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“Three days,” he repeated, sounding even darker and more menacing. “That was the deal. If we survived. If we even made it to three days.”

She remembered that conversation in the lab. She remembered everything.

“You don’t like it when I save your life,” she replied as coolly as she could. And there was a part of her that wanted to surge to her feet. Fight him. Fightsomething, anyway, because that was better than accepting reality. But she didn’t have it in her. Not tonight. Not with him. “I’ve already played this game once.”

“This isn’t a game,” Jonas growled at her. “Did you really think that after all of that I would just...”

He didn’t finish. Bethan was glad she’d put her wineglass down, because her hands were trembling. Maybe she was trembling, now that she considered it. She couldn’t seem to pull her gaze away from his.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That’s exactly what I expected you to do.”

He was standing in front of her then. She couldn’t seem to breathe as she looked up at his beautiful face. That face that she’d never been able to get enough of. That face that she’d loved so long now, and knew so well, that she would know it by touch even if she were blind.

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Bethan,” he told her darkly. “But I can’t go back to that.”

And when he was right there before her, she expected him todosomething. Something physical, some explosion of his strength, some mighty noise to remind her what he was capable of—

But instead, Jonas Crow sank down on his knees.

Twenty-six

Jonas had expected Bethan to come find him.

She hadn’t.

He’d come back to Alaska after quarantine and a round of Pentagon games. He’d ignored his friends’ good-natured ribbing. He’d dedicated himself to regaining his lost fitness levels and had almost managed to convince himself that he wasn’t just killing time.

But then she’d come back.

He hadn’t joined in her impromptu welcome party, but he’d watched it from higher on the hill. He’d told himself that what really mattered wasn’t whether she came looking for him but that she was alive.

That was all that mattered.

But deep down, he’d still expected her to come find him. Instead, she’d invited all her friends over for a party.

He was coming out of his skin.

“I can’t function,” he told her, not sure if he was angry at her, angry at himself, or just so filled with whatever thisheavy, panicked thing was inside him that he’d lost any ability to determine his own state. “I’m a menace to myself and others.”

He expected her to spark at him. Bite back. Like all the times before.

But instead, her lips moved into a soft smile. “You always are. It’s part of what makes you beautiful.”

He wanted to reach for her, but it was as if he didn’t know how to operate his own limbs any longer.

And he made himself say it.

“If you only thought you loved me because you knew you were dying, I understand,” he gritted out.

Jonas hadn’t known he could feel at all, much less the cascade of feelings inside him then, each more acutely painful than the last.

Bethan’s jaw actually dropped. Her eyes got wet, though no tears spilled over. She shifted forward, reaching out and grabbing his hands. Then holding them tightly.

Fiercely.

“I didn’t think I loved you because I knew I was dying, Jonas.” She held his gaze, and each word she said was deliberate. As if she knew she was speaking to parts of him he’d never let out before. Parts he didn’t know himself. “I’ve loved you for years, and I never intended to tell you, because it never occurred to me you were willing to hear it. That’s the only thing knowing I was about to die changed. But not my heart, Jonas. Never my heart. That’s been yours for years.”

Her hands in his were a miracle. He remembered walking through Midtown Manhattan, their fingers laced together. He had thought they were both doomed, and still, he’d been happy. Happier than he’d ever been before.