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She shook her head, unease tightening her body as her conversation with Noah in the bistro rolled through her mind. “No, Warren… no.”
His expression hardened. “If you pretend you didn’t know this was coming, I will be very disappointed in you.” The words were breathed softly against her cheek.
Turning her head a fraction, she concentrated on the ceiling, struggling to remain calm as he kept her pinned. “I knew it was coming.”
He remained silent for so long, she reluctantly brought her gaze back to his. Satisfaction flared in his eyes. “So it’s not foolish of me to deduce that you’re here, with me, because the idea isn’t repugnant to you.”
“It’ll never work. We don’t want the same things, Warren.”
A cool chill replaced the satisfaction. “Explain.”
She thought about Noah, about how being with him made her heart—hell, her very soul—lift, race toward danger with sheer abandon.
“You crave being controlled,” Warren said. “But you wish to have free will as to who you let control you. I’ve known that about you since you were a child. Have I not given you that, nurtured that in you?”
“Yes, but I also crave warmth. Passion. And a little loss of control every now and then isn’t a bad thing.” It showed that shewas human. That the man who commanded raw, gut-wrenching emotion from her was human too.
“You haven’t been ready for what I can give you. Now you are.”
“What you don’t get is that I don’t want it with you, Warren.”
For several seconds he said nothing. Then he vaulted off her and held out his hand. “We will revisit this another time. When you’re in a better frame of mind.”
The Leia of a few weeks ago would’ve acquiesced immediately. Avoiding confrontation had kept her safe for five years. But, for good or ill, she was no longer that person. She rose without his help and went to the cooler to grab a bottle of water. “Don’t hold out hope of me changing my mind.”
He half circled the room, his fists clenching and unclenching once. “You won’t afford me the courtesy of a discussion?”
“There’s no point in discussing it. I won’t change my mind. Once Stephen is caught, I’m moving out.”
He tensed. The atmosphere grew icier. When he faced her fully, she accepted once and for all that the cool, unflappable Warren, whose strength she’d leaned on, was gone forever. A flash of malice blazed in his eyes before he banked it.
“You are not strong enough to leave me.”
“You’re wrong. I’m more than strong enough to stand on my own two feet.”
The curling of his lips was so evanescent, she thought she’d imagined it. “Did King put you up to this?”
“You used to think me capable of making sound decisions before I met Noah. Have I suddenly changed so much that you can’t accept that the decisions I make are my own?”
“Countless errors of judgment in the space of a week beggars that belief.”
Her shoulder, ribs, and hips ached. She wanted to walk away but she knew this conversation needed to happen. “You’re welcome to make any conclusions you want. But I’m doing this, Warren. I’m moving out. I’ll always be grateful for everything you’ve done for me. Please, know that. Without you, my life would’ve turned out a hell of a lot differently. But I don’t owe you the rest of my life.”
She headed for the door of the gym. She was one step from it when she heard him behind her.
“Wait.”
Suppressing a grimace, she turned.
He stood in the middle of the room, cool, lean, his hair slicked back in place. “This sparring session isn’t over. You’ve never given up mid-lesson. Are you going to start now?”
The challenge was a blatant test, a taunt for her to prove to him that she hadn’t abandoned everything he’d taught her. She was tempted to say to hell with it and walk away. But walking away would mean he’d won. She needed to stand her ground. To fight. She headed back to the center of the mat. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
A whirling series of kicks and blocks followed that made her grunt in pain, but Leia didn’t give up. She even managed to get in a hit or two of her own. A few minutes before the fifteen-minute session was over, he increased the strength of his strikes.
“Warren, that’s enough…” She tried to block another one, but he came at her. “Warren!”
“You think you’re strong enough? Then fight harder!” Another lethal strike.