Chapter 10: Terms

I made it out of the hotel and down the steps before my knees gave out.

The valet line was long.

I stood at the end of it in the blue dress with my arms wrapped around myself, shaking in the cold air.

Marit had gone to relieve the neighbor who was sitting with Poppy.

She had squeezed my hand and told me not to come home until I could stand up straight.

"Nina."

Jonas came down the steps two at a time with his coat open.

He stopped in front of me. He did not touch me.

"You were magnificent," he said. "You were also about to fall over."

"I'm fine."

"Your hands are blue."

"It's thirty degrees."

He put his coat around my shoulders anyway. It smelled like soap and him.

"I'll drive you to Marit's."

"Poppy's asleep, and the neighbor's there until midnight." My teeth were chattering.

"I can't walk into that house with all of it still in my body."

"Then where?"

"Your place."

He went very still.

"Nina. We said nothing until the hearing."

"I know what we said."

"His lawyer will pull my testimony apart."

"I know." I looked up at him. "You told me hands to yourself. I changed my mind."

His jaw worked. He looked at the line of cars and the doorman, and then at me.

"Say it again," he said, very low.

"I'm breaking the terms."

His apartment was ten minutes away.

He did not speak in the elevator. I did not either. We stood a foot apart and I watched the numbers climb.

The door closed behind us. The entry light was off.

"Six years ago I said congratulations," Jonas said into the dark.

"You'd just told me you were marrying him. I said it and walked out of the break room."

"You never asked me to stay."

"You never told me you were leaving. I heard it from the charge nurse." His voice cracked.

"I stood in a supply closet for ten minutes. Then I went back out and said congratulations."

"I thought you didn't care."

"I thought you were happy."

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