Page 78 of Gilded Saint

Chapter26

Sam, aka Leo, aka Saint

Five years, I’ve pulled this off. Five years of celibacy, five years of refusing to risk a person getting close, and I go and help a young woman and fall. I fell the moment she came to me in the shower. Maybe sooner. Those bright-blue eyes—strong, intelligent, and kind, but also in need of protection. She pulled strings I’d tamped down. Reminded me what it is to be close to someone, to be real with someone. The attempted abduction eviscerated any doubt.

She said she loves me. I pretended not to hear–a shit solution. She’s fallen too. Which means when I leave, and the day will come when I leave because I have a family to return to, she’ll hurt. She’ll mourn me, and I’ll watch from afar. Only, whereas I knew one day I’d come home to my sisters, I’ll never come back for her.

I ache, knowing what’s coming. Knowing what she’s going to go through. This operation is so fucked up and has been since takeoff. The plan had been for me to be missing in action for a couple of months, long enough that if I were caught, no one would connect me to my real identity. No one would take vengeance on my family, a real risk considering the organizations and governments I’d be deceiving.

But the months turned into years. I left my sisters so many clues that this was happening, hoping they’d piece it together. I’d thought I’d get one more time with them so I could lay it out for them. They didn’t have clearance, but I was going to break policy, to shield them from the pain. Trust in their acting skills. And then it all happened so fast.

Light spills out of Nick’s office. He’s in his office chair, a bottle of scotch on his desk, and two highball glasses holding healthy pours.

“You’re going to want a drink,” he says, gesturing to the liquor.

“After the day I’ve had, I want the bottle,” I say, sinking into one of the leather chairs. There’s a fire going, and the room has the smell of a campfire from my youth.

“Sir, do you require anything?” The woman at the door speaks like you’d expect her to be in uniform, but she’s in a casual dress with slippers.

“No, we’re good, Freya.” He lifts his glass and pauses, “Unless… Do you need food?”

“No,” I say, shaking my head. I’m too numb and exhausted to want food. “This scotch should knock me out.”

“You can retire, Freya. Thank you.”

The tall, middle-aged woman nods, her gaze set on Nick. I glance between the two of them. Nick doesn’t keep a full staff, but here this woman is, presumably living on the premises.

Freya steps into the hall, and Nick calls, “Please close the door.”

“Who all is here?” I ask after the door clicks closed.

“Lina.”

“Oh?”

“Tell Willow under no circumstances is she to cave to any of Lina’s ideas.”

“What’s Lina up to?”

“She’s itching to leave the estate.”

“You won’t let her?”

“There’s no temptation on the estate,” he says as he picks up an iPad and flicks it to life.

“You can’t exactly withhold all temptation.” While he fusses with the device, I add, “We gain the strength of the temptation we resist.”

“Is that biblical?”

“Ralph Waldo Emerson.”

“Where did you say you went to school?”

“Not Oxford,” I say, shooting him an amused grin.

Nick has the most prestigious academic record of anyone I’ve worked with. He’s a mostly good man who skirts the law and is intelligent enough to never get caught.

“Massimo De Luca called me earlier.”

---