by Katy Regnery
“Javi waves me over, so I sidle up next to this girl, using my high school Spanish . . .”
I clear my throat, surprised by the sharp surge of jealousy I experience. “Feel free to skim over the details of this part . . .”
He chuckles softly. “I didn’t sleep with her.”
“Oh,” I sigh, feeling relieved.
“But I wanted to.”
“Exactly the sort of detail you’re welcome to skim over,” I say.
“I hang out with the guys for a while, but I’m looking at her, and she’s stealing glances at me, and fuck, but here I am: I’m a goddamned Secret Service agent, and I’ll be guarding the VP tomorrow while he tours Cartagena. I’m on top of the world. I’ve made it. I’m thinking, if this goes well, it could fast-track my whole career. I’d be a legend. And this girl was so pretty, I just . . . I just . . .”
“What?” I whisper.
“I never even saw it coming,” he says. “Talk about stupid.”
“Not stupid,” I insist, grabbing his forearm and pulling it across my chest. I rest my fingers on the wiry hairs that dot his skin. “Inexperienced. Maybe cocky. But not stupid.”
“You haven’t heard the rest.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Whatever it is, it won’t change the fact that you shouldn’t have been in that situation. You weren’t ready. Whatever happened wasn’t your fault alone.”
“Hmm,” he hums. “You might think differently when I finish. My superiors sure did.”
I know I won’t, but I don’t say so.
“So the six of us are walking back to the hotel, with Magdalena and I bringing up the rear, and I realize that the other two girls are prostitutes negotiating their price for the night. I look down at Magdalena and notice her wiping at her eyes, and I tell her that I don’t expect anything of her. I tell Javi and Mark to go ahead, that we’ll see them at the hotel in a little bit, and Magdalena and I sit down on a bench. She’s still crying, talking to me in Spanish, and I make out that her father is sick. She doesn’t want to be a puta, a whore. She tells me that this is her first night out, and she’s terrified. I tell her she’s not a puta. She hasn’t done anything yet. She’s crying about medicine and her father, and I ask her how much money she needs. She tells me that a hundred dollars will buy the medicine her father needs, and I have that in U.S. dollars, but I have it back in my hotel room safe. I tell her that I’ll give her the money; she doesn’t have to do anything to earn it. I just want to help her. And so we start walking back to the hotel.”
“You were just going to give her the money?”
“For one hundred dollars, I thought I could save his life,” Julian explains. “My dad . . . I mean, my dad had died the year before, and I would’ve done anything to save him. I couldn’t say no to her.”
“Julian,” I murmur, holding his arm tightly, knowing that this is the sort of man I am falling in love with: one who gives selflessly, who’s blinded by the need to protect others, even at the expense of his own safety, and the tenderness I feel for him is . . . overwhelming.
“Pretty stupid, huh?”
“Not stupid,” I insist, turning in his arms to look at him. “Not at all.” I lean up and press my lips to his. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.”
He kisses me back, his tongue swiping against mine, his lips hot and hungry. My towel slips a little, and my breasts, now warm and dry, press against his bare chest, and I sigh from the contact. I want him to finish talking. I want to go back to bed. I want him to fuck me like he suggested a few minutes ago.
“Finish up,” I say, though I think I know where this story is going. It explains why he didn’t want me here, why he fought against his initial feelings for me. Once upon a time, a woman who appeared vulnerable and in trouble was his Achilles’ heel.
“We got back to my room, and I opened the safe while she poured us two drinks. That should have been my clue. That should have told me that something was off. A girl like her? Who claimed she wasn’t a prostitute? Why was she suddenly making drinks? Making herself comfortable in my room? The girl I thought she was wouldn’t have made me a drink. She would have waited for me in the hallway, thanked me for the money, and left as soon as she had it. But I was still a little drunk . . . and maybe part of me even hoped that by helping her so gallantly, there’d be something in it for me.”
“Was there?” I ask.
“No.” He looks down at me, shaking his head. “I remember giving her the money and throwing back the drink. She suggested we sit on the bed and talk. All I heard was the word bed. After that . . . I can’t remember anything. Still. To this day.”
“She drugged you.”
He nods. “And cleaned out my safe. My money. My passport. My weapon. My badge. My phone. My laptop. And most importantly, a printout of the VP’s itinerary. Where he was staying, where he was going, who he was meeting with. Everything.”
“Oh, God.”
“Yeah. When I woke up a few hours later and realized what had happened, I ran down the hall and banged on Javi’s door. Magdalena’s friend had cleaned out his wallet, but not his safe, which he’d kept locked while she was in his room. I had to . . . I had to tell him what happened. Oh, my God, that was bad. He was pissed. Like, he couldn’t believe it, and . . .”
“And what?”
“They had to cancel the vice president’s visit to Colombia.” He pauses, then adds, “I was sent home on a commercial flight. When I got to DC, I was fired.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, my heart breaking for him. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I was stupid. I was so stupid to think that she was some foundling waif who needed my help. I mean, how could I be so goddamned stupid? And of course it got out that Secret Service agents were sleeping with prostitutes at a hotel paid for by the American taxpayers. Guys like Javi and Mark—I mean, they had big careers, you know?—were put on probation. The head of the agency was replaced. A lot of shit went down. But it all started with me.”
