Page 78 of Born for Starlight

"Enough." With one word, she shut me out. "We need a plan."

"The plan starts with Costa." Matthew's voice came back level, the professional finally handed a question he could answer. "He'll be here at eleven tomorrow morning to tell us what he wants from the visit. We're not due at Aurora until five. After noon, Layla, you and Beto and the rest of the team come back here, and we build the real plan."

"The rest of what team?" I asked. "You told me you work alone."

"I told you a lot of things."

"Don't you think they'll be watching this room?"

"They'll be watching the lobby, not listening to the walls. I've swept this suite every day since we checked in. It's clean." He nodded toward the connecting door I'd never seen him open. "But watchers count who visits which door. So, the team meets next door and nobody knocks on this one."

Layla smiled, and for once it looked real. "I'm glad to see you haven't lost all of your abilities." She walked to the entry, then turned with her hand on the door handle. "Until tomorrow. I will leave the two of you alone now."

She said alone like she was offering a gift.

Some gift.

The door clicked shut behind her, and the suite went very quiet. Just me, him, and everything neither of us had said.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Now I grovel," Matthew said.

Chapter Twenty-Four

If I had to guess, this was not the first time a man had groveled at her feet. I just prayed to God that I would be the last man who would ever be groveling to Angelica Drakos.

"Okay, make it good, Grainger." She sat down on the couch, crossed those long legs, and waited. No help at all. Well hell, I didn't deserve any.

I didn't sit. And despite the ‘at her feet’ idiom, Angelica wouldn’t respect a man who got down on his knees for anything other than a proposal of marriage, so I stayed on my feet.

"I lied to you four times. You caught all four, so I won't waste your time re-litigating them. The phone call I never made. The ICU. The visiting rules. Layla's father." I made myself hold her eyes. "You want to know the part that shames me? None of them were necessary. I told them because lying is faster than explaining, and I've spent sixteen years around people where faster keeps everyone breathing. That's a reason. It's not an excuse."

She didn't move. She just watched me.

She was doing exactly what I always did, not talking, allowing someone else to fill the silence, and that someone was me.

Fuck!

"I did the thing I hate," I said. "I treated you like just another resource. Something to move, something to protect, something to manage. You're not some random resource. You proved that with one taxi and one phone call, and you scared ten years off my life doing it." I took a breath. "You're the best untrained operator I've ever seen, and I handled you like you were an amateur, like you were just a pawn on the board. I'm sorry, Angelica. For the lies, and for the handling. Both."

The silence sat there. This time, I let it. Groveling means you don't rush the judge.

"That's a good apology." She let another beat go by. "Here's my problem. How do I know the inventory is complete?"

She went straight for the throat. God, this woman. She was perfect, and I was fucked.

How in the hell was I going to answer that, when there was one huge lie hanging out there? The fact that this thing at Aurora was just one piece of the overall pie? That I’d purposely met her because I thought I could use her for my mission?

There was only one thing that was true, down to my bones.

One thing that had caught me so off guard, I was still reeling, and it made me happy and scared in equal measure.

“I love you, Angelica,” I said hoarsely. “I've never said that to any woman but my mother. I love you, and that is the truth. That’s honest.”

I saw a glimmer of pain and maybe longing pass over her eyes, and I continued.

“I will protect you with my life. God, Angelica, please, you have to believe that what I just told you is the truth.”