Page 53 of Born for Starlight

"That's not a word people use when describing me."

"Get used to it." I kissed his jaw and let him go, because if I stayed in his arms one more minute, we were not going to make our schedule, and I had a schedule.

Instead, I did a lap of the suite. It was over the top. Marble and dark wood, a living room bigger than my first apartment. The balcony overlooked the old city, tile roofs stepping down toward water reflecting the sun back up at us. Two bedrooms, exactly as circled. The first one was glorious. The second one was only gorgeous.

"So." I leaned in the doorway of the second bedroom and looked back at him. "Which one do you want?"

"Excuse me?"

"Bedrooms. You're the security consultant. I assume you want the one closer to the door, sight lines, fields of fire, whatever it is you talk about."

He crossed the living room slowly. There was a look on his face I was coming to know, and my pulse quickened before he said a word.

"Not a chance in hell am I sleeping in a different bed than yours."

It came out as a growl. An actual growl. I had worked with actors who trained for years and could not produce that sound.

"Wow." I pressed a hand to my chest. "You're really taking guarding my body seriously."

"Damn right I am."

He reached for me. I put one finger in the center of his chest and stopped him, which worked only because he let it work.

"Nuh-uh. We have to be at the orphanage in two hours. I need to shower and get ready, and you need to go do protector stuff. Arrange a car. Acquire an Uzi or something."

"An Uzi?"

"I don't know what you people carry. Go be intimidating at the concierge."

He looked at me for a long moment. Then he leaned down, kissed me once, slow enough to make his point, then walked toward the door.

"The car's been arranged for three days," he said over his shoulder. "And nobody's carried an Uzi since the nineties."

The door clicked shut. I stood in the middle of the magnificent suite, touched my mouth, and then went to go take the fastest shower of my professional life.

The gates of Casa Semente were painted blue, and they were open before our car finished turning off the road.

The driver, a compact, silent man Matthew clearly knew and clearly trusted, rolled us up a gravel drive lined with mango trees. The building at the top was long and low and whitewashed, with a cross over the door and laundry strung between poles off the east side, small shirts and small dresses flapping in the wind.

A welcoming committee waited on the steps. A priest, thin and gray-haired. Four nuns in gray habits. And behind them, pressed against every window of the long building, faces. Dozens of small faces, jostling for position.

I got out of the car, and one of the nuns came down the steps with both hands out, and I knew her before she said a word.

"You're the voice," I said. "From the video. Sister Beatriz."

Her whole face lit up. "You watch!"

"Eleven times."

"Senhorita Drakos." She took my hands and squeezed them like we were old friends. "Welcome, welcome. Today is the best day. Best day of the whole year. The children, they no sleep last night, nobody sleep, Sister Inês, she tell them, sleep, and they no sleep."

The nun beside her was younger, wore glasses, and was kind of hiding behind Sister Beatriz. She blushed to the tips of her ears. She really didn’t like being called out.

"Sister Inês," Beatriz announced, "she have the good English. She translate. I have the English of a donkey."

"Your English is wonderful," I said.

"Is a donkey." Beatriz beamed at me anyway.