“You’re not stupid,” I say, reaching up to cup his cheeks. He doesn’t look at me, his long eyelashes shielding his eyes from my view. “Julian, look at me. Please.”
When he looks up, his expression is grim. Sad. Hurt. Ashamed.
“I killed my dream, Ash. In one night, I killed it.”
My eyes water as I shake my head. “No, you didn’t. She killed it. You were just trying to be kind.”
He blinks, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he drops my eyes. “Doesn’t matter. I lost my job. I embarrassed the agency. I can never show my face in Washington again.”
“It wasn’t on my list of places to visit anyway,” I say, leaning forward and pressing my lips to his. I kiss his lips, then the tip of his nose, the lids of his eyes, and his forehead. “And besides, if you hadn’t been here, who would keep me safe? Who would protect me? Who would save my life?”
He lifts his head, and his eyes meet mine. His expression is inscrutable, and I think about what I’ve just said, how selfish it was.
“Not that . . . not that protecting me is worth losing your job. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to say that . . .”
He reaches for me, lifting me onto his lap. His towel has come loose, and as he moves me, mine slips away as well. I lean forward, then settle back onto him, sliding my body onto his waiting erection and whimpering softly as I am impaled to the hilt.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs, his breath shallow and quick. “For the first time . . . since it happened . . . I’m glad.”
I place my hands on his shoulders and arch my back, sliding against him as he clutches my hips.
“Thank you . . . for telling me,” I say as he thrusts up, his throbbing sex filling me to bursting.
“Thank you . . . for giving me a chance . . . to keep you safe,” he says, panting between his words, his eyes holding mine with blistering intensity.
“Thank you . . . thank you . . . thank you . . .,” I murmur in a whispered litany. I close my eyes and hang on as he
hammers into my body, his hot, silken skin mating with mine.
I feel the building passion between us, the gathering, the hot, sweet culmination of our union quickening until I am barely hanging on, and when he leans forward, razing my throat with his teeth, I realize that he’s been saying a litany of his own:
“Ashley . . . Ashley . . . Ashley . . .” He whispers my name with reverence, like it is a holy word, like it is sacred, like it is his only prayer.
We orgasm together this time, and after the wave of pleasure crashes over us, leaving us clinging to each other in the soft glow of firelight, replete and exhausted, Julian rests his head on my shoulder.
Holding me tightly against him, he whispers,
“Ashley . . . you’re safe.”
And deep in my heart, where I am falling in love with him, I know that it’s true.
Yes, I am.
I am safe with you.
***
Julian
Last weekend, when Ashley and I were in the tub and making love before the fire, when I shared my greatest shame with her, and she offered me absolution, I found new meaning in the path my life has taken.
And since then, I look at what happened in Cartagena not as a disgrace, but as a means to an end I would have chosen, given the chance. It got me here, to her. And for the first time since it happened, I am grateful for an episode of my life that I expected would always be painful.
Without my work space available to me, this week has been one long vacation, and we have treated it as such.
We take long walks, hand in hand, to the pond.
We watch movies in French, curled up together on my bed, with Bruno at our feet.
We eat delicious dinners that Ashley makes for us, flirting with each other over candlelight and swapping stories about our lives.
We make love everywhere: in my bed, in hers, in my shower, in her tub, in front of the fireplace, and under the stars.
We ignore the fact that our time is finite . . . that Răumann’s arrival to take his bait means that these precious days will soon be over. Probably forever.
I try to enjoy every moment with her—to memorize her smiles and the way she says my name. I stare deeply into her eyes when she comes. I hold her close to me as we sleep.
If I think about her leaving, I will go crazy.
So I don’t.
And she doesn’t bring it up.
We are living in a fairytale world, my love and me.
But the day will come when, like a fragile piece of glass dropped to the ground, our world will shatter around us. Until then, we steal our piece of heaven, quietly hoping that the strength of our growing love can trounce the hounds of hell, knowing all the while that it can’t.
Nothing can hold back what is coming.
The knock on the front door is urgent, and Ashley, who is lying beside me in bed, sits up and looks at me.
“Who’s there?”
“Probably Simmons,” I say, reaching forward to pause our movie and tuck my gun in the back of my jeans. “I’ll go see.”
“I’m coming too,” she says, straightening her shirt. When she lies beside me, I like to push her shirt up and rest my palm on the warm, soft skin of her belly. I think she likes it too.
I kiss her quickly before slipping out of my room, just in time to hear another bang at the door.
“Coming!”
Sure enough, Simmons is standing on the front porch, and man, I hate the look on his face. I hate it so much, I can barely force myself to unlock and open the front door and screen. When I do, he rushes inside.
“It happened,” he says, looking back and forth between me and Ashley. “The gallery in Shelburne was broken into tonight.”
“When?” asks Ashley.
“Half an hour ago. Three men in ski masks. They ransacked the place.”
“You saw it?” I ask. “On the monitor?”
