Witness Protection ✔

Knock knock

S

She heard some shuffling on the other side of the door before Darius opened it, his hair somewhat disheveled as though he'd been pulling at it.

"Yeah?"

It seemed to be the worst possible moment for her courage to run out because now she stood in front of him and didn't know what to say.

"So um... I wanted to- er- ask you again why you did it," she stammered a lot less confident than she'd hoped.

"I thought I told you to forget about it?" he said, frowning.

"You did. But you don't get to steal my first kiss and then pretend it never happened."

"Your what?" His eyes went wide as he shoved one of his hands through his hair and sighed. "Shit, Nat. I'm so sorry, I didn't know."

"So you wouldn't have done it if you knew?" she asked him. Somehow this felt even worse. Like she'd been an easy target or something.

"I shouldn't have done it at all."

She hated how vague he was being, every time she asked something he didn't give her a satisfying answer and it was getting on her nerves.

"Why?" she pressed.

"You know why," he said matter-of-factly.

"humor me."

For a few seconds, he did nothing but stare at her, as if he was thinking of what to say.

"Alright, let's see. I'm a professional bodyguard, and if my employer finds out I'll get fired and no one will ever want to hire me again. And there's the fact that we'll probably never get to meet again after you've testified which will make things more complicated than it needs to be. And the most important thing: If their lawyers find out we're in some kind of relationship the judge may choose to discard your testimony and all of this will have been for nothing."

"Wait they can do that? Why?"

He just shrugged, "They can claim I influenced you, and thereby your testimony won't be trustworthy."

Everything he said made sense. She didn't want to jeopardize her chance to help lock away a bunch of murderers. Or gamble with his career. The arguments were logical, but there was still one thing that bothered her. He still hadn't answered her first question. She could let it slide, but she didn't want to. She was afraid that if she didn't seek the answer now she'd never find out.

"You still haven't told me why you kissed me in the first place."

"Because I wanted to. I still want to, actually. But we can't."

Hearing this made her belly fill up with butterflies again. She'd finally gotten her answer, and it was better than she'd thought. But after hearing his reasons she did understand why it was better to forget about it. So maybe she should try to.

"You're probably right, but you could've told me right away."

"Yeah, I probably could've handled that better. I'm sorry," he said as he genuinely looked like he was.

"It's fine. I'm glad you told me," she offered with a small smile.

It was almost 3 pm. Which meant her new therapist was going to be there any minute now.

After Darius convinced her to go to therapy she contacted Julia. The caseworker was more than happy to arrange a therapist who was willing to come to their house for the session. Nathalia dreaded having to explain the situation to her but to her relief, no questions were asked.

The therapist in question had experience with witnesses, Julia had said. He'd been briefed about her situation beforehand so she wouldn't have to hold back anything during her sessions.