Page 29 of Taming Achilles

The high-pitched ringing on the other end of the line as he blew out the microphone was deafening. Geordie sat up, looking at me with concern, as I stifled a laugh.

“I’m gonna pop some champagne! This is the happiest day of my life!”

When I disconnected the call, Geordie looked at me in quiet contemplation, sitting in the armchair again. The same chair where he had ordered me about the night before. The memory of it made my tongue feel thick as I salivated, a heat flushing up my neck to my cheeks.

“Are you remembering it?” he asked, reading my mind. Just to hammer point, he looked down at his crotch and adjusted himself. It made me blush.

I hated that he could do that.

I turned to look out the window at the Los Angeles valley that sprawled in front of us.

A door opened and Hugo strode out of his bedroom into the shared space, effectively dousing any tension between me and Geordie.

“When do we tell Alastair?”

With my back to the two of them, they talked shop. Apparently, Alastair was somewhere in New York with his bride, visiting his cousin, or something, and was unavailable for work.

“When we bring Callum in.” Hugo followed up his question.

I felt my body tense up as soon as I heard my ex-fiance's name.

I hated that his name could fill me with dread. We had all been friends in school. I thought we had an unbreakable bond! That life could never pry us apart. But then adulthood happened, and ... well, there were secrets I had to keep from them both.

When my father recruited me for the Circus, for King and Country, and warned me it was a lonely road, I never suspected that it would tear us apart. Never! I had taken it all for granted that they were a part of me. More so than the blood that ran through my veins.

Chocolate is thicker than blood, we had said. But it wasn’t, was it? I had disposed of Alex’s body. I had staged his suicide. Was chocolate thicker than blood on that day? When I put a bullet in his skull?

Nothing was sacred. Not anymore. Sacredness is for children.

There was a knock on the front door, and their conversation ceased. With a nod of his head, Geordie stood up, and Hugo came to stand beside me. Protecting me. Both of their hands hovering over the pistols they kept on their belts.

For a moment, I thought it could be Jason Rhodes on the other side, guns blazing, ready to take me. Ready to get his revenge. Or to whisk me away into one of his many dungeons where he harmed women that caught his attention.

The two men looked at each other and nodded before Geordie pulled the door open.

Far from the hulking Rhodes, a petite red-haired woman stood at the threshold. Her hair was spikey, short, ending in layers from her ears to her chin. She smiled at Geordie with a familiarity that made me want to vomit.

“Hey George,” she said, stepping forward to place her hand on his shoulders. “I wanted to see if you were free this afternoon for … oh!”

She finally caught a glimpse of me and Hugo.

The stoic Frenchman looked at me, and I swear he looked apologetic. That made it worse.

“Hi Simona,” Hugo said, stuffing his hands in his pockets, letting his blazer fall to cover the pistol at his hip.

“Hi Hugo,” she said, her startling, emerald green eyes darting toward me. “And you are?”

“Pippa Fox,” Geordie said quickly, taking her hand in his. “Can we talk out in the hall?”

Without a word, they stepped out, closing the door behind them. The finality of that click sent a ringing in my ears. The obvious relationship between them left me standing there, stunned, forgetting how to breathe correctly.

“I’ll be out here,” Hugo said. “I’m sure you’ll want to go into his room, so you can immediately start stalking Simona online.” Hugo sat down in the armchair, unknowing that it had been the site of our intimacy. Would that disgust him? “Simona Amspoker.”

I let out a surprised laugh. A tragic laugh.

“Go,” he said, gently, nodding toward Geordie’s room. “He deserves whatever he gets.”

There was no hint of disdain in his voice. He was compassionate.

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