Simmons nods. “Yeah. Wasn’t pretty either. They trashed the place. And one of them spent a long time at Gus’s desk. He found the address. I watched him write it down, then make a call on his cell.”
Ashley gasps and takes a step back. “They’re coming.”
I put my arm around her. “It’s okay, baby.”
“No, baby,” says Simmons, giving me a look, “it’s not okay.”
“Don’t be a dick,” I mutter.
“Then try being realistic,” he suggests.
“Did you call the police?” I ask.
Simmons nodded. “Yeah, but they used the siren, of course. It’s the Keystone Kops in these little towns. Răumann’s guys peeled away from the curb before the police arrived. But more’s the better. I didn’t actually want them caught. I just wanted Jock and Gus to have a police report for the insurance claim.”
“So?” I say. “What’s your best guess on Răumann showing up here?”
“Could be later tonight. Could be tomorrow. Could be a week from now. I have no clue.”
“What’s your instinct?”
“By tomorrow,” says Simmons with a heavy sigh. “I called the field office in Albany. They’re sending backup.”
“When’ll they get here?”
“They’ve got to assign someone. Plus, it’s a three-hour ride from there to here.”
“But you said it was urgent, right?”
“I asked for backup,” says Simmons, looking annoyed. “I can’t control when it gets here.”
“What about local police?” I ask. “You want to alert them?”
“They know I’m here,” says Simmons, “but this is a sensitive operation. The less they know, the better.” He lifts a finger and pantomimes a siren, crooning, “Whoo whoo whoo.”
This fucking guy.
“What’s next?” I ask.
“Don’t go to sleep tonight.” He takes a walkie-talkie from his belt loop and hands it to me. “Keep this with you. I’ll radio if someone’s coming up the driveway.”
“What about me?” asks Ashley.
“You’re the bait,” says Simmons. “Do what you always do. When the doorbell rings, you answer it. Ducharmes, you cover her from the living room. I’ve got the barn. We’ll flank them.”
“And it’ll be okay?” asks Ashley.
“Hope so,” says Simmons at the same time I cry, “Yes!”
Simmons rolls his eyes, and I’m starting to wonder if that ring on his finger is just a fucking prop. What if it was his wife in danger? Would he be this much of a fucking asshole?
“Yes,” I say again, squeezing her gently, “it’ll all be okay.”
I’ll keep you safe, baby. I promise. I promise on my life.
“I’ll be in touch,” says Simmons, stepping back out onto the porch just as a pair of headlights brightens the driveway.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ashley
Agent Simmons steps back into the house and switches off the lights in the living room.
“Car coming. Shit. Sooner than I thought.” He pats his chest, but his holster’s empty. We can hear Bruno barking from the barn. “Dog’s locked up and I left my gun in the barn. I’ll go out the kitchen door and sneak back over there. Ashley, you open the door. We won’t let him take you. We’ll intervene before it gets to that. Julian, you good?”
“I’m fine,” he says, but his eyes are wide and worried when he shifts them to me. “You’re going to do great, baby. I’ll be just inside the door. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
My racing heart makes me feel light-headed. I’m not ready to come face-to-face with Mosier.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll just . . .”
The car pulls into the driveway and parks in front of the house.
Julian pulls me into his arms and kisses me hard. “Be strong. It’ll be okay. I’m right behind you.”
Then he steps to the side of the door so he’ll be hidden when I open it.
I hear footsteps on the stairs. Three more to the door.
Knock, knock.
I close my eyes and take a deep brea
th, counting from five. Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .
Knock, knock.
“Coming!” I call.
I dart a glance at Julian, who has his gun drawn, standing against the wall behind the door. He nods at me.
Be with me, Tig. Please be with me, Mam.
I reach for the lock and turn it, then twist the doorknob, opening the door. There is a screen between us, but it’s unlocked from Agent Simmons’s visit.
And there he is. My stepfather.
Dressed in a dark suit and a white dress shirt, open at the neck, he reeks of aftershave and cigar smoke, his jet-black hair slicked back from his ugly face. A shudder slides through my body and across my arms over my chest.
“Cenuşă,” says Mosier, his eyes dark and angry, his lips tilting up into a humorless smile. “Surprise.”
“Frate,” I say, gulping softly. “How . . . how did you find me?”
“Frate?” He chuckles like something is funny. “No, no, no. Don’t you mean . . . Daddy?”
I stare at him, realizing that this is information he could only have gotten from Father Joseph, and it squeezes my heart.
“You saw Father Joseph,” I whisper.
“Poor man. I heard he passed away. Heart attack, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Old men die. It happens.”
“Especially when they come into contact with you,” I say, willing myself not to cry.
“Cenuşă, my darling . . . he told me lies about your dear sister.” He grins. “Such lies about my beloved wife.”
“What lies?”
“He told me that she had a baby eighteen years ago. A little girl she passed off as her sister.”
I lift my chin. “It’s true. She was my mother.”
“Her name is not on your birth certificate.”
“My grandmother wouldn’t let her claim me.”
“Ah, yes. Your . . . grandmother, who is now happily living far away across the sea. There’s no one to corroborate your story, cenuşă.”
