"You have to stop doing this." Her voice is hoarse and strangled, like she's fighting for control over her emotions in attempt to remain strong when she's clearly on the brink of falling off the edge.
One push from him and she'd be stumbling to the ground.
"Doing what, Lizzie?" He asks with furrowed eye-brows and confusion plastered across his face and she thinks to herself that he's absolutely right- criminals are notorious liars.
"Putting yourself in danger." She spits out like the words are sour in her mouth, "How many more times are you going to gamble with your life?- "
"My life is a gamble," He interrupts before she can continue- he sees a plethora of emotions etched across her face and realizes that this is the most raw and honest she's been since that night she sat beside him in a police car and told him she cared about him.
She opens and closes her mouth in a futile attempt to elaborate on her feelings. Finally, she breathes in and with chest heaving begins to choose her words carefully.
" I. Can't. Do. This. Anymore." She emphasis every word but those words aren't meant for him, she's not even looking at him when she speaks- instead she's conversing with herself as the realization hits her and suddenly her eyes bug out and she meets his gaze.
"This was never suppose to happen like this, you were suppose to be a job, an asset, a criminal informant and I- " Her voice catches in the air and causes it to crack, " I was suppose to be a profiler, and we were never suppose to end up here- how did we end up here?" She asks with glassy eyes and a look of defeat- her shoulders crouched and her hands shaking.
He doesn't want to try and decipher her words- what she's trying to disclose because if she's trying to tell him what he thinks she is- then he might combust any any second.
"Why did you come here, Elizabeth?" He asks in his low gravely tone- it sounds strained today- loaded with emotion and reverence. "I assumed you would run off into your ex-husbands arms again- searching for consoling."
She tries to keep composure- of course he knew. She shakes her head, somehow even after all this time, it still surprises her how much he knows and how little she can hide from him.
"Well, I couldn't come to you for comfort when you were the one causing me my pain."
He shoots her a pointed look and shrugs his shoulders.
"Regardless of how upset you are with me, how much you resent me of wish I never entered you're life- you should never find comfort in a man who almost destroyed you. You deserve so much more than Tom Keen can offer you and regardless of what you think or what you believe you feel for him or he feels for you, he is loyal to no one else but himself, you deserve a man who will fall in love with everything you are- not because it's his job to do so."
"Is that how you loved my mother?" She asks in barely a whisper, her forehead scrunched like she was in pain. "With everything you had."
He works his jaw and bites the inside of his cheek- she's come to memorize his mannerisms and quirks and has spent time trying to decipher what they mean- what story he's trying to tell without words.
He's fighting an internal war within himself while his eyes penetrate hers- he's hypnotizing and dangerous and she should be afraid of him but instead she's intrigued and constantly seduced by everything he was and everything he possessed.
She's waiting for a rebuttal or a confirmation and she holds her breath until his lips speak words she's been yearning to hear.
He adjusts the lapels of his three-piece suit and shifts on the desk she found him leaning against.
He bites his bottom lip and she waits to hear the words that will inevitably make her heart sink.
"No, I didn't feel that way towards your mother, Lizzie." He admits before adding, "But I do love her daughter."
And instead of sinking, she soars.