Roisin hasn’t said anything. Part of me paces like a fucking dog in a cage, worried that I said too much.

Most of me though?

Is relieved.

The truth is out there. She has it now.

And I don’t want to take it back.

21

ROISIN

UNTIL YOU NAME THE TIME AND PLACE.

I thoughtthat if I was someone’s wife, the circumstances would be wildly different. For example, I had thought that my mother, at the very least, would be there. Probably not my father, certainly, but my mother at least.

I had also imagined once, long ago, that my husband and I would be wildly in love.

A fantasy, to be sure, but not an unreasonable one.

What I had never imagined was that I would be sitting, alone, in a Range Rover in the Italian Alps while my new husband investigates to make sure our latest mountain hideout was safe.

And I had certainly never thought that I would be contemplating whether or not we’d be having sex on our wedding night.

After we got back to the little cabin, Marco decided it was time to move again. He didn’t say why, and I didn’t ask. He drove us up the road a ways to a little town, asking around for a place for us to stay. There was, it turned out, a local place that servedas an inn, which is where we currently are, with him inside ensuring that there’s no reason to bounce to the next town.

I’d call him paranoid but honestly…

I approve.

The sooner we can figure out who is after me, the better, and unfortunately, we’re no closer to that.

The only thing we’re even remotely ‘close’ to, I suppose, is being man and wife.

And that brings me right back here.

To wondering what the hell I’m doing.

The kiss from earlier feels like it’s still burning my lips. Really, every kiss with Marco is dangerous. It feels to me like… I’m hiking up one of these damn mountains, and someone gave me a shove. I manage to get my footing every now and then, but then another kiss with Marco, another touch from him, another moment where our bodies are drawn toward each other…

And I’m tumbling down again.

Until you name the time and place…

God above, I want him so badly it hurts.

I would be lying if I said that in my wildest, deepest, darkest fantasies, I hadn’t thought about Marco as my husband.

But now that he is…

I don’t know what to do with myself.

The car door opens, startling me. I look up, and Marco is standing in front of me, blocking the cold.

“We’re good,” he says, in that rough tone that sets my nerves on absolute haywire.

The inn, I know, is what he’s talking about. He means that the inn is safe and he doesn’t have any concerns.