Page 93 of Zorro

“I need to say this before you bolt again.” His thumb brushed the edge of her cheekbone. “You’ve been gut-punching me since I got here. When I saw you up there, on that stage, I just about lost my shit. Damn, querida…you looked—” He broke off, jaw flexing, then softened. “You looked gorgeous. Just as gorgeous as you did in my shirt.”

She blinked once. Twice. Then her face crumpled. The tears broke free in a single, guttural sob.

Zorro jerked back slightly. “What did I say? Ev, I’m sorry?—”

“Stop being nice to me!” she wailed, words tripping over sobs. “I can’t handle it.”

He blinked, stunned, but didn’t move.

“I…I looked like hell,” she cried, arms waving in wild, weepy emphasis. “I was a mess, I was awful to you, I judged you, I judged your team, and you…you just saw me. Then you were the one bleeding and I didn’t even…God, I was so mean, and I blamed you all for what happened to Rob and you didn’t even deserve that, none of you did, and I was just so?—”

Her voice broke into jumbled gasps, incoherent and hiccuping now, words a pile of grief and regret and shame.

Zorro didn’t hesitate. He pulled her into his arms. He just held her.

Held her like she was something fragile. Held her like she didn’t have to carry every piece of her brokenness alone. Her fists pressed into his chest. She buried her face against the soft cotton of his shirt, soaking it with tears, still shaking with the force of her unraveling.

He said nothing at first. Just pressed his cheek to her hair and exhaled like maybe he had been holding his breath, too.

Then, softly, into the space between them?—

“Shh. It’s okay, querida,” he murmured. “You don’t have to hold it all by yourself anymore.”

She cried harder. Maybe, just maybe…she believed him.

She looked up at him through tear-wet lashes, her breath catching on the words she hadn’t known how to say, until now.

Her fingers, trembling but certain, slid along the rough line of his jaw. Her touch was featherlight, reverent, like she was afraid he might vanish if she blinked.

Zorro stilled.

Every part of him was tuned to her. To the way her body leaned into his. To the ache pouring from her eyes.

She took a shuddering breath.

“What you do to me…” Her voice cracked. “I don’t know how to deal with it.”

His heart thudded once, hard. “If you need time—” he started, forcing the words through the knot in his throat. “If you need space, if you want to step back?—”

“No.”

She said it like a vow.

She shook her head, fierce now, raw with want and truth. “I don’t want space. I want to be so close to you that every time I breathe, your scent is inside me.”

He froze.

“I’ve been dying for you,” she whispered, her voice breaking, “ever since I first laid eyes on you in Niger. I think about you. I dream about you. I’ve been so stupid, Mateo, but I didn’t know things. I didn’t know the truth about Rob. About you. About everything.”

Her eyes flooded again.

“I’m so sorry.”

His chest seized. Her words hit like a body blow, hope and heartbreak and confession all wrapped in one trembling woman. She was staring up at him like she’d finally found the man she hadn’t known she was searching for.

He didn’t speak.

He just kissed her again, his mouth dropping to hers in a bruising, desperate crush, and he drowned in the taste of her.