Bad Nerd Falling (46 page)

There was no doubt but that he had
chosen well.

Since the only place he wanted to be
was by her side, he loped across the lab to her. It was like a
magnet that tugged him relentlessly, and he gave in to that subtle,
but powerful pull.

When he reached her, he maneuvered her
to a secluded area of the lab, and then into the storage closet. He
deserved a kiss and bent his head to take her lips in one that
hopefully expressed his feelings. Like how much he wanted her and
how proud of her he was.

It took several long moments before he
realized she wasn’t clinging to him. Instead he could taste the
saltiness of tears. Rearing back, he stared down at her with what
was probably a gaping mouth and disbelieving eyes.

“
What’s wrong
Helena?”

Was she sick? Had she been hurt? He
had examined her, quickly, but also thoroughly. None of the men had
touched her or his mother.

Helena’s eyes made his heart falter,
skip, and then plummet. Never in all his years, even facing his
toughest assignment, had he ever tasted fear like this.

The sickening taste made his stomach
lurch and he couldn’t even frame the question. It was like his
brain stalled. His heart debated whether it should start beating
again or not.

“
I’m sorry Vlad,” she said
in a tear-husky voice. “I’m so sorry.”

His heart beat too fast now. “Sorry
for what?”

“
We can’t be together.”
Those big green eyes shimmered with unshed tears. They also pleaded
with him to understand, but there was no way that was
possible.

Not when his head spun and it hurt to
take a breath.

“
Why not?” At least he
managed that, albeit in a raw voice.

“
I can’t even begin to
compete with what you do.” Her eyes were two huge pools of despair.
“You’re a superhero.”

His heart twisted and hurt like it
never had before. He breathed deeply, trying to quell his instincts
so he could think.

But coherent thought resisted his
efforts. “I’m not following what you’re saying.” He couldn’t have
followed turn-by-turn directions from Shively.

Tears trembled in her eyes, in sync
with her quivering lips. Helena looked like she was barely holding
on. With a ragged sob which she swallowed, she stared at him. Under
the despair was the light of awe. Yet unhappiness poured off her
and he couldn’t figure out why she was ending their relationship.
He at least comprehended that much. She intended to end what they
had.

“
You don’t want to be with
me?” Denial twisted his guts as wave after wave crashed through
him. She couldn’t fake how she felt about him. Just like he
couldn’t fake how he felt about her. He didn’t want to. He wanted
her.

She jerkily shook her head. “It’s more
of a case that I’ll just be a weight around your neck.”

“
How will you be a
weight?” That made no sense.

Beaumont leaned around the door.
“Welly, we go wheels up at nineteen hundred hours.
Hurry.”

That gave him ten minutes.
He explained this to Helena. “The leader gave us information we
needed. I have to go.”
He couldn’t leave
right now.

“
We’re over, Vlad. Just
understand that. You have to go,” she said with calm acceptance.
But waves of heartbreak undulated from her and it broke his heart.
Shattered all the hopes he had for their future.

His throat was raw and thick and he
couldn’t speak. There was twenty hours worth of prep to do and he
only had ten minutes. Now nine minutes and thirty-eight
seconds.

The only thing he could do was lean
down, kiss her possessively to let her know this wasn’t over and
then he ran. He shoved this unsettling conversation with Helena
away to focus on what he had to do.

The only thing he was sure of was this
wasn’t over. So long as he could convince her. The memory of her
face cut through his hope though. She had looked very much as
though her decision was final.

***

Helena watched him leave through
numbed eyes, numbed brain, but with a heart that shouldn’t have
shattered any more, because the pieces were already tiny. Perhaps
this was the final step, crushing them into dust so there was no
way she could recover the pieces.

It was better that he had to
leave.

Perhaps not seeing him for a few days
or weeks or months would help maintain her sanity. She couldn’t
believe she had broken up with the only man she loved, had ever
been interested in, right here in the middle of the lab. There was
still blood on the floor.

Ashes from the clothing of
the two men she and Maria had set on fire still littered the floor.
Maria—
Vlad’s
mother. Could she work with his mother? A constant reminder
of what she had given up. After seeing what it might have been
between them, it was so much harder to think about life without
him.

No mere woman of science could hold on
to a man like Vlad though. He was like the wind. Blowing wherever
he was needed. Subtle at times, and then a force of nature such
that it could destroy with one solid gust. She couldn’t begin to be
what Vlad needed and she loved him too much to see him start to
resent her.

Either way, she was going to lose him.
It might as well be now rather than later.

Before she could contemplate her
barren existence, Beau breezed in. He nodded to a few of the
remaining police officers as he forged a straight path to her. When
he opened his arms she leapt into them. She fought valiantly
against the impending tears but lost the battle. Beau correctly
read the signs and hauled her off to a small room
nearby.

In privacy she sobbed against him,
aware of and thankful for his patience.

When she finally gained control of
herself he loosened his hold. “Vlad should be the one holding
you.”

“
We broke up.” She moved
further away from him and shoved at the hair clinging to her wet
cheeks as she slumped into a chair.

Beau gaped at her as he slid onto a
nearby settee.

“
What?
” He stared at her for long moments before his eyes narrowed
and he nodded to himself. “What did you do?”

She sent him a glare. “Why does it
have to be me who decided?”

“
Because he knows a good
thing when he finds it.”

That made no sense.

