Page 65 of Roaming Holiday

“Don’t worry,” I say while backing up to leave. “I’ll still write you a letter of recommendation for the next job. Maybe ask your girlfriend at the bakery if they’re hiring.”

32

WESLEY

I hunch over my coffee, bleary-eyed and yawning.

I was too stunned to sleep. It took me a few seconds to even understand what Nina meant last night.

I stare through the window across the room that overlooks the blinding ocean. The sky doesn’t have a single cloud in sight, letting the sun beat relentlessly on the waters. Eight hours of thinking and I still don’t know what to say to Nina. Guilt pierced me when Nina walked away from me on the yacht. She was disappointed, and I hate being the reason why. Crossed boundaries aside, I would’ve embarrassed her. My later conversation with Maia proved it, and my conversation with the woman in the bakery had been practice. Clearly, I need more.

Like the museum last month, I had tried to practice small talk and not make an ass of myself—specifically with people I don’t care about. It so happens that the most talkative people are women. Maybe they were flirting; I wasn’t. Nina hadn’t liked it then, and I mistakenly believed that, after everything, she knew me better. Her attention is all I crave. No one else’s.

For the last eight hours, I pictured everything I could have done differently last night. Some ended with her naked, but those scenarios were just for me.

Nina passes through the dining room. I sit up a little straighter when she slows at the sight of me.

I stir my coffee to distract my nerves. “Hey.”

She acts indifferent. “Hi.”

Before she can pass, I catch her wrist. “Are you angry with me?”

She doesn’t reject my hold on her wrist, but her arm is limp. “Should I be?”

“No.”

“Then there’s your answer.” She snatches her arm away and continues toward the kitchen.

“I wasn’t flirting with her,” I say. “I—we were talking.”

Clarifying this means admitting she would care if I had indeed been flirting. I’m not sure either of us is ready to admit that—or she’s as nervous as I am.

Nina stops in the doorway, head bowed. Her face tightens as if in pain. She shakes her head. “I went out because I remembered what he said to me,” she mutters. “Vi ponte lo revínastí.”

My mind blanks, ridding all thoughts of what I could and should have said last night. She doesn’t wait for my reaction. I pull out my phone to text Jack the phrase immediately. Death to the monarch isn’t a signature phrase, but vi ponte lo revínastí is.

Mason and I spend the rest of the morning researching the group and its known members. We agree to fly in Gregory and Silas as added security. Both of our clients would vehemently reject this, so they’ll remain as distant safety measures. We change the designated safe houses and rendezvous points. If members of Lo Revínastí managed employment by the Higher Court, the circle of trusted individuals has to shrink.

Over the following days, Nina, Maia, and Vanessa visit museums after hours and dine on rooftops. Nina and I hardly speak, but I’m too focused on the information funneling through Jack about the militia that’s Lo Revínastí. My boss has been talking with the head of the royal guard to reinstate the task force dedicated to hunting the militia. They’ve been dormant for years, but their knowing about the Laffley sisters is dangerous.

One morning, while Mason and I review the files of those enlisted for the task force, footsteps trample down the stairs. Curly hair flashes past the open door of the sitting room, the length telling me it’s Maia.

“I call the pink one!” she yells.

Jace and Roman follow her out the front door. I stop in the threshold, Mason behind me, as Nina bounces down the steps with Vanessa in tow.

“Where are you going?”

She stops mid-run. Her bright smile lands on me with enough spirit to weaken my will. “We’re gonna ride mopeds down to the farmer’s market,” she says, partially out of breath.

“Which one?”

“The one on Lordi Street,” Vanessa answers.

Nina notices the hesitation on my face, but her eyes glisten with hope.

I wanted a break from my fucking tornado of a life.

---