Page 116 of Covenant

The corner of Matthias’s lip curls. “When has anything about us been normal?”

I grunt. “No. You don’t need to change it.”

I finish my whiskey and put my glass on the table. With nothing to do with my hands now, I pick at some lint on my pants. “What happened tonight?”

He takes a long drink. “I told you. I went to work.”

“Doing what?”

“My other job.” He finishes his whiskey and his glass joins mine. “I don’t have much say over my schedule. The others were supposed to be covering for me but I guess shit came up.”

“Why are they covering for you?”

“So I can spend time with you.” His fingers dance close to my arm but never quite land. I’m relieved. I’m not sure I can trust myself if he touches me now. “I wanted you to get to know me without all this other…bullshit getting in the way. And I managed for longer than I’d hoped.”

I give a dark chuckle. “One might argue that not telling me about the ‘bullshit’ means Idon’tknow the real you.”

“But you do.” He edges closer to me. “I swear. The man you’ve spent the past few months with, that’s me. I’ve kept a lot of secrets from you, but I haven’t hidden myself.”

I grit my teeth, forcing out the next question. The one that could break us. “Do you work for The Firm?”

“No,” Matthias says softly. “I don’t work for The Firm.”

A knot in my chest eases. “Then what are you doing? What exactly are the Buckinghams mixed up in?”

He winces. “I can’t tell you.”

“Why the fuck not?” Something in me snaps and I’m on my feet. My voice rises to a bellow as I tug my hair in frustration. “We’re husbands, right? We should tell each othereverything.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I recognize the lie in them. Tell each other everything? What a joke. I’ve lost count of all the things Matthias isn’t telling me.

“Pretend husbands,” he says hollowly. “As you keep reminding me.”

The pain is sharp and acute. I have to force the words out past the agony. “Is that why you won’t tell me?”

The silence is so long I begin to think he’ll never answer. “No. It’s because you’ve only just stopped looking at me like you hate me. If I tell you where I was tonight, what I was doing, it’ll return again.”

“You left with a gun and bullets and returned home covered in blood. Do you think I’m a fool?”

“No, I don’t.”

I huff and turn my gaze toward the fire, the one that destroyed the evidence of what he did, of what could have been.

“Tell me. Please.”

“I can’t. I can’t,” his voice is wobbly now, pleading, desperate. “Don’t make me do this. Don’t make me choose between this and you.”

I freeze for a moment and swallow, realization settling in. “It’s that bad?”

“Yes,” he says, meeting my gaze. “It’s that bad. And I’m selfish enough to want to pretend a little longer. Aren’t you?”

Am I?

Fuck, it seems I am. Because I cave, I let my questions slip into that fire and go up in smoke.

Maybe that makes me foolish. Naive. Oblivious. But right now, I don’t want to give this up. Give him up.

I can’t.

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