Francine waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. She blinked. “And more,” she added quietly.
“Well.” Grant moved uneasily. “Shit.”
“I might—” She licked her lips. “I don’t know what the future will hold. But I’m involved. If I have to return to the States … I’ll let you know. I’ll do whatever needs to be done to stay out of your way.”
Grant started to say something, but Irina stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I was terrified of you before you said a single word to me,” she mused. “Even more terrified after. And now you’re telling me you’ll keep away from me if it—what? If it’ll make me feel better?”
“Safer.” She swallowed. “I know it must not make sense, knowing what you know about me. Knowing the way I treated you. I’m—I’m trying to be someone I haven’t been for a long time. Maybe someone I’ve never been before.”
Silence stretched out. Then Grant spoke. “Hell, Frankie,” he muttered.
“Come back,” Irina said promptly. “I want to meet the new Francine. And you can meet the new me.” She smiled slightly. “I’m a lot less easy to scare these days.”
“And I’m trying to be less terrifying.” Francine’s mouth was still dry.
“And if you hadn’t clued Grant and Lance in that something was wrong with Mathis, they might never have been on the alert to find him and everyone else on that island.”
Francine scoffed. “If you’re trying to suggest my actions helped anyone inanyway—”
“I’m saying we live in a complicated fucking world, Francine. And things could have gone a lot worse.”
Francine’s jaw tensed. “Than me kidnapping you? I almost killed you!”
“You hesitated.”
“I—”
Yes. She had hesitated. She’d wanted to avenge her brother, wanted to be a true Delacourt, wanted to be every inch the alpha lioness everyone expected her to be.
And she’d hesitated.
“And hey, if nothing else, you forced Grant to reveal all his secrets to me.” Now Irina’s smile was full and smug. “And the key to my own secrets.”
After the call, Francine stared at the wall for a while. She wasn’t sure how she felt. She wasn’t sure how she had expected to feel.
But she knew who she needed.
It was strange. If she thought about where she was going, all she could think was how could she possibly know her way around this massive fortress already?
If she didn’t think about it, her feet took her exactly where she wanted to go. A relic of the magic, helping her find her way.
Not that she needed it. Julian found her before she’d navigated a single corridor.
He wrapped his arms around her.
“How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve stripped off my own skin and held it up for appraisal.”
“Did they forgive you?”
“I … think so?”
“Do you think you deserve their forgiveness?” He stroked her hair. “Or do you still feel the need to strip more flesh from your bones?”
She shivered against him. “Let’s call it a work in progress. But if I’m going to live at the end of the world, at least I know the people I left behind don’t completely hate me,” she said, landing nowhere near the bitter brightness she was aiming for.
“About that … Come with me.”
