Eventually, I turned the light off again, and we continued talking as we sank back down onto the bed, facing each other.
It was…nice.
Weirdly domestic, but… good.
As I closed my eyes, I imagined this was how actual couples fell asleep, talking about unimportant things, and I found myself wishing for more of it.
I wondered what it would be like to see Locke again, back in the city.
I even wondered whether there was a chance I could ever tell him who I really was.
As Locke’s breathing evened into sleep, my eyes shot open in the dark.
What the fuck was I thinking?Breaking my cover? For… a chance at begging for scraps from a straight man’s table?
This op had really fucked me up if this was how low I’d sunk. The fantasies spinning in my head were ridiculous. Not to mention dangerous.
Which was why I waited to be sure Locke was truly asleep and then quietly got the hell out of there to catch my flight home.
And why, two weeks later, I agreed to transfer to the Miami office.
8
LOCKE - PRESENT DAY (THREE YEARS LATER)
I hadzero patience for pouty women, and the one on my arm was skating close to my limit tonight.
“I told Taylor we’d meet her and Eduardo at the Sky Bar after this. Kizzy Sweet is DJ’ing, and it’s gonna be lit! Pretty please, Lockie? It’s the least you can do after making me sit through the Marines’ dinner party thing.”
“Maritime,” I corrected for the second time as I guided Willow through the frigid night air toward the entrance to The Glasshouse. “It’s the Maritime Foundation benefit.”
While she continued to whine and plead, I thumbed the invitation in my coat pocket. It had come by courier just before I’d left the office.
The Paxis Council was calling an unexpected tournament.
After my grandfather’s death several months ago, many people had reminisced about him being a formidable chess player. But no one outside the Paxis Council itself had known what was really on the line when he and his powerful friends gathered to play.
The fate of the world. Or at least the stability of it.
It was always unsettling to have the council call for a tournament outside our normal schedule. But this was also the first tournament where I’d be playing the Maris family seat. And on top of that, it was my turn to host the gathering at my grandfather’s—nowmy—place in Italy.
The combined pressure had been sitting heavily on my chest for the past hour.
I’d need to go to Italy a few days early to prepare the villa and staff. Then spend at least a week playing in the tournament to hash out the needs of whatever had popped up.
On the one hand, I was looking forward to it. Despite being late spring on the calendar, New York’s winter still had a stranglehold on the city, and an almost two-week break in the sun sounded ideal. I also enjoyed the intellectual challenge of the game itself.
On the other hand, I didn’t enjoy the immense responsibility that came with what it represented. In this case, trying to foil Russia’s latest plot to cause instability in the Baltic region.
And the timing could not have been worse. Just when I was finding my rhythm as the head of Maris Holdings, I had to step away for a couple of weeks.
But the memory of my grandfather’s words about the Paxis Council was never far from my mind.
Responsibility chooses the worthy, not the willing.
Russia’s provoking activities had been ramping up, and it seemed it was no longer a collection of minor events but something much more serious, which meant it was time for the Paxis Council to do its thing.
Years ago, when my grandfather had finally revealed to me that Paxis was a front for some of the world’s wealthiest people to solve critical global challenges, I’d been shocked. I remembered asking him why the council couldn’t just solveissues verbally, through discourse and diplomacy the way government leaders did.
