Page 40 of Snow

Nova raised an eyebrow. “The wrong foot? I think we skipped the wrong foot and went straight to a face-plant.”

Snow stared at her for a second before a reluctant chuckle escaped him. He had walked right into that one.

“Okay, that’s probably a more accurate assessment.”

To his surprise, the corner of Nova’s mouth twitched upward, and she waved toward the seat across from her. “Have a seat.”

Snow slid into the booth across from her and rested his forearms on the table, suddenly feeling like a complete ass for how cold he had been toward her.

“So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked, scooping up another nacho and popping it in her mouth.

Snow opened his mouth, fully intending to launch into the apology he had just conjured up when he walked in here. Instead, his brain completely abandoned the mission when he watched her take a bite of that nacho.

Why the hell was watching her eat a nacho causing his brain to malfunction?

He watched as she chewed, completely oblivious to the fact that she was short-circuiting the thought process of a man trained to operate in high-stress combat environments. It wasn’t even a particularly sexy thing. She was eating loaded nachos. There was gooey cheese, meat, and jalapeños involved. Yet somehow she managed to make it look adorable.

Snow immediately hated that word. He was a Navy SEAL. He jumped out of aircraft and carried enough weapons to invade a small country. He should not be sitting here describing a woman eating nachos as adorable.

“Snow?”

Her voice snapped him back to reality.

“Huh?”

“You were saying?” she stated, looking amused.

Right, the apology. The reason he had walked over here in the first place. Not the nachos. Definitely not the nachos.

Snow cleared his throat and dragged his attention back where it belonged.

“Right. Sorry about that. My mind was elsewhere.”

Nova arched an eyebrow. “Judging by the look on your face, that sounds dangerous.”

The worst part was she wasn’t wrong. It was very dangerous. Not because of the mission. But because every minute he spent around her seemed to make him like her a little more, and he was running out of excuses for why that was a bad idea.

Fuck, he needed to get his head out of the clouds.

Taking a deep breath, he looked at her. “I want to say that I’m sorry for being an ass.”

She quirked one of her eyebrows. “Well, that’s certainly a start.”

He huffed out a laugh. He leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. “The truth is, when Derek told us we were bringing a civilian onto this operation, I wasn’t exactly thrilled about it. This mission already has enough unknowns attached to it, and I made the mistake of deciding what kind of person you were before I ever got to know you.”

Nova stayed quiet, letting him continue.

“I treated you like you didn’t belong here. Like you weren’t capable of contributing and were just something the team had to babysit.” He shook his head. “That wasn’t fair to you.”

For a moment, he studied the table before meeting her eyes again.

“You didn’t deserve the attitude, being talked down to, or acting like you were somehow less important than everyone else involved in this operation.” He let out a breath. “So, I’m sorry. For all of it.”

He held her gaze for a moment. “I swear to you that it wasn’t personal,” he admitted honestly.

Her expression softened slightly, though there was still caution there.

Snow exhaled slowly and glanced toward the bar before looking back at her. “The way I was trained, you learn to look at every situation and every person as a possible threat first. It’s how my brain works.” He rubbed a hand across his jaw before continuing. “But honestly? The bigger issue is probably that I’m worried about you.”