her She couldn’t let it go She was a woman and had enjoyed a woator, had been a cop She wasn’t going to let this go

He pulled away from her embrace "You have to trust me on this, Lily"

She hooked her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans and blew out a breath of utter frustration She’d held enough inside "I want to trust you God, you have no idea how much I want to After what Jessie told me about you, I know you care about people I know you wouldn’t deliberately do anything to harht"

"Then why can’t you have enough faith in me to talk to me? Why is that so hard to do? Why has it always been so hard for you to be straight with erous for you to know"

"Bullshit It’s too dangerous forh"

He didn’t answer her Of course he didn’t, because there was no answer "This is just like ten years ago" The reality of it slapped her across the face like an ice cold hand

He frowned "What?"

"Ten years ago, you pushed me away You didn’t trust oing to sell the virus to soanization The issue of trust is with you, Lily"

"Is it? Ten years ago you didn’t believe in s for you, orwhen I said I loved you and wanted to be with you

You always thought you kneas best for ht you knew better than I did Just like now"

"That’s not true"

His voice went low and he looked away, no longer

Why did this have to happen? Every ti happened to pull theether Her head knew that Logic told her that

She was on the good side of law enforceer to share it with her, and that ht up to cold reality

They had great cheether, but beyond that, they couldn’t sustain more than a couple hours worth of happiness without it dissolving into an argu and values

Maybe her father had been right all those years ago

She and Mac didn’t belong together They had nothing in common, no shared belief systeht now, she didn’t believe in him

She went to the door and threw open the dead bolt

Mac’s hand covered hers

"Where are you going?"

"Out The air in here is stifling"

"Then we go together I don’t want you to go out there alone"

She half turned,sure he could read the expression on her face

"You don’t trustout forto find the nearest phone and turn you in" She pivoted all the way around "I could have done that the night at the museum, you know"

At his wide-eyed look, she nodded "Oh yeah I saw you break in My hand was onthe moment you stepped out of the museum with the artifact in your hand"

He stared at her, a dumbfounded expression on his face

"Why didn’t you?"

She blinked back the welling tears, refusing to let him see her cry "Because instinctively I kneas you The sounds of theabout the way you stood

My heart told me it was you I compromised my job, probably my career, for you Because I couldn’t bear to see you fail

How stupid was that?"