Page 205 of The Black Trilogy

“She’s not for sale.”

“Hello? Living, breathing person here. Stop talking about me as if I’m an inanimate object.”

Black smiled. “The people at my old unit would have a hard time dealing with her mouth. She never stops talking back.”

I was nicely cross as he steered me back towards the helicopter we’d flown to the base in. “You might have effectively bought my life for six months, but I’m still human, even if you do expect me to act like a robot most of the time.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. My life’s an automated production line, one activity after another. No time to think. No time to relax.”

He stopped mid-stride.

“Is that what it’s like?”

“Surely you must have noticed?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I only wanted to see what you could do. You’ve been so good at everything that I’ve just kept pushing you.” He sighed. “I got carried away. I don’t want you to feel like a robot.”

Before we took another step, he got on the phone and cancelled my evening German lesson then found Nate and postponed my afternoon electronics session.

“When we get home, change your clothes and we’ll go out. Anywhere you want.”

“Really?”

“Sure. If you need a break, we’ll take one. Now, you’re flying back.”

Once I’d parked the helicopter, I walked stiffly to the house. Despite my level of fitness, the Dirty Name had taken its toll on me.

“So, what do you want to do?” Black asked.

“Nothing. I want to do nothing.”

“How about doing nothing in the Jacuzzi?”

“As long as you don’t decide to see how long I can hold my breath underwater.”

“Cross my heart.”

After Black and I were both shrivelled, we went out for dinner.

“You pick the restaurant,” I told him, since I still hadn’t explored the local area. “As long as it’s nothing too healthy.”

I was sick to the back teeth of eating salad and grilled fish and chicken and steamed vegetables, which was what Toby, who Black had hired as my nutritionist the week before, fed me most of the time.

“Italian?” Black asked, looking hopeful.

I’d discovered that was his favourite. “Fine by me.”

I ate until my jeans dug into my waist, and even Black, the epitome of self-control, leaned back in his seat and groaned. He was opening up to me more now, and I to him. We’d both been robbed of our childhoods, and I found it cathartic to talk. That evening, I told him things I’d never admitted to anyone, not even Jimmy. Black heard how my mother washed her hands of me as soon as I was old enough to crawl, and the moment I could walk, how I’d had to look after her rather than the other way around.

“Hey, you haven’t lived until you’ve cleared up your mother’s vomit after another heavy drinking session or thrown away her used needles.”

I took another sip of wine. Black turned a blind eye to my age, and because he was with me, so did the restaurant owner.

“You should have been taken from her at birth. Couldn’t anybody help you?”

“The care system was worse. At least with my mother, I had more freedom. In foster homes, there was always someone checking up on me. I hated it.”

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