Nooooo! Her own scream shattered the vision. Images exploded into millions of tiny colored shards of glass and shot through the darkness.
“Mitch! No. Mitch, no!” Her scream pierced her own ears and she sat straight up in bed. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear anything but her own scream.
The hum of another voice faded in. Far, far away at first. Nothing more than a murmur underwater. She couldn’t gather enough air to yell again, and the vision was gone now, but her whole body continued to shake. Halina pulled her arms tight to her chest, dropping her face into her hands.
She did what she always did when these came: She focused on her breath. One breath in, one out. One in, one out. But she hadn’t had a vision like this in years; it was different from the one she’d had in the car with Mitch earlier. The ones after sex were always deeper, more detailed, and showed two sides of a future farther forward in time as opposed to one negative flash of the immediate future.
The terror from the most recent visions seemed to take forever to fade. When her hearing returned and her mind settled, she realized Mitch’s arms were wrapped tightly around her, his body rocking her gently, murmuring at her ear.
“Just a dream.” His voice was smooth and deep and delicious. “It’s over.”
But it wasn’t a dream.
And it wasn’t over.
The room phone rang and Halina jumped, her heart tearing out of her chest.
Mitch tightened his hold. “Shh, just the phone.” He reached for it and Halina melted against him again. “Yes, we’re fine,” he said into the phone. “A bad dream. Yes, sir. Thank you.”
Mitch hung up. “Just the front desk.”
Halina wanted to dig a hole to China, learn a new language, and start a new life so dark Mitch would never find her. At least then she would forever be able to keep him safe. But with Mitch holding on like this, she was tempted to close her eyes, tighten her arms around him, and cling. It wouldn’t be difficult to pretend her visions were meaningless dreams. Not when she was in his arms.
She drew a deep shuddering breath that scraped her sternum like broken glass. Which brought back images of shattering shards glittering at the end of her vision, and Halina knew she could never risk Mitch’s life.
He brushed her hair back and cradled her face, so careful, as if she were precious. “Bad one, huh?”
This was classic Mitch—the Mitch she’d known all those years ago. He’d always seemed to own an endless well of patience and compassion and love inside him. It was one of the things she’d missed most. What she believed had made her so lonely after she’d left. If she hadn’t been so deeply connected to him, she would have fared better on her own.
But that wouldn’t change. Because those visions she’d seen had been the good and bad of his future. She knew from experience they were based on the decisions that were made now. Make the wrong choice, Mitch would die. Make the right one, he would live happily and, evidently, sexually fulfilled. They were both losing scenarios for Halina, but again, that wouldn’t change either.
She might not know exactly when her visions were coming, she might not be able to control them, but she knew with absolute certainty they were accurate.
And that made her future impossibly agonizing. Unless . . .
“Is . . . is Schaeffer really brain-dead?” she asked.
Mitch’s hands continued to travel over her, but she didn’t need comforting anymore. He caressed the back of her neck. Slid a hand along her waist. His lips pressed against her temple and the breath he released carried the faintest moan of desire.
“He’s in a coma,” he said. “But everything about that man is a lie. I don’t trust anything unless I see it with my own eyes, and his hospital room is off-limits, guarded by Secret Service.”
Halina had a hard time paying attention to the answer with him kissing his way across her jaw, and down her neck, spreading tingles across her skin.
“I have condoms,” he murmured, his hand sliding under her shirt and up her side. “If you want to . . .”
God, his touch felt so beauti—
His words clicked. She pulled back and gripped his wandering hand. “What?”
“Baby, you have to admit, us together—that was crazy-amazing.” Lust created a dark gold haze over his eyes and his voice lowered. “I’m already hard again.”
“No . . .” Her entire body tightened with a sudden renewal of desire. Panicked she’d have another logic lapse, Halina slid toward the edge of the bed to stand. “No, no, no, Mitch—”
He didn’t let her get two inches before he hauled her back. “Is this about—?“
“Mitch.”
She turned her gaze on him. He was looking at her with a distant light of hope, making so many of her own dreams and beliefs rise from the shadows to taunt her.
He was the only man she’d ever wanted. Ever loved. The only man who’d ever believed in her, encouraged her, or treated her like an equal. The only man who’d made her feel worthy of everything she’d ever earned. And so much more.
For all those reasons, she scraped together her last ounce of strength and pushed her own needs and wants aside. “Look, it’s not going to happen again, okay? Yes, it was amazing. But it always was. That’s not what it was about. You came here wanting to put me behind you, remember?”
Keeping watch on him now would be so much more difficult. Halina had developed a certain numbness to his being with other women. Sometimes she’d even been able to dig deep and find sincere happiness for him. But now . . . she was certainly no saint. It would break her heart all over again.
But it was better than the alternative.
He was frowning at her, but in confusion, not anger. Which meant he was still trying to figure her out. Those knowing eyes, that sharp mind and all his experience in the courtroom gave him such an acute way of looking into people.
“Excuse me.” She moved into the bathroom, shut the door, and pressed the lock. Then she slid to the floor, still holding the knob as tears burned her eyes. Her breaths came heavy and fast, everything hitting her at once now that she had a place to let down.
Exhausted, terrified, hurting, she couldn’t keep it together anymore. She pressed her leaking eyes to her knees and took giant, gulping breaths to make sure Mitch didn’t hear her cry.
She let out enough emotion only to get back under control. If she passed that delicate point of no return, he wouldn’t have to hear her to know she’d been crying; her face would be ravaged with the signs.
Within sixty seconds, she had brought herself to that cold, icy place of resignation. So fast it scared her on some level. She’d taught herself to do it very young. A girl only had to get beaten so many times for letting tears spill to learn how to control them. But she hadn’t realized how much of that girl was still inside her. She hadn’t had to force herself to stop crying in years.
With hurt forming a shell, Halina pushed to her feet. At the sink, she splashed cold water on her face and tried to figure out what to do next. Getting away from Mitch would be best for them both. As far away as possible. But he was determined to get something out of her. And the thought of all those people Schaeffer had hurt because Halina hadn’t come forward burrowed into her soul.
She wanted to help. She wanted him stopped. Wanted him to pay. Truthfully, she wanted him dead.
But she also realized giving up her evidence meant giving up the leverage that kept Mitch safe. Within hours of Schaeffer discovering he had her tapes and files, Mitch would be dead. She hadn’t had any doubt of that before the visions. And now, with Abernathy willing to kill anyone who got in his way, and Mitch, so annoyingly and consistently in his way . . . the risk doubled.