Page 123 of Once Upon a Lie

I burst into tears and fall forward into his neck, and he automatically moves his hand to my back and rubs. “Hey,” he whispers. I jump back to look him in the eye, and he smiles.

“Do you know how much you scared me?” I question, bulldozing over a greeting entirely. “How mad I am at you?” I point an index finger in his direction. “How I’d never forgive myself if you weren’t okay?”

His laughter is the last thing I expect, and by the looks of the quick cutoff, it hurts him quite a bit. “Ow. Fuck.”

“I’m sorry. What hurts? Laughing? Do you have stitches or staples or—”

He laughs again, even with the pain, and my eyes narrow as he semi-explains. “Questions and questions and more questions. They hurt more than the staples.”

“What?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. But fuck, I’m glad to see you. Glad you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. You’re the one who got shot.”

“Yeah, well, after that happened, I don’t really remember much, so I wasn’t sure if you—” He pauses and a frown turns his mouth down. “If you were safe or not.”

“I’m good.”

“Yeah?” he asks, searching my eyes.

“Yeah. All thanks to you.”

Silence stretches between us for a long moment. We’re just looking at one another, trying to understand where we go from here.

“I’ll be honest,” he says, his voice just above a whisper. “I wasn’t sure you’d be speaking to me either.”

“Oh, don’t worry.” I snort. “I’m considering stabbing you in your wound with my heel for lying to me about everything and disappearing without a trace and for freaking making me think you were dead. But something about watching you get shot in order to protect me made me feel pretty talkative.”

“Teeny,” he says, eyes unfocusing for a moment before finding mine. “I-I can’t deny that I thought you were an assignment when I first started talking to you. My intent was to gather information,” he admits, and his gaze grows clearer with each word. “Though that lasted for about a fucking day.”

My eyebrows draw together, and my heart starts pounding inside my chest, but he keeps going.

“And then you were just . . . you. I can’t explain it. You were just . . . undeniable to me. You were everything.” He runs a hand through his hair and then grimaces from the movement. “Honestly, I never thought I’d let myself do something this professionally irresponsible. But here we are.”

“What do you mean?” I narrow my eyes. “Professionally irresponsible? As in, sleeping with the woman you were supposed to be secretly investigating?”

“Sleeping with you?” He laughs. “Inappropriate for my career, sure, but that’d be easier. I mean the part where I fell in love with you.”

“W-what?” My whole chest seizes. “You love me?”

“Well, yeah. Isn’t it obvious?” His smile is easy, and his eyes warm. “I love you, Teeny.”

I swear he looks more relaxed now, recovering from a gunshot wound and emergency surgery, than he did the night we ran into his friends and all the lies started to come to a head.

I suppose that’s a sign. If lying to me hurts worse than a bullet, I guess he’s worth forgiving.

“I really fucking love you,” he repeats. “That’s pretty much the qualifier for getting me to take a bullet for you. Love or presidential status, I guess, but I’m no Secret Service.”

“Shane.”

He reaches out and grabs both of my hands and holds them to his chest, the thin fabric of his hospital gown doing nothing to hide the hammering of his heart underneath.

“I wasn’t just messing around, Teeny,” he continues, seeming even more desperate to explain it all now. “I wasn’t getting close to you so I could bring you down. I was falling for you. Every laugh sucked me in. Every smile locked me up. Every kiss ruined me forever. Anything else, anything else that was going on, quickly became about clearing your name. I asked questions to get to know you, I promise. I only used your answers to show the other people what I already knew.”

“It’s a weird thing, starting a relationship like this.”

“Yeah.” He nods and then freezes. “Wait . . . starting a relationship?”