“Her name is Elena. I met her in high school.”
“You’ve been together since high school?”
“Are you buckled?” Sequence growled at Naomi. She was leaning forward from the backseat so far her elbows were resting on the center console between Swift and Sequence. She made a face at him.
“Yes.”
“Well, lean back. If we get in an accident you’re going through the windshield.”
She made another face, making Swift laugh, but she did as she was told.
“To answer your question, no, we weren’t together in high school, though I was totally in love with her. But you know how high school is. We ran in different crowds. She ran into some trouble last year and became a client. That’s when we got together.”
Naomi’s mind was following a million threads, her imagination purring with delight. She blurted out the first thing that came to her mind. “You guys date clients?”
The SUV swerved neatly to avoid a stalled-out car and Naomi was tossed to the side. She didn’t look at Sequence but she swore she could feel the burn of his scowl.
“No. Definitely not,” Swift answered, turning back to look at her. “That would be unprofessional and dangerous. I actually resigned so that I could date Elena.”
“Aww,” Naomi crooned, her heart in her eyes and her hands clasped together. “That’s so sweet. But I don’t get it. You’re still employed.”
“Right.” Swift scratched at the back of his head. “It was an intense time, Rook didn’t really accept my resignation and then we were attacked by the people who were after Elena and by the time the dust settled, she was safe and didn’t need to be a client anymore. I guess I found the loophole.”
“Do you have a picture of her?”
“Sure.” A minute later Swift handed back his phone. On the screen was a photo of him sitting in a deck chair and smiling at the camera. On his lap was an absolutely gorgeous woman who had no idea the picture was being taken. She was leaned against him, her long black hair spilling everywhere. She seemed to be both laughing and arguing at the same time.
Naomi gave a loud wolf whistle. “She’s a looker, Swift.”
And they obviously loved each other. The energy coming off of the photo was very clear. It was in the way his hand curled over her hip, the way her fingers were tangled in the buttons of his shirt. The way they were melting into one another. Like they were two halves of one thing.
“I agree. And she’s so flipping smart. She’s a wildlife conservationist. Let me tell you, this woman kicks ass and takes names.”
Sequence nodded. “She’s saving the world.”
Naomi turned to him and though she could only see half of his face, she saw something softer there than she usually saw.
“She sounds very special.”
“She is,” Swift agreed. “Would you like to meet her sometime?”
“Yes!” Naomi immediately chirped. “I have a lot of friends in the gemology community, but… Deciding to go out on my own has been met with mixed reviews.”
“You’re losing friends because people don’t want you to start your own business?” Sequence asked, his eyes narrowing as they caught hers in the rearview mirror.
Naomi’s spidey senses told her that though he was interested on a personal level, he was mostly asking as a member of her personal security team.
“Yes and no. I guess… it’s just that there’s a way things are done, and I’m not doing it that way anymore. People also get very uncomfortable when you start talking about certain things, and I’m not willing to ignore those things. And I guess, that means that yeah, I’ve lost friends.”
Sequence and Swift exchanged a glance. “We have no idea what your vague ass is talking about, Naomi,” Sequence grumbled from the front seat.
“What do you mean certain things,” Swift prompted with a much better bedside manner than Sequence.
“Oh. Right. I forget that if you’re not in the business you might not think about it. I’m talking about the human rights issues with the diamond and gem industry. After a diamond has been processed, it’s generally impossible to tell where it’s come from. Which means that there’s every possibility it’s a blood diamond. That goes for all gemstones, honestly. I’m unwilling to work in an industry that looks the other way over enslavement and murder of innocent people.”
Naomi was looking out her side window as she spoke and missed the expression that crossed Sequence’s face. It was considerably softer than the one he’d had when talking about Elena.
“But you’re still going to be in the industry, yes?” Swift clarified.
“Sure, but on my own terms. I’m only going to be appraising antique or estate gemstones. Which means that I won’t be contributing to any new mining that might be going on. As well as that, I have a client base who is as worried about all this as I am. I already have gem selection trips lined up to mines all around the world in order to verify the ethical mining of them. That means human rights issues as well as environmental issues.” She crossed her legs and thought for a moment. “In a way, you can never trust a diamond. But my clients can trust me. So I’m marketing myself as a fair-trade stamp of ethics. If a client is extremely concerned about the ethics of the diamond industry, and they happen to love diamonds, they can come to me, and I’ll get them all sorted out.”
“Wow. Now I definitely think you should talk to Elena. Sounds like you two have a lot of the same morals.”
“I’d definitely like to speak with a wildlife conservationist on ways to make the mining process more ethical.”
Naomi and Swift chatted for the rest of the ride to the bunker, but Sequence stayed quiet. He considered Naomi’s words, turned them over in his head. He was glad that Swift had come on the car ride with them. Because Sequence would never have known how to get her talking like that. And now he suddenly saw this entire other side to her that he hadn’t known existed. Suddenly, her refusal to wear jewelry made sense to him. Which was something he’d spent a great deal of time pondering since he’d learned it.
He parked the car and led Naomi through the bunker and up to where they were working yesterday; she immediately began unpacking her equipment.
