Page 220 of Sexting His Assistant

“Does she know why?”

“Yes,” Luka says.

I don’t like how careful his face becomes.

“What exactly does your mother know?” I ask.

“She knows you were attacked and discharged today,” Luka says.

“That’s not all.”

He says nothing.

I stare at him. “Luka.”

He looks at me directly. “Don’t worry. My mother knows about the arrangement.”

I go still. The word lands like a dropped glass.

“The arrangement,” I repeat.

“Yes,” Luka says.

I turn my head slowly and look at him properly.

“What,” I ask, “does she know?”

24

LUKA

“What,” Nina asks, “does she know?”

I look at her sitting in the hospital bed with a bandage hidden beneath her hair, my clothes in a paper bag on her lap, and that suspicious, exhausted expression on her face, and I understand immediately that I have chosen the wrong word.

Arrangement.

Of course that is the word she hears.

It makes us sound clinical. Temporary. Transactional. As if I had informed my mother that the secretary I’m sleeping with has been moved to my house for safekeeping under terms neither of us will discuss at dinner.

I say, “She knows you are staying at the house because your apartment is not safe.”

Nina’s eyes narrow. “That is not what you said.”

I say, “I used the wrong word.”

Nina says, “You used a very specific word.”

I come closer to the bed, slowly enough that she does not feel crowded, and keep my voice even because Mirov has already warned me that stress will worsen the headache, and I have no desire to be the reason she looks paler than she already does.

I say, “My mother knows you are important to me. She knows you will be staying at the house. She knows not to ask questions that make you uncomfortable.”

Nina studies me for several seconds. “Does she know we’re sleeping together?”

I don’t look away. “She suspects.”

Nina closes her eyes. “Oh my God.”