She angrily wiped more tears away. “So
do I.” But her voice was weak and both of them heard it.

“
No you don’t or you
wouldn’t have ended the best thing that’s ever happened to
you.”

“
I had to.” Her voice was
small.

“
Why?” His was
hard.

She stared at the silk rug under their
feet. “Because he’s a superman and I’m just normal. He’d grow bored
with me eventually.”

“
Are you certain you won’t
get bored with him? That when you see past the superhero you won’t
like the man underneath?” There was an edge to his voice that made
her pause.

That edge made her wonder if there was
something eating at him. Like he was worried about this happening
to him. Molly was a bit in awe of him.

Even as she pondered his love life
rather than her own, he changed the subject. “You set a man on
fire?”

“
No,” she denied. “We
set
two
men on
fire.”

His smile was slow in coming but it
did appear. “Good girl.”

She swallowed, hard, and then cleared
her throat. “We had to do something. The first man was scary.” She
paused as she remembered all too well that hideous moment. “He kept
stroking his gun.”

Beau nodded. “His dying was no
loss.”

Her head jerked up. “He
died?”

“
Absolutely.” Beau’s tone
indicated he knew what he was talking about.

She had obviously missed something.
“How do you know all this?”

“
I was in the control
room.”

“
What’s that? Where is it?
How did you know to be there?” The questions spilled from her in
random order.

“
I have been expecting
this attack, just like Vlad and the SEALs. All of us with military
experience were on alert. We responded the second the signal came
through.”

Her mouth opened, closed, opened
again, and then she realized she wasn’t going to be able to
speak.

“
Since I’m still not one
hundred percent, I chose to make myself useful in the control room.
I’m good with all that equipment.”

She shook her head, uncertain what to
ask. Even more uncertain about what to think.

“
It gave me a birds-eye
view of every part of the palace and the targeted government
buildings. We quelled all tango efforts.”

“
I see,” she finally
managed, but she still didn’t quite understand.

“
You probably don’t, but
be aware that I
did
miss you set fire to those men and I’m a little peeved about
it.”

A shaky smile probably wasn’t what he
wanted, but it was all she could offer. “Maybe we can reenact it
for you someday.”

He didn’t respond but sat staring at
her instead.

Normally she’d have bristled and
confronted him, but a strange sense of numbness that had been
creeping over her now settled in. She didn’t care.

In fact, she found she didn’t much
care about anything.

“
Let’s go home.” He stood
and nodded toward the door.

Rising, she trailed him out of the
small lounge and into the room where she kept her belongings. They
encountered Maria and Graham and she and Maria embraced long and
hard.

“
Aleksi told us not to
come in tomorrow.” Maria looked pale and shaky.

She nodded. Then she glanced at
Graham. “I’m not returning to the hospital.”

He smiled. “You finished up there
yesterday. So you’re now officially a member of the palace lab
staff, not of the hospital.”

That was good. Because she’d quit if
she had to return to the hospital. If she quit maybe she could go
somewhere else.

Like America. Glancing at Beau and
Maria, and thinking of Tia, maybe she would go to
America.

She’d always wanted to see that country. And
right now it was far, far away from Vlad.

Chapter 37

When Tia called her that
evening, she was happy to hear from her. Happy if that word could
be used when one’s feelings were frozen under solid ice. She
should
be happy to hear
from her friend. There were a lot of things she should be happy
about, but she wasn’t.

It was like her entire being had been
slowly icing up ever since she told Vlad they were over.

“
Helena, Aleksi told me
what happened and I can’t believe all that went down in our lab.”
Tia didn’t sound excited or jealous - she sounded
horrified.

She could relate. “It wasn’t fun.”
Even her voice sounded dull.

“
Are you okay?” There was
fear and anxiety in Tia’s voice and she wished she could respond.
Feel warmed by it, but apparently not even a friend’s concern
penetrated the icy numbness.

“
I’m fine.” Whatever that
meant. But reassurance was necessary. With Tia thousands of miles
away, she would only worry. And fret that she wasn’t home. To
distract her, she used the best diversion she could think of. “You
should see Aleksi in full battle gear.”

He had squeezed her and Maria hard
after the police questioned them.

There was silence on the other end for
a long pause before Tia moaned. “That is so not nice.” She started
out playful but her voice slid into husky. “He looked good, didn’t
he?”

“
Oh yes.” That was a
given. She was numb, not dead. There was no mistaking that Aleksi
did something for his gear.

“
I’m guessing Vlad looks
really good in it as well.”

“
Like he was made for
it.”

“
He was.”

“
Yes.” And therein lay the
problem. He was made for combat. She was made for science. The two
probably shouldn’t intermingle. Nerds and warriors couldn’t
possibly be a good pairing. There were likely rules prohibiting
that sort of thing.

To steer Tia off the subject she least
wanted to discuss she instead asked about Tia’s condo.

“
Oh, it’s actually going
really well. My cousin wants it, and she’s taking a lot of my
furniture, which is excellent. And The Packers have already
scheduled a day to come and pack up the few things I’m taking with
me. It’s ridiculous really, because I can handle that little bit.”
Tia prattled on and she didn’t mind.

It was nice to think of someone else’s
life coming together since hers had fallen apart. Then she realized
she was whining and indulging in self-pity. Ruthlessly, she
squashed the wallowing since it had occurred for long enough. It
was now time to pick herself back up and proceed with whatever was
left of her life.