“That’s what it is,” she says, defiant fire in her eyes. “He’s an agentanda friend.”
“Julia sent me the surveillance footage.” I tap my watch and the holographic screen rises in front of her face, the scene replaying. “I watched him walk into your room, Mia. I watched you let him in wearing nothing but a fucking bathrobe while I was?—”
I stop. Swallow. My watch hand is shaking, making the screen blur, and I hate that she can see it.
“While you were what?” Her voice is quiet.
While I was sitting in my penthouse trying to figure out how to deserve you.
“Nothing happened,” she goes on, her forehead scrunching up. “He came to check on me, as a colleague, as a friend. I went dark for three days—my team was worried and he was sent in to find out why.”
I tap the watch so the footage disappears. “So worried he had to come all the way from London? You can’t talk on the phone?”
“It’s his job.”
“His job.” I’m pacing now, back and forth across her hotel room, too much energy in my body and nowhere for it to go. “What else is his job, Mia? What else does he do for you?”
Her jaw tightens. “Oh, give me a fucking break. Are you seriously jealous? Over nothing?”
“So what if I am jealous?” I say, hating that I have to admit it. “What if I don’t like the idea of some guy, some so-called friend, just showing up at your door when you’re half-dressed.”
“Then you have to bloody deal with it because he’s just a friend and nothing happened.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you? You’re a fuckingspy.” I jab my finger at her.
“Then don’t trust me,” she says, throwing out her arms. “I don’t really care at this point. Either you take me at my word or you don’t, and frankly, I don’t think you even have a right to be jealous since whatever we were, whatever we had, is no more. You said it yourself. We start over.”
I grind my teeth together, knowing that she is right, that even if she’s lying, I still don’t have a right to be angry about who she spends her time with.
“But he is just a colleague and a friend. A good one,” she says again, and this time a flash of pain comes across her brow.
“You keep saying that. But you’re leaving something out. I can hear it.”
And whatever it is, it’s the thing that’s driving me the most mad.
She’s quiet for a long moment. Her hands are steady at her sides, fingers loose, but I can see the tendons standing out in her neck. The micro-expressions she can’t quite control. Her training is slipping.
“A long time ago, he told me he was in love with me,” she says with a sigh, folding her arms across her chest and looking away.
The words are like a punch to the solar plexus.
“And?” My voice comes out rough. “What did you say? Were you in love with him?”
“I turned him down.” She turns her head to hold my gaze. “I told him it couldn’t happen. That I couldn’t give him what he wanted.”
I swallow hard. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t—” She stops. Presses her lips together. “You know why not. I told you why.”
Because her kiss is poison. Because she’s never been able to touch anyone without killing them. Because until you, she thought she’d spend her whole life alone.
“So he’s in love with you,” I say slowly, “and he flew across an ocean to see you, maybe save you, and he showed up at your hotel room and I’m supposed to believe nothing happened.”
Her voice rises, frustration bleeding through, her eyes sparking. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, Nate! I can’t even kiss him without killing him. What exactly do you think we did?”
I know she’s right, know that her particular brand of lethality makes my jealousy absurd, know that I’m being beyond irrational and possessive and everything I swore I wouldn’t be.
But the voice in my head doesn’t care about logic.
