“I overheard a couple of the cops talking.”
“And you never thought to mention that at the time?”
There was a long pause. “She’s a walking menace, but like you, I still felt an obligation to protect her. And she clearly had her reasons for wanting to escape her past.”
Alexandria Rockwell. Nolan repeated the name in his head, trying it out. It sounded too…too distinguished for Alexa, although even when Dawson had ushered her in from the street, she’d still held herself with a quiet dignity. Alexandria Rockwell. Why had she created a whole new identity?
With Alexa in the wind again, Nolan resigned himself to never finding out.
But he did remember the quiet sobbing that came from her room at night.
The pain that flashed in her eyes at the mention of family.
Her fear of leaving the house.
And he decided he wouldn’t add to the burden, not even with the shadow of the past hanging over them. He couldn’t forget the lies, but ultimately, he had to decide whether he’d rather have a future with Alexa in it, however remotely, or without her.
“I’ll get back to you about the Syrah, okay?”
“The Zinfandel is fine.”
“Then I’ll send a case.”
“Nolan? Tread carefully around Alexa.”
“Because she’s still fragile?”
“Because if you step on her, I’m not sure whether she’ll break or lash out like a rattlesnake. Right now, she still shows the same loyalty she did in Blackstone House, and trust me when I say you don’t want that to change.”
An icy chill trickled down Nolan’s spine. People thought Alexa was cold, but there was fire behind those cool blue eyes, and he didn’t want to get burned.
Not again.
But Alexa still drew him like a moth to a flame, and when he hung up the phone, he typed out a message in her app.
Nolan
Monks preserved winemaking during the Dark Ages. In Europe, they kept viticulture alive through centuries of war and chaos, and without their work, Dionysus probably wouldn’t exist. I’ve seen videos of Saint-Honorat but never visited. Did you know there are also winemaking nuns?
Heaven help him, but he couldn’t sever that tie to Alexa, no matter how unhealthy it might be.
CHAPTER 11
ALEXA
Chase set the mug of coffee next to me and stepped back. “Any news?”
“Nope, they’re still faffing around.”
I didn’t actually want to fly to Belarus and strong-arm a gang of hackers into handing over a complex encryption key, but I also hated having to watch the op from the other side of the world. No, scratch that, I hated having to watch the op, period, because I’d barely slept for the past seven weeks and caffeine had stopped working days ago.
My phone buzzed, not one of the team but Nolan.
Another cause of my sleepless nights and my fraught nerves.
He’d begun messaging me, not as much as he used to, but the continuation of our back-and-forth of random chitchat, pointless facts, and the occasional snippet about our lives reminded me of the old days. And also reminded me how much I missed them.
Nolan
