Page 72 of Silent Watch
"You violated my trust," Harper said."You monitored me without my knowledge.You treated me like an asset."
"I know."
"And you'd do it again."
He looked at her.She stood in the kitchen with blood on her face and her hands at her sides and her chin lifted, waiting.Not for an apology.For the truth.
"Every time," he said."Because the alternative was losing you, and I couldn't do that."
"Losing the operation?"
"Losing you."
The two words sat between them.Caleb could feel the weight of what he'd said—the admission he'd been avoiding since the morning she'd walked into Mae's Bakery and shaken his hand with fingers that trembled.He'd called it professional concern.He'd called it operational investment.He'd called it every name except the one that fit.
Harper looked at him for a long time.The blood on her face had dried to a dark crust along her hairline, and the butterfly bandage was holding, and her eyes were the steadiest thing in the room.
"I'm still angry," she said.
"I know."
"I sent those files to Diana because the story needed to move forward, and I didn't trust you to let that happen.That's what you did to us.You made me feel like I needed to work around you instead of with you."
"I know that too."
"Stop saying 'I know.'"But her voice had softened.Not forgiveness—something before forgiveness.An opening.
She crossed the kitchen and stopped in front of him.Close enough that he could see the pulse in her throat, quick and unsteady.She raised one hand and pressed it flat against his chest, over his heart.Her fingers were cold.
"If we do this," she said, "we do it as equals.No more monitoring.No more deciding what I can handle.You tell me the truth, even when it's ugly, and I'll do the same.Both of us."
"Both of us."
"And if you ever use Isak's name against me again, I will walk out of this cottage and out of your life, and no amount of surveillance will bring me back."
"I understand."
She held his gaze.Then she lifted her other hand and placed it on his jaw—the same jaw she'd watched tighten through a dozen arguments, the same face she'd studied across a kitchen table while they built a case that might get them both killed.
"Okay," she said.
Caleb kissed her.
Not like the first time, when they'd been interrupted by Ronan's call about Geri Crane.Not hurried or desperate or driven by adrenaline.This was deliberate.Her hand on his chest, his hand finding the back of her neck, careful of the bruises, careful of the cut on her lip.She tasted like copper and antiseptic, and she kissed him back with the same focused intensity she brought to everything.
When they broke apart, her hand was still on his chest.His heart was hammering under her palm, and he knew she could feel it.
"I need to call Diana," she said.
"Now?"
"Now.I need to tell her to hold the story until we're ready."
He blinked."You'd do that?"
"I'd do that because it's the right call.Not because you're asking me to—because I can see the board, and publishing right now puts a target on everyone involved.Diana, Marsh, Geri.Us."She stepped back and reached for her phone."But when it's time, we publish everything.No compromises.No sanitizing.The whole truth."
"The whole truth."
