Page 38 of The Moment He Couldn’t Walk Away

He felt the telltale tingle in his palms and the niggle in his head as the well-meaning questions kept coming.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said to Lynx and headed through the door that led to the bathrooms. Sometimes he just needed a second to get his shit together when he was in a room with so many people. A moment to take a few deep breaths and refocus like he’d been taught.

He went down the hallway, took the stairs up, headed down another hallway, and opened a door at the end. He stepped outside into the cold air.

Bracing his hands on the railing, he inhaled a deep lungful and then exhaled slowly. He did it three more times until he felt steadier.

“Finch?”

Turning, he watched Nina step through the door.

“Hey,” he said, “You doing okay?”

She nodded. “You?”

She wore deep charcoal trousers and a white shirt. Over that, she had on a black woolen vest. Her heels were nosebleed tall and her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. The ends of a black silk ribbon fluttered as she moved closer to him.

The woman could wear anything and look stunning. But today she was more than that. She looked vulnerable too. It was there in the shadows under her eyes and the pallor of her skin. She was wounded, and that made his chest ache.

“How are you, really?” Finch asked instead of answering her question.

Nina exhaled slowly, stopping beside him to brace her hands like he had on the railing. She smelled good, a soft, subtle scent that hung in the air briefly before it dispersed.

“Scared, nervous, and not ready to say goodbye to her.”

“All entirely natural reactions,” he said. “You look really nice.”

“So there’s that, at least,” she replied, a small smile tilting her lips.

“Your mom would be proud of you.”

“Why do you think that?” She lifted her hands off the railing to look at him, tilting her head as Klaus often did to study him. Her brown eyes looked bigger, which Finch guessed was from whatever makeup she’d put around them.

“Because you’re successful, hot, and⁠—”

“Successful and hot will do,” she said, her smile a little wider now. “She’s only been gone a few days, and I miss her so much, even though at the end, she wasn’t the mom I remember. But knowing she’s no longer around is hard because she’s the only family I have.”

“I’m sorry.” He took her fingers and squeezed gently.

“She didn’t know me before she died, Finch.”

He let her talk because she needed to.

“And it turns out I didn’t really know her either,” she whispered.

“Why do you say that?”

She shook her head. “That’s another story, but not for today—in fact, I’m not sure it’s something I’ll ever talk about.”

“Nina. If you need⁠—”

“I will definitely not be going to you to unload the crap from my past,” she said. “No offence, but you have enough of your own stuff to worry about.”

She wasn’t wrong. “What crap from your past?”

She waved that away with a flick of her wrist. “My turn for a question,” she said. “Why are you up here alone when everyone is below? Restroom, or something else?”

“You have to talk about things. Don’t store them away inside you, Finch.” His therapist had been big on talking.