I grasped his wrist but didn’t try to pull his hand off my neck. He wasn’t strangling me, just holding me in place. If I weren’t so worried about mishandling the situation, I would have been rock hard for him.
“You saw my passport.”
“I have a few of those myself, Jett. A name on a passport means nothing.”
I thought about a new lie. One closer to the truth. About telling him I was Jett Marian, consultant. The same Jett thateveryone in my life knew outside of work. The same story my family knew. My friends.
But I couldn’t bear to lie to him again.
And I wasn’t about to give him my real name in a house full of powerful people neither of us trusted.
“Please believe that I’m on your side. No matter what,” I said, trying to make him see the truth of it on my face, in my expression. “That’s the truth. I need you to believe it.”
“Why should I?”
“B-because I…”Because I’m falling in love with you.I swallowed. “Anything I say right now, you’re not going to believe.”
His thumb moved the tiniest bit, smoothing down over my pulse. I tried not to let my eyes flutter closed to focus on the feeling and imagine it being a caress.
Bzzt-bzzt-bzzt.
Our phones both went off at once from the bedside table. The only thing it could be was a breaking news alert.
He moved to grab his, tossing mine at me in the process.
Blockage in Kiel Canal prevents mass casualty in factory explosion.
I stared at the headline before clicking through.
“Are you seeing this?” I asked, reading about an explosion at a plant not far from where I’d found Locke’s spot on the canal. Because of some kind of “accidental ship blockade,” there was no canal traffic nearby when the explosion sent fireballs of flaming debris raining down over the water.
“Fuck. This… this is…”
“Did you cause this explosion?” I asked incredulously. “Is that why you wanted me to find a place on the canal? To minimize casualties?”
He looked up from his phone. “What? No! I didn’t have anything to do with the explosion.”
“You can’t tell me you didn’t know about it, Locke! You had me fucking scout for the spot. This exact fucking spot!”
He reached for my hand, but I yanked it out of reach. “I swear to you, Jett. I knew about the blockade, but I didn’t even know there was a plant there.” His eyes glittered with anger. “I did not cause this.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t fucking know! How would I?”
“Was it someone here?” I asked.
Locke shook his head, his dark hair still sleep-rumpled. “No. No one here needed to do this. The purpose of the blockade itself was to create a diversion from something happening somewhere else. The canal blockade was enough. It should have been enough. But…”
“But what?”
He glanced back down at his news app. His phone was lighting up with notifications. Then he looked back up at me. “This is better.”
29
LOCKE
The whole timeI was showering and dressing, I couldn’t manage to wrap my head around what was happening with Jett.
