“Took me long enough. Sorry about that.”
“You’resorry?” she barked, wrapping her arms around herself. Julian placed a reassuring hand on her back, and she let out a slow breath, correcting her posture. “I’msorry. I should have…”
Called? Talked?
He half-reached for her, and his hand dropped. “You could have told us, Frankie.”
“Would that have changed anything?”
He started to speak, then stuttered into silence. Chloe was a shadow at his side, but now she spoke. “We haven’t met,” she said, holding out her hand. “Chloe Kent.”
“Francine Delacourt.”
“For the record, I kinda guessed that already.” Even her smile was small and cute. “Also for the record, Mathis has been tearing himself to pieces about not reaching out to you before you disappeared, turned up again seconds before one of our safe houses exploded, disappeared again, showed upin a suspiciously large number of travelogue videos, and then disappeared again. To be clear, the tearing himself to pieces started well before you vanished; it just got worse then.”
Mathis grimaced. “Ah, Chloe, that’s not going to help—”
“You were?” The words flew from her lips. “You—you were worried?”
Mathis blinked at her. Whatever he saw made his face crumple.
“And that’s our cue to leave them to it.” Chloe tugged Mathis down to her height for a kiss, then marched off, tapping Julian on the shoulder as she went. “Come on. They need their privacy.”
*Will you be all right if I leave?*Julian checked with her.
She nodded. This was something she had to do by herself. Chloe had seen that.
Her brother really had got a good one.
The door closed quietly behind their two mates.
After a moment, Mathis said quietly, “I never really saw you, did I?”
“I never let anyone see me.” She took a deep breath. “And all that led to was my own brother thinking I wouldn’t care if he was hurt by—by what I did. God, Mathis. I cared. I cared so much that I hurt so many people, and then I didn’t know how to carewithouthurting people.”
“So you chose the path that would hurtyouthe most.”
She bared her teeth. “It seemed only fair.”
“That’s not fucking fair. We’re twins. I should be able to see through whatever you’re pretending to be, right through to whatever it is you don’t want anyone to see.”
Her shoulders slumped. “So what do you see?”
He looked at her for a long moment. “I see a woman with a selfish twin.”
“You’re not—”
“I spent all my time running away trying to find myself. Which left no space for you to do the same.”
“Maybe I didn’t want to find myself.”
“Scared of what you’d find?”
“Look what I did find. I almost killed Grant’s mate. I would have killedhim.He’s your friend—”
“Our friend.”
“I don’t have friends. Look at the people whoweremy friends. Eloise. Harper. Who’d want to count themselves among them?”
