Angel towered over her. His big thighs bracketing hers. His wide-palmed hands flat on the bulkhead behind her head. His mouth…that gorgeous, talented mouth way too close.
“I know you asked me to keep quiet,” he rasped. Of all the things he’d changed about himself, his voice was the one she lamented the most. It had been so smooth and deep and luxurious. Now, it was auditory sandpaper. “And I did my best for as long as I could. But, Sonya, we have to talk about this.”
“I’m not ready to talk.” She tried to make her tone stony and emotionless. She wasn’t sure she succeeded.
He ducked his chin and held her gaze, his Turkish coffee eyes softening. “Sonya, I only want—”
“Why are your eyes so dark? Are you wearing contacts?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. His expression said the last thing he wanted to talk about was his eyes, but he answered anyway. “My irises were injected with dye to darken them. But it didn’t totally take. See?” He pointed to his left eye where, sure enough, a tiny sliver the shape of a pizza slice remained the same chocolaty brown color she’d grown to know and love ten years ago.
“And your accent? It’s completely different.”
“I had to work at that. First when I became Majid, and then when I became Angel. Voice-recognition software picks up more than tonal qualities. It also identifies syntax and diction. I have cultivated a more American way with phrases.”
She shook her head, staring in wonder. “You’re so different in every way.”
“No.” He placed his hand over his heart. “In here I am still the same.”
Even though she’d told herself she wasn’t going to talk to him about it, even though she wasn’t ready to talk about it, she heard herself blurt, “But you’re not. The man I loved would have come for me when it was safe.” Her fingers curled so tightly around the lip of the sink her knuckles ached. “The man I loved wouldn’t have lied to me and let me think I was going crazy when I started noticing similarities. The man I loved wouldn’t have made love to me without first telling me the truth. You are not the man I loved!”
She realized she’d shouted this last bit. Reaching up, she pinched the bridge of her nose to keep her traitorous tears from falling. She’d shed so many for him over the years. She refused to shed any more.
“But I am, Sonya.” He cupped her chin in his warm hand and forced her to look at him. He had such a beautiful face, but in that moment all she wanted was his old face. If he was saying these things with his old face, then maybe she could believe him. “Don’t you see that I am?”
She had to ignore the pleading in his eyes, or it would be her undoing.
A recalcitrant tear blew past her defenses. It spilled over her bottom lid and streaked hot and salty down her cheek.
“Then why didn’t you come for me? After you left Iran, why didn’t you find me?” She hated that her voice sounded hoarse and small.
“I wanted to.” He dropped his hand from her chin so he could grab her shoulders. “I swear to God I wanted to, but six years had passed. Six years. I thought for sure you had moved on.”
Her insides had been quaking, but that made everything go still. “You were a coward then,” she accused. “You are a coward now. If you weren’t, you would have told me the truth the moment you knew I wasn’t Grafton’s lackey. You would have told me the truth all the times I said you reminded me of Mark. Of you!” Her volume had increased until she was shouting again. She didn’t care. Let everyone hear. “I don’t even know what to call you!”
His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “Call me Angel. I am Jamin ‘Angel’ Agassi now.”
And there it was. The crux of the matter.
“Well, Angel, those years in Iran changed you into someone I don’t know. Because the man I knew, my Mark, he…” She bit her lips when more treasonous tears threatened. “He would have come for me. My Mark would have told me the truth. My Mark would have—”
“Uh… Sorry to interrupt, mes amis.” Rock’s lazy Cajun accent sounded through the thin door. “The pilot says we need to take our seats in preparation for landin’.”
“Fuck. Off,” Angel growled.
“Okeydokey then. Pretend I was never here.”
The crank and thunk of the landing gear sounded through the bottom of the aircraft.
“We need to sit down.” Sonya breathed through her nose in the hope it would staunch the fire in her throat.
“No. We need to finish this conversation.”
“We are finished.”
“Don’t say that, Sonya,” he begged. Yes, begged. Maybe, after everything he’d done to her, to them, she should have felt vindicated by the surrender in his ragged voice, but all she felt was sad.
Sad at what had become of them.
