Page 64 of Space for More

A buzzing vibration on my wrist pulls my focus away from her cleavage to my comm, and Eden’s comm chirps at the same time. Glancing at mine, I see it’s a message from Agent Tysea.

“Wow, we hear nothing for almost a day about those files and they have to choose now to check in.” I can’t wait to be done with them. Hopefully, this is the last time they’ll reach out and we can spend the rest of this conference week in peace. I don’t see what else they’d want from us—we did what they asked and they were wrong about Phelix. Case closed.

Eden expands the message and scans through it, her brow furrowing as she reads.

“Shit, don’t tell me they want us to do some other nonsense. Do you secretly have a mate that we need to seduce for non-existent data?” I ask, as I open the message to take a look at what has her concerned.

Tysea: Analysis of the files downloaded from Nafar’s datapads completed. Schematics are in his possession. Proceed with determining the time and location of his meeting. Use any means necessary at your disposal and do not let the target out of your sight.

My heart drops into my stomach. “Fuck.”

Eden re-reads the message, frowning at it. “I—I don’t understand. There weren’t any files that matched the schematics they described in what you downloaded.”

“You’re sure? There was a lot of data there. Maybe you missed it.”

She shakes her head adamantly. “I didn’t! I checked three times. Yes, there were medical schematics, but they were all for advanced healing tech. Nothing that could be used as a weapon!”

She sounds so certain. I want to be certain, too. But I’m not. Something isn’t adding up, and it’s making my skin itch with an impending sense of disaster. “Why would they lie about this, Eden? You’re smart, but you must have missed something. You hadn’t had a full night’s sleep and I’ve been distracting you. And I know you…” I pause, the sick dread inside me increasing. “You wanted to believe that Phelix wouldn’t do something like this.”

Her expression flickers when I mention Phelix.

There it is. My skin tightens even more. I want to scrub at it to wash away this mess. Scour my skin until the truth of what’s going on doesn’t crawl all over me. “You lied,” I say, keeping my voiceeven despite the urge to vomit. “You wanted to be with Phelix, so you lied about the schematics.”

“What?! No!”

Eden’s disbelief looks genuine, but there’s something lurking under the surface. I should know. I was trained since birth to see what people are trying to hide. Taught to root out people’s hidden truths and use it as a weapon against them. The only difference now is that the dagger of what she’s hiding from me is piercing into my own fragile heart.

That same training washes over me as I step out of the shower and wrap myself in a towel. Everything inside me sinks down, deep into the pit where I store all my Goddess-damned emotions—my affection for Eden, my idiotic hope for something with her and Phelix, my heartache, and my rage.

“It was more than just professional correspondence, wasn’t it?” I ask, keeping my tone cold. Dammit, I should’ve asked her more questions when she told me she knew him. My teeth grind together and emotions roil inside me, dangerously close to the point where there’s no more room to keep them from bursting out of me like an overfilled closet.

“I… I guess you could say we flirted. But he stopped comming me and nothing else happened! I didn’t say anything because?—”

“Because you wanted to protect your crush. Dammit, Eden! You care more about some stuck up, criminalxalarthan people’s lives?”

Not just people’s lives—she cares more about Phelix thanme. I told her I want her to be mine, that I think she’s mymate, and this whole time she was prioritizing Phelix. Does she even care about me?

Fuck, this is why I don’t let people in.

Eden shakes her head. “I didn’t lie about the schematics! They weren’t there. I swear!”

I scoff. “Goddess, you don’t have to keep lying. It’s really not a good look. Was sleeping with me your way of trying to distract the dumb, horny slut, or was that just a fun perk of your week covering for Lord Nafar’s unsavory dealings?”

“N-no! How could you think that?” She’s crying now, and no matter how hard I try to harden myself, it kills me to be the reason she’s upset.

Hot tears slide down my own cheeks. Fuck,I’mcrying. “What else am I supposed to think, Eden?”

“I would never do that to you. I care about you just as much as Phelix. I’m falling in love with you. The data wasn’t there. Please, you have to believe me. Something else is going on.” She reaches for me, tears spilling down her face and dropping in heavy splotches onto her chest.

I should be elated at the mention of love. I desperately want to believe her. But then she has to keep speaking.

“I’m s-sorry, Mezli!”

Her apology makes the fissures in my heart deepen. I don’t want apologies. I wanted someone I could trust. I wanted someone I could love without fear of getting hurt. “Enough! Enough of your trite apologies. They fall from your lips endlessly but are so fucking meaningless. You’re sorry? Well, I’m sorry I ever met you. I’m sorry that I was such a Goddess-damned moron to think that your sweet, innocent act was real. I’m sorry that I ever had the misfortune to meet you! You’re even worse than Phelix. At least he had the decency to show me how much of an awful person he was from the start.”

“Mezli, p-please…” Eden gasps for air between her heavy sobs and my heart shatters the rest of the way.

I curl in on myself, needing to be done with this conversation. I want to shut everything out so that I don’t have tofeel this way. I can’t fight the defensive instinct to push Eden away because it’s all I know how to do when I’m hurt.

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