Deadly Promises (Tracers #2.5)(34)

“Healing. Why are you here?”

“I got a call from Blade about the base and…”

“Oh.” He would have said more but the words backed up in his tight throat.

“That’s not what I meant.” Her eyes shied away from his. She took a breath and raised her beautiful gaze to meet his in the mirror. “When Blade called, I talked to him for a while. He wouldn’t really share anything about you and didn’t know where you were, but he said you’d come back eventually. I’ve been visiting my family in Ontario so I asked him to let me know when he knew you were back. That I wanted to come see you.”

“Why?”

“To tell you I’m sorry.” The words rushed out in a strained whisper.

That threw him. He really looked at her. She’d lost weight. It showed in her face, which was turned up staring at his reflection.

“For what?” he asked. Why was she apologizing?

“For judging you by one set of standards and others, like my family, by another set.”

His pulse jumped at the hope her words offered. “What do you mean?”

She shifted up on her knees, never breaking eye contact. “Took me a while to sort things out, but I think I finally got my head straight. I was willing to accept that the men in my family were decent men, in spite of their heritage. Their grandfather and father—my stepdad—ran illegal gambling operations, but when their grandfather was killed in a bust, my three stepbrothers made a pact before they graduated high school to change the family business. They started legitimate businesses over four years ago and have slowly moved the family enterprise away from illegal numbers games.”

Jeremy knew she waited for some comment, but he wanted to see where this was going.

Hope had been an evil mistress over the past month.

CeCe drew a deep breath. “I went home to see my dad and brothers after… everything happened. I told them about you and that I couldn’t hold you to a double set of standards. If I could accept them with the DeMitri past then they had to accept that I cared for you.”

His heart was beating so fast he could feel his chest move. “What exactly are you saying?”

She stood up and turned around, facing him with her heart in her eyes. “That I should have been willing to let you explain whenever you were ready, to give you a chance to tell your side of what happened in your past. That if you tell me you’re not involved in criminal activity I believe you. I know how you found the photo card in my statue base and that you gave the real one to Vinny to use in a deal for my freedom. Then you walked into that…”

Her lip trembled and a tear streaked down her face. “You walked into that death trap knowing you had no way out. I thought you’d died when all those shots were fired. Then they took you away and wouldn’t let me go with you and you were bleeding and no one would tell me where you were and…” Tears poured down her face.

Jeremy took her into his arms and hugged her. Holding her was a gift he never expected to experience again. Her arms went around him and she sobbed against his chest.

“It’s okay.” He shushed her, rubbing his hand up and down her back. “I made it.”

“No it’s not okay.” She lifted red eyes full of regret to his. “I’m sorry you didn’t know how much I loved you before you walked into that building prepared to die for me.”

She loved him? Jeremy couldn’t move as hope flooded him from head to toe.

CeCe had come back and she loved him.

He laid his palm along her cheek. “I’m sorry too, that I couldn’t tell you about so many things. I don’t have a criminal record anymore…”

Her forehead wrinkled with confusion. “What do you mean?”

“My entire record has been expunged. With the exception of boosting cars when I was a teenager, everything else on my rap sheet was created as a cover for my… job.”

She sniffled. “You don’t own a gym?” Her lips puckered in concern. Then her tongue slipped along her bottom lip.

All he’d thought about for the past sixteen days was CeCe.

Jeremy gave up waiting to kiss her. When he dipped his head, she cupped her hands on his face and opened her lips to his invasion. His world tilted back into place and started spinning forward again.

He kissed her over and over again, wanting to hold her like this forever. But to do that he’d have to tell her everything.

Slowly ending the kiss, he said, “Time for all the truth.”

She looked as though she prepared herself for the worst, then nodded. “I’m ready to listen.”

Using his thumbs, he wiped away the last of her tears. “In addition to owning this gym, I do contract work for an agency that protects national security.”

“Oh, crud. I had the thought that you might be law enforcement, then I blew it off when everything happened. I can’t believe what I put you through and…” She paused, blinking. “What kind of law enforcement?”

He smiled, then turned serious when he told her, “I work undercover for a group that has no public identity. I used to insert into prisons for intel, but the powers that be have decided not to use me that way anymore. I can’t share details about my work with you, so there will be times when I’m technically lying by omission, but I’ll never lie to you about anything between us. I love you too, and never want to lose you again.”