Her hands in my hair. Her breathing against my ear. Her body still pulsing faintly around me.
I am done pretending this could ever be something I over come. She is mine and I am undeniably hers.
18
Billie
Private tier. New message. The preview loads in my notifications before I can stop it.
One line.
your daddy's friend know he's sharing you with everyone?
I read it once.
The room doesn't change. The lamp is still on. Declan's desk is still under my hands and his house is still quiet and the fridge is still humming and nothing in the physical world has moved.
He knows about Declan. He's been watching the building. He's seen Declan come and go. He's connected us. And he's chosen the worddaddyand I don't know if that's a coincidence or if it isn't and I don't know which possibility is worse.
I close the notification and immediately get up and walk down the hallway to Declan's office.
The door is open. He's at his desk, phone to his ear, a document on his screen. Work. Normal. The low cadence of hisvoice making a point about something that has nothing to do with me.
I stand in the doorway.
"Declan," I say.
One word.
He looks up. Whatever he was saying into the phone stops mid-sentence. "I'll call you back." He puts the phone down and is on his feet before he's finished setting it down.
He doesn't ask what happened. He crosses the office and takes the phone from my hand and reads the notification on the screen.
His face changes. This is the face of a man who has been waiting for this escalation since he started the file and has now received it and is done waiting.
He looks at me. Then he picks up his phone and dials.
"Activate the full team," he says. Four words. Then he hangs up.
He puts his hand on my face. Just that. Palm against my jaw. His eyes steady and dark and absolutely furious and absolutely calm.
"We're going to handle this," he says. "Starting now."
***
For the next two hours his house becomes an operations center.
I sit on his couch with my laptop and I watch Declan Maguire work, and what I mean by that is I watch a man who has spent twenty years running security become the version of himself I've only seen in pieces. He makes six calls. Each one is short, calm, the voice of someone issuing instructions he expects followed without discussion. His team. It feels weird to use the word team. I didn't know he had a team, not really, not beyond theabstract concept ofDeclan has a firm. I can hear the reports coming in through his phone.
He doesn't include me in the calls. He does something better: after each one, he comes to the couch and sits next to me and tells me what happened, what it means, and what comes next. Plainly. Without softening it. Without managing me.
I appreciate this more than I can say.
After the sixth call he sits down and doesn't pick the phone back up. He looks at me for a moment. The working-something-out expression. The one where he's decided to say a thing and is choosing how.
"I need to ask you something," he says.
"Okay."
