But…also, very possible, since Daddy’s chief of staff was just arrested on espionage charges. I thought that was the scandalMaggie was talking about on the phone when she called and demanded time with me.
“This can’t be true, Maggie,” I whisper, shaking my head as if motion could shove denial back into truth.
“Enya.” Maggie’s voice is tight with irritation. “Wake up. Your boyfriend—and I use that term generously—was investigating our father.”
The ground tilts.
My hand reaches for the back of Grandma Lucille’s floral loveseat. She used to lie on it while I braided her silver hair. My fingers dig into the fabric like it’s the only thing keeping me from breaking into a hundred pieces.
“How do you even know this?” I breathe.
“I’m a lobbyist. People talk to me, and some of them are from the DOJ.”
She paces, her red-soled heels tapping furiously against the hardwood, her navy blazer looking painfully out of place in my soft, cluttered living room. The scent of roses from the flower shop below my apartment drifts upward—warm, safe, familiar—while my entire world fractures around it.
“But Daddy is innocent, right?” My voice splinters.
She groans. “This is DC. You think that matters? He’s tainted by association. Lowell was selling intelligence.”
I can’t believe it. I know Lowell. I even went on a couple of dates with him. Disasters. But that was expected. After all, I’ve always been the outsider in the family. But Nick made me an insider. He charmed my father and Maggie and?—
Oh my God!
“Daddy’s name was attached to half the compromised cables,” Maggie continues, flustered. “The task force had to clear everyone in his orbit. Including him and me. And you, probably.”
I press a hand over my stomach, nausea rising fast.
“Maggie, I don’t understand what?—"
“You,” she interrupts, she jabs a finger toward me, sharp as a knife point, “brought an NSA agent into our family.”
“I didn’t bring an agent,” I croak. “I brought my—my boyfriend to dinner.”
Saying the word hurts.
“Your boyfriend was lying to you every second you were together.” Maggie’s tone doesn’t soften for a beat. “Enya, have you even heard from him in the last few days?”
I sit down on the loveseat, my legs shaking. “He’s in Paris. For an auction?—”
She speaks over me. “He’s interrogating Lowell, Enya. They arrested him two days ago. God, you’re so naïve. You never ask questions. You think life is one big Hallmark movie.”
Her contempt slices through my ribs, lodging deep.
She’s not wrong. I did walk straight into Nick’s arms.
I love him.
But do I, really?
Can I love someone who doesn’t exist?
Because if Nick is an NSA agent, then…nothing is real.
Am I real?
Yes, painfully real, Enya, and it’s time, as it always is, to pay the piper.
I handed Nick everything. My trust. My heart. My body. My every soft, foolish part, and he turned it into intel.