“That’s why you don’t wear jewelry, isn’t it.” Jeez. He resisted the urge to clear his throat. He’d never before worried if he sounded too cold or angry and he wasn’t about to start now. Even if she did look cute as hell bent over the table, unscrewing this and setting up that.
“Hmm?” she asked, concentrating on her equipment.
“The ethics of the diamond industry. You don’t want to promote it even though you work in it. Which is why you don’t wear jewelry. Am I right?”
“Oh. Yes. Partly.” She looked up at him then, giving him her full attention for a moment. “And I think it is part of a system that promotes unrealistic and uniform standards of beauty. Like how everyone should have straight hair, or a perfectly hourglass figure, or straight teeth. Diamonds are very cool natural phenomena, but I don’t think they should represent social status.”
She turned back to her work and he just blinked at her.
“You have straight hair, straight teeth, and an hourglass figure.” He had no idea what in god’s name made him say that to her, but there they were.
She turned back to him. That line between her brows was back. “Not to argue here, but I have very wavy red hair—not the norm. I have a snaggletooth.” She bared her teeth at him and sure enough, her teeth were so white that he hadn’t noticed that the top two overlapped. “And I dress for my figure.”
He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he figured he’d said enough to last him a lifetime on the subject of Naomi’s physical appearance. She was put-together and confident, but apparently she didn’t consider herself to be classically beautiful.
She’d turned around and he studied her back for a second, the long sweep of her hair. Though she was facing away from him, he brought up her face in his mind. She had a very long, thin nose, lips that pushed out in
the center but disappeared at the corners. Her forehead was high and her chin a bit pointy with a little baby cleft in the middle. Her face would have been much too long if she wasn’t always smiling and rounding it out.
Huh.
Maybe she wasn’t beautiful? Sequence had found himself so automatically drawn to her sapphire eyes and ruby hair and pearly whites that he’d immediately considered her Disney Princess flawless.
But apparently he wasn’t to be trusted to assess her accurately, because he’d also pictured her overflowing with jewels on every finger.
He pictured her one way, but the reality was quite different.
She was still fancy, sure, just look at those heels. But she was also down-to-earth. And in some ways, a lovely shade of plain that he also found himself drawn to.
Huh.
The thought crossed his mind that he should probably get this surveillance tech embedded in her tools as fast as possible and send this woman packing. He was being extremely unprofessional. And the deadline for her meeting with Bastone was fast approaching. He’d never been this scattered with a client in his entire life.
He strode up to her side, intending to get right down to work. “You hungry?” he heard himself ask and couldn’t help but wonder where the hell that had come from. He wasn’t supposed to be feeding this chick yet again. He was supposed to be doing his damn job.
“A little,” she admitted, though her attention was clearly on the polariscope she was carefully setting out.
He nodded and walked out of the room without saying another word to her. A few minutes later, he came back with a reheated plate of the frittata he’d made that morning. She dug right in, groaning in appreciation and doing that thing people do where they point to the food with the fork. “Thanks.”
He cleared his throat. “These your weekend clothes too?”
She was in all black again, tailored and tight. He wiggled his toes inside his boots as he peered down at her heels.
“I have a consult with a client at six.”
On a Saturday night? He’d bet a million dollars that this client was a man. A man hoping to wheedle her into having dinner with him directly after their consultation.
Kind of like how he’d wheedled her into dinner last night and then breakfast this morning? Sequence frowned at the frittata she was just finishing and setting aside.
He pulled up a chair next to the table of her equipment. “It’s gonna be a long day,” he told her. “Either take the stilts off or take a seat.”
She ignored both suggestions with a big smile and a roll of her eyes. “I had some ideas last night. I think the spectroscope is our best bet because this section here is largely cosmetic.”
And just like that, they were both pulled into the work.
***
An hour or so after Naomi caught a cab to her client meeting, Atlas poked his head into Sequence’s office. Sequence was bent over a small camera and microphone, carefully soldering them into a replica piece that they were going to add into her spectroscope.
“Workin’ late, bro,” Atlas noted, hanging on the doorframe for a moment before he did a quick pull-up.
Sequence grunted.
“Thinking of hitting the bar,” Atlas said as he did another pull-up.
Sequence grunted again.
“Could use a wingman.”
At that, Sequence turned off the soldering iron and raised his eyebrows at Atlas. They never picked up women together.
“Come on,” Atlas shrugged, correctly interpreting his brother’s skeptical expression. “Ever since Swift got booed up with Elena, I don’t have anybody to hit the bars with. Besides, by my calculations, it’s been over a month since you’ve gotten laid.”
Sequence leaned against the table and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’ve been calculating the rate at which I get laid? I know we’re close but that’s just creepy.”
Atlas laughed. “How about this: If I win in a push-up contest, you’ll come out with me.”
Sequence scoffed. “You might as well just get into your jammies right now, then. Cuz you’re looking at a night in.”
Atlas laughed again.
Sequence started shutting down his work station. “As it happens, I’m in the mood for a beer. I’m not chatting up some chick just so you can get laid, though.”
