Page 41 of Prodigal Son

But he was a professional, too, and so was she. Eden already knew all the risks; she’d always known the risks, and she’d always been better about stepping neatly over them than he had.

He said, “Alright, convince me.”

She lifted her brows. Surprised. She had her arguments ready. “Because with your dad, and a sniper kid who jumped ships like that” – she snapped her fingers – “you won’t have anyone you can trust on your side. You can trust me.”

“True.”

“No one else here trusts me, so I doubt they’d let me be of any use.”

“Also true.”

“And…” She bit her lip. “I’m worried about you.”

“You what?”

“I’ve never seen you not in control. At least, not until this week. It’s not like you.”

Fooled you, didn’t I?he wanted to ask.All that time I let you believe I didn’t give a shit about anything.

“When you’re at the top of your game,” she continued, “you’re perfectly capable of taking care of yourself, and anyone you’ve been charged with. But right now? Forgive me, but I don’t have much confidence.”

“Gee, thanks, darlin’,” he drawled, dripping West Texas.

“I’m serious, Charlie.”

“Then I seriously accept your oh-so-kind offer,” he said, still with the accent. “Who am I to turn down the little lady’s company?”

“You’re terrible,” she sighed.

He resumed packing. “What about your mum? Your little getaway driver girl?”

She made a face. “They won’t like it, but it’s safer to leave them here for now. If that’s alright with Phillip.”

“He won’t care. But.” He grinned. “Can I be there when you tell Mummy Dearest?”

“No.”

“Shame.” He zipped up his bag. “Be ready in a half hour.”

She stood. “Roger that.”

And his pulse was not tripping in his veins. It wasnot.

~*~

When Eden was nine, she told her mother she wanted to quit ballet. Not because she disliked dancing, no, but because she’d grown bored with the pomp and circumstance. The recitals, the costumes, and makeup, the buns that pulled and pulled until she thought her hair might peel away from her head, all along her scalp. She hated the gossip, and the backstabbing, and the cliques, and the way the other girls were vicious when they had no reason to be. She liked ballet fine…but not all the things that came with it.

(As an adult, she’d once constructed a parallel metaphor that dealt with her relationship with one Charles William Fox.)

Her mother’s face then, when she was nine, and refusing to let her tears fall, white-knuckled fists clenched in her pink tutu, had looked a lot like it did now. The Great Pinch of Displeasure and Disappointment.

“Oh, honestly, Eden,” she said, closing her eyes a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose with a stage-worthy performance. Where-did-I-go-wrong had nothing on Vivian Adkins. When she opened her eyes, she fixed them on Eden like rifle sights and said, “You’re a grown woman. You’ve served in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Do you really mean to tell me that whatever kind of – kind of illicit sex you have with that man is worth risking your life and your livelihood?”

The night she met Charlie, she though to herself,oh no. Because the pub was dark, and the music was just a little too loud, and she’d had just a little too much to drink, and his smirk over the rim of his whiskey glass was devastating.

She hadn’t told her mother about him – not then, and not the next five, ten, twenty times she met him. She’d known that what she was doing was stupid – objectively. But she’d felt uncharacteristically selfish. She’d found something she wanted, and she didn’t want to share it. Worse, she didn’t want to let it go.

Eventually, Vivian found out, because that’s what she did for a living. And she hadn’t yelled; she’d been patently disappointed.“Really, Eden?”But then they’d split up, and it hadn’t mattered…

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