Can I call you?
The text from Raziel comes at midnight. I’m working on testing a new security tool I installed earlier when my phone lights up with the message. It’s been twenty-three hours and sixteen minutes since I discovered that Raziel was Lorenzo Rossi, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Not that I was keeping track of the time or anything.
At first, it was hard to reconcile that fact, but now, it’s all I can think about. After the dinner party at Roarke’s place, I spent the night staring at Lorenzo’s pictures until every single feature of that beautiful face was burned into my brain.
And now, he wants to call me? What if I slip?
A part of me is tempted to ignore the message, but that wouldn’t be fair. Not to the man and not to the woman who has been in love with him for ages. So, with fingers trembling, I shoot back one word.
Yes.
The call comes through the encrypted app almost immediately, and for a full minute, neither one of us speaks. I hear the familiar hum of his computer in the background and his soft breathing. “Hey, Var.”
I pause at his voice. He sounds…tired. Suddenly, all thoughts and fears and insecurities fade, and in their place comes worry. “Are you okay? You sound…off.”
“Just tired,” he says, confirming my suspicions. “I’ve had a long day working on…stuff.”
“Can you tell me about it?” I ask, shutting down my computer and walking to my bed before settling into a comfortable position. “I’m here to listen if you want to talk about it.”
“I can’t give you any details,” he says. “It’s…”
“Sensitive,” I finish for him, and I understand sensitive. Heck, I work for one of the biggest security firms in the country. There are things I don't share with anyone outside the bosses—my father and brothers. “What can you tell me?”
“That it’s taxing,” he says with a sigh. “I usually have some of my people work on the menial stuff, but I have to do it all on my own this time.”
“You don’t trust them?”
He’s silent for a moment. “I can’t trust anyone with this.”
“What about your brothers?” I ask, thinking of his older brothers. “Surely, they can help with some of the work. Dante, for one, has a bit of tech knowledge, right? Maybe he could help with…” My eyes widen in horror, and I sit up straight in bed, heart racing fast as I realize what I’ve done. Did I just…
Maybe he didn’t hear it. I can pretend I didn’t just say his brother’s name out loud. Quick, what rhymes with Dante?
Scante, Cante! Damn it, those are not real words.
“You know who I am.”
It’s not a question. It’s a single sentence that cuts into the fog like a sharp knife through butter, and I freeze, silence filling the room. It's spoken so plainly that I can't tell what the man on the other end is thinking, and I am terrified to ask.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
“When?”
I swallow hard, tugging at the loose strings of the old T-shirt I have on. “Last night,” I whisper. “At the party. I…I saw your tattoo.”
There is silence, long and layered with so many unsaid words, and when he does speak, there is no inflection in his voice to indicate what he's thinking. It's a single word that pierces into the fantasy we’ve had for years. “Fiona.”
And now, he knows.
I wait for him to say something else, but he stays silent, the humming in the background loud—but even that disappears when he suddenly hangs up.
I pull the phone from my ear and glance down at it, my heart racing as fear floods back in, and I realize that I’ve ruined everything. I should have come clean when I found out who he was last night. I should have told him everything, and if he didn’t feel anything for me, then we could have stayed friends.
But Christ, who would want to be friends with someone eleven years younger than them? Sure, we’re a great team when it comes to the CTF games, but someone of his skill level doesn’t technically need a partner to compete.
Whatever relationship we’ve cultivated over the years is now over.
I glance at the phone and consider calling him back, but there is no certainty that he’ll pick up. With a frustrated cry, Idrop my head onto the pillow and bury my face in it, kicking my legs in frustration, my heart aching with the loss of a relationship that has ended before it could even start.