“Deal.” Atlas let his smile loose. Atlas and Sequence lived in the same building, on the same floor. Next door neighbors. Though they didn’t hang out all that often, between work and home they saw one another every day. Kept tabs on each other. And that’s the way they liked it.
They packed up and let Rook know they were leaving before Sequence drove them back to their neighborhood and they strolled into a bar that Atlas frequently patronized and Sequence only occasionally.
Sequence couldn’t deny that the identical twin thing was definitely a chick magnet. It was a little ridiculous, actually. But something about using his brother to get laid gave Sequence the creepy crawlies. Atlas had never had a similar objection. He pretty much enjoyed getting close to a woman in any way, no matter if his brother was involved or not.
The other thing that Sequence didn’t like about being at a bar with Atlas was that they inevitably drew questions from people. If he met a woman on his own, he could usually keep her talking about herself just enough to maneuver them somewhere private enough that he could get a taste. When Atlas was there, women always wanted to know what it was like growing up as an identical twin. They always wanted to know if they’d ever swapped places. They asked questions about psychic connections and whether or not they could feel one another’s pain. They always wanted to know about their childhoods.
That was a topic that neither Atlas nor Sequence enjoyed talking about. Atlas, though, was good at deflecting, rolling with the conversation. Sequence, on the other hand, just kind of shut down little by little. The memories of his childhood creeping up on him.
Whatever though. He’d made himself clear that he was here for a beer, for his brother’s company, and he was not going to entertain some friend of whatever woman Atlas decided to romance.
The bar was pretty empty when they sat down, shoulder to shoulder. They knew from experience it wouldn’t get crowded for another couple of hours.
Sequence knew he’d be long gone by then. He watched as Atlas flagged down the pretty bartender, had her smiling and blushing and cracking beers for them. Sequence watched as Atlas grinned down the bar at the regulars on the end. He watched as Atlas scanned the bar, flashing that smile at a couple of girls in the corner.
He played it fast and loose with his smile, Atlas did. Kind of like Naomi did. She smiled like it was going out of style. She was goofy, too. Like Atlas. He wondered for a minute if maybe part of the reason he’d been talking so much around Naomi was because she reminded him of his twin. The only person in the world he was ever verbose with.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Atlas asked, taking a swig of beer and tapping his fingers against the bar. The girls in the corner had just been joined by a group of guys so Atlas had decided to settle in for some bro time while the bar filled up with more prospects.
“Work.”
“Work? Or one client in specific?” Atlas prodded, a satisfied smile on his face.
Sequence frowned. He thought about denying his interest in Naomi, but knew that it would be pointless, considering who he was talking to. “That obvious, huh?”
“Never seen you crushing on a girl before,” Atlas replied. “It’s kinda crazy. You’re, like, talky with her.”
“I’m not talky with her.”
“Seek, you talk to her at all. Which, for you, is downright chatty.”
Sequence shrugged. Probably couldn’t argue with that. His brother had a point. “It’s not a crush. I just think she’s cute.”
Atlas stared at him.
“What?” Sequence finally asked.
Atlas shook his head. “Nothing. I just… can’t remember if I’ve ever heard you describe a gi
rl as cute before. Hot? Sure. But cute? Do you really like this woman?”
Sequence immediately shook his head, frowning at his brother. “You know I’m not built like that.”
“Oh, come on. You’ve gotta get over your daddy issues at some point, bro.”
Sequence scoffed and scuffled with his brother on their barstools. It was a long known fact that Sequence had zero interest in a woman outside of a sexual context. First of all, he didn’t think he was naturally predisposed to love. That was more his brother’s thing. But also, both he and Atlas had had front row seats to the chronic life-implosion that was their parents’ marriage. If there was anything that could turn a man off from relationships, it was that. These were the things that Atlas knew about Sequence, and that was enough for him to know that Sequence didn’t do intimacy with women.
But there was also the matter of the thing that Atlas didn’t know about Sequence. That no one knew. And that one thing, that one night, was enough to ensure that Sequence would never let himself have more than a one-night stand with any woman. He’d never let himself get close. There were things about himself that he’d never inflict on another person. Burdens that he’d have to carry on his own.
At the end of that fateful night a decade ago, Sequence had sworn that he’d never tell his brother what he’d done. And he remained faithful to that promise.
Time to throw him off the scent. “Doesn’t matter anyways,” Sequence grunted. “She’s a client.”
“Yeah. She’s a client for like five more days. And then she’s just a fine-ass redhead who doesn’t seem to object to spending time with you.”
Sequence frowned.
“Oh, come on,” Atlas said, nudging his brother with his elbow. “Don’t tell me it hasn’t occurred to you that after this meeting with Bastone, she’s fair game.”
Sequence turned an ice cold gaze onto Atlas. “Are you telling me that thought has occurred to you?”
Atlas raised his palms up and stumbled halfway off the barstool like he’d been shot. “You wound me. I’d never steal a woman from my brother.”
Sequence sucked his teeth. “You could try.”
Rook Security Complete Series Page 30
