Page 49 of Shadow Secrets
“Congratulations,” Vivi said to Sutton. “You must be relieved.”
Claire gathered her briefcase. Garrett touched her elbow and glanced at Sebastian again. “We’ll do an exit review and set up temporary support under your discretion after I walk Claire out.”
Sebastian nodded.
The team dispersed, Vivi squeezing Sutton’s shoulder as she passed. When they were alone, Sutton sat at the table, still holding the notebook, her eyes bright, her cheeks flushed, looking lighter than Sebastian had ever seen her. “I can go home,” she said. “I can go back to the apartment. See Dom. Start fixing up the parlor. Get the website up and running.” Her words tumbled over each other, the dam of suppressed hope cracking open all at once. “I can go home, Lynx.”
“Yeah.” He kept his voice steady and warm. The voice of a man who was genuinely happy for the woman in front of him. “You can.”
She launched out of the chair and hugged him. Her arms went around his neck, face pressed against his shoulder. He caught her, held her. Buried his face in her hair and breathed in the scent of her shampoo.
He was relieved. Deeply, viscerally relieved. She was safe. That was everything.
It was also the beginning of a question he didn’t know how to answer.
She pulled back. Her hands stayed on his shoulders. Her eyes searched his face. “You’re doing that thing,” she said.
“What thing?”
“The thing where your face says one thing and your brain is running worst-case scenarios behind it.” She tapped his temple with one finger. “I can practically hear the gears.”
He caught her hand and held it against his jaw. “Just processing.”
She kissed him—quick, firm. “Come on. Help me pack. I want to go see Dom before visiting hours end.”
She pulled away and headed for the room.
Sebastian sat there another moment. His chest held a complicated knot of relief, pride, joy, and the ache of watching the best thing that had ever happened to him walk toward a future he wasn’t sure included him.
The feelings are the information. The data was: come on, help me pack—not thank you for your service. Not I’ll always be grateful in that voice that said this is the end. No, she’d expressed the casual, proprietary assumption that he was coming with her.
The data appeared…hopeful.
He got up and followed her down the hall.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sutton
Sutton stood for a moment on the threshold of her apartment, taking in the cramped studio, the water-stained plaster ceiling, and listening to the rattling pipes.
Home, sweet home.
Sort of.
Two of the succulents on the windowsill had given up completely in her absence—their leaves now a dried brown pile at the base of the pots. The thrift-store quilt was still tangled at the foot of the bed, the way she’d left it the day Ginger had died. Dishes were stacked in the sink. A coffee mug was growing mold.
It was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
“Okay.” She dropped her duffel bag on the floor and put her hands on her hips, surveying the mess. “This is going to be a project.”
Sebastian followed her in with Penn’s box of sketchbooks tucked under one arm. He set it on the desk, then went to the front window, angled himself beside the frame, and looked down at the street.
She watched him assess everything, searching for threats. Even here, even now, after Claire had declared Sutton safe and the FBI was officially closing its protective mandate.
She’d expected him to relax once they left the compound. To breathe. To take off the operator mask and become the man who scrubbed her back in the shower and traced her tattoos with his lips.
He wasn’t doing that. He was doing the window thing.
