I reached for her without thinking and pulled her into me.
"Don't listen to them." My voice came out low. Not a request. "Listen to me."
I cupped the side of her face and guided her cheek against my chest, right over my heart.
She went still.
Her fingers found the front of my shirt, slow, careful, and curled into the fabric over my ribs. Her breathing slowed. And slowed. Until I knew she had handed every ounce of her attention to the sound under my collarbone.
The thing about my heart is that it does not falter. It did not stutter at my mother's funeral. It did not race through ten billion dollar deals. It did not jump when a blade went into me on a job, and it did not c***k when I learned, in cold quiet, that Catherine had been sleeping with another man behind my back.
It stuttered
