Page 22 of A Rhapsody of Ravens and Revenge

The news had been devastating to Evangeline. She remembered that day in her father’s office in Technicolor. Time had slowed down—the way he’d been standing behind his desk, shuffling through papers and muttering under his breath in aggravation. The way the grandfather clock had chimed, as if it knew how important it was to etch such a moment in her memory forever.

He’d met her on a job—an accident of fate—as she’d occupied the apartment next to a target the team was keeping tabs on. Julie had been completely opposite of Cal. She’d been a kindergarten teacher and visited her parents every weekend. She’d been a nice girl who’d fallen in love with the man who’d saved her life, and she’d thrown caution to the wind and eloped with him a week later.

Hearing her father utter those words had been the second worst day of her life. She didn’t even think her father had noticed when she’d turned around and walked out of his office. That she’d left the house to go back to campus without a goodbye.

All she wanted was for the pain to go away, so she’d gone to a bar a block from campus and gotten ridiculously drunk. She’d also run into one of her graduate professors and used her skills of deception to make her think she was experienced when it came to men. She hadn’t been. She’d just been looking for someone, anyone else to fill the void.

And she’d gotten exactly what she’d been looking for. There’d been something about that professor that reminded her of Cal. Maybe his build or the way he’d walked or quirked his head to the side when he was thinking. But there was enough that she could pretend. She’d used him shamelessly for a few weeks. And then she’d walked away with shame and guilt. She’d stopped pursuing doctoral work and found a job that she was way too qualified for, settling down into the life she felt she deserved.

Since then her life had been quiet. There had been no other men. She went to work and came home. And when the sun went down she opened her computer, making sure the walls she’d built to keep Cal out of her life were in place. She knew he kept tabs on her. Was keeping watch on every digital move she made. And it brought her a thrill to know she was good enough to deceive him.

Besides, the tables had turned. She was only doing a little side work from time to time, assisting certain nonprofit organizations in their fundraising so they could help more people. The way she looked at it, she was helping everyone involved. The mega rich she siphoned funds from needed the tax deductions and didn’t even realize what charitable contributions they were making. And the charitable organizations publically thanked their largest donors, and it wasn’t like the wealthy were going to take it back if they didn’t remember making a sizable contribution.

She looked at it as a kind of penance. A way to give back and atone for all the wrongs she’d done before. And it gave her a thrill at the same time to know she’d bested Cal. He’d moved on, living his own life. She could do the same.

She’d decided after Cal’s marriage and her own disastrous attempt at love that it was better to feel nothing than to feel too much. And maybe she was one of those people who weren’t meant to love or be loved. Relationships required trust. She wasn’t sure she had the capability to trust anyone. She had no desire to get caught up in a game of mistrust and untruths, and the best way to avoid that problem was to not put herself in the situation.

Cal’s betrayal—or what she’d seen as his betrayal—had devastated her. He’d thought he’d been doing the right thing. And he had been, the best way he knew how. He’d treated her like a child when she’d wanted him to see her as a woman. As his equal. His mate.

Now, ten years later, those same urges that had formed when she was young were back in full force. She didn’t like the fact that her heart didn’t seem to care that she didn’t trust him. The heart and the mind didn’t always agree, and this time the urges of her heart were stronger than her mind.

“You got some sun today,” he said, looking at her over his screen. “You should know better by now. You’ve never been able to tan.”

“But I keep on trying,” she said, taking a sip of water.

“We’ve got to talk about earlier,” he said, his expression serious.

She froze. She didn’t want to talk about the kiss. She hadn’t been able to think about anything else, but that didn’t mean she wanted to discuss it in minute detail. Or worse, hear about how much he regretted it and that it would never happen again.

“What about earlier?” she asked, a little defensively.

“I know you’re irritated at this whole situation,” he said. “And I can’t say I blame you. I wouldn’t take kindly to people barging into my life and keeping me on what is essentially house arrest for an unforeseeable amount of time.”

“Oh,” she said, taken off guard by a different conversation than what she’d been expecting. She let out a slow breath of relief. “Yeah, well…it doesn’t seem like there’s much I can do about it.”

“You can’t do that again,” he said. “Don’t try to slip past me or any of the agents assigned to protect you. If you want to go to the beach we’ll go if there’s an all clear. But the best thing we can do is stay inside and wait Taber out. Actually, the best thing we could do is for me to take you to a safe house and not tell anyone where we’ve gone.”

She looked at him closely, trying to figure out why his tone of voice had changed. It was obvious Cal had gotten specific orders to keep her here, and he didn’t like it. And then it clicked.

“But if we did that I couldn’t draw Taber out into the open,” she said, watching the myriad of emotions cross Cal’s face.

“Atticus is keeping a bead on Taber,” Cal said. “Taber took out a target in Dallas that I’ve just confirmed was connected to Senator Biddle. Amir was the head of AeroNaut. A big-time government contractor. Senator Biddle was head of the Senate Defense Committee. Atticus says we might have a few days at most before Taber finds time for you in his busy killing schedule.”

“So it was Atticus that wanted to use me as bait?” she asked, arching a brow.

Cal hesitated and she knew the truth. She knew her father better than anyone. He loved her, she knew in her soul that he did. But his mission in life had been greater than a wife and daughter. Saving the world wasn’t conducive to deep and meaningful relationships. His want for her to be safe versus letting a monster roam free would have been an internal struggle he couldn’t have compromised on.

“I see,” she said, smiling wryly.

“Evie, your father?—”

“You don’t have to explain my father to me,” she said, interrupting. “I know him better than anyone and I would’ve expected no less.”

“You’re the only one,” Cal said under his breath, but loud enough that she could hear him. “Besides, Atticus told him no.”

She laughed at that. “Oh, I would’ve liked to have seen that. Not many people in this world have the guts to tell Robert Lockwood no.”

“We’ll stay here for a few more days and try to get a bead on Taber. If he slips off the radar then you and I are out of here. We should be getting a couple of extra agents in too.”

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