Chapter Forty When the Fog Lifts
Evie reached out and tapped the base of the lamp next to the couch, turning it on as the last light of the mid-July evening faded, leaving her in the semi-darkness of dusk, then focused back on the Word document open on her laptop.
She wanted to finish the current chapter of the novel she was working on before getting ready for bed.
Despite the hot, muggy weather, the last few days had been cloudy and dull, with fog hanging low over the city, which made her cranky and low energy.
She had noticed that since her bout of depression in January, she had become much more emotionally sensitive to the weather.
The dark, wet cold of winter made it hard to stay motivated and had slowed her climb out of the depressive episode.
Long stretches of rainy or cloudy weather made her grumpy and less social, leading her to hide away in her apartment, while sunshine and heat brought out her happy, bubbly, affectionate nature.
When she brought it up in therapy, Dr. Monroe assured her it was normal for people who had gone through a depressive episode to experience heightened weather sensitivity while their bodies and brains recovered.
She suggested Evie buy a light therapy lamp and take a vitamin D supplement.
Evie added both to her morning routine but couldn’t say she’d noticed a change yet, which only added to her frustration with herself and her low mood.
“Evie,” HELIX’s voice interrupted OneRepublic’s Apologize, which was playing quietly in the background, and she looked up in surprise. “Thorn is requesting permission to come visit.”
“Thorn’s back?” Her heart leapt. She quickly set her laptop aside, scrambled to her feet, and headed to her bedroom to put on a bra. “Yes, tell him to come down and unlock the door for him.”
“Will do.”
Ten minutes later, she was finishing washing her face when there was a polite knock, followed by Thorn’s voice calling out as he let himself in.
“Evie?”
“Coming!” She quickly dried her face, tossed the towel over the rack, and hurried down the hall to the living room, where he was setting a small bag on the coffee table.
When he looked up and saw her, a huge smile crossed his face.
He opened his arms just as she launched herself at him with a gleeful laugh.
“You’re back!”
“It is so good to see you.” He hugged her tightly, then pulled back and cupped her cheeks, looking her over. “You have cut your hair.”
Evie nodded, smiling. She’d chopped it into a layered, shoulder-length bob a few days earlier, unable to handle how hot her waist-length hair made her feel in the humidity.
She loved how simple her hair routine had become, how it complemented her round face, and how the layers took the heaviness away. “Like it?”
He ran his fingers through it with a smirk, tousling it playfully. “It suits you very well, and I cannot say I will miss all the random long hairs I usually find after you visit me.”
She batted his hand away and smoothed the chaos he’d made of her hair. “Yeah, I don’t miss that either.” Taking his hand, she sat down, gave a light tug to get him to sit beside her, then cuddled into his side.
“How was your assignment?”
“It took much longer than I anticipated,” he admitted, stretching his legs out and making himself comfortable. “I originally suggested six weeks to give myself ample time, but I expected to be back in three. This group was much more organized and had more support than anyone realized.”
“Luckily, it wasn’t so much an assassination plot as a plan to remove my client from his position by any means necessary. Their death wasn’t the goal, but it wasn’t off the table either.” He continued, his fingers absentmindedly tracing patterns on Evie’s shoulder.
“You said it was someone in their inner circle. Did you find out who it was?” Thorn was the only one who would give her any details of his assignments.
He never went into anything sensitive, but he always shared enough to give her a general idea, enjoying her fascination with the way he operated and, she suspected, getting a small ego boost from how impressed she was by his intelligence-gathering skills.
He nodded. “I figured out it was the spouse leaking information. They weren’t directly involved in anything, just venting about their marriage to the wrong people. Given the client’s high position and very left-leaning policies, it was extremely embarrassing. A quiet investigation is underway now.”
“Wow.” Evie shook her head, grateful she wasn’t important enough to ever deal with something like that. “Why did it take longer than you thought?”
“I was told there was a potential assassination attempt, which had me looking in the wrong direction at first. I did look into the spouse, close friends, and family, but there was nothing tying them to anything. So I shifted to the wider circle, which meant more people to sift through.” He reached up and messed up her hair again.
“Hairdressers and barbers are great sources of information. Every four to six weeks, you spend hours with someone, share your life with them, and then forget about them until your next appointment.”
Evie stared at him, disbelief washing over her. “No way, you did not figure things out based on the spouse’s hair appointments.”
Thorn let out a low chuckle and lifted a shoulder. A faintly smug look crossed his face. “It was an example.” He leaned forward and picked up the bag from the coffee table. “Here, I brought you something.”
She took the bag, giving him a faintly amused look. He insisted on bringing her little things from his work trips. Trinkets he thought she might like, sweets he knew she’d inhale, or pens and notebooks to feed her addiction to pretty stationery.
“You really don’t have to bring me something every time you go away, you know.
” She admonished him gently as she opened the bag and pulled out a tissue-paper-wrapped object.
“I’m not complaining, and I don’t want you to stop, but I hope you don’t feel like I expect a present to make up for your absence. ”
“I do not look for things for you.” He stood and headed toward the kitchen. “But if I see something I know you will like, I cannot help myself.”
Evie grinned, peeling back the tissue paper to reveal a small, intricately carved wooden bear.
“Oh my gosh, this is adorable.” She held it up, turning it over to admire the details that had been painstakingly carved into the wood.
The fur texture looked soft enough to touch, the face was startlingly realistic, and the age-darkened scratches told her it was an antique crafted by a master.
Thorn returned to the couch with the bottle of Sprite she always kept stocked for him, a pleased smile settling on his face. “I know how much you love animals that could kill you with a swipe of their paw, and figured you would like it.”
“Thorn, this must have cost a small fortune.” She looked up at him, affection rushing through her. “You really shouldn’t have.”
“I am sure it probably would fetch a small fortune.” He opened the bottle and took a sip. “But it was given to me as a small expression of thanks by the client for preventing the scandal that would have happened if their spouse's poor judgment had been exposed.”
“They just happened to give you an antique carving that I would love?” She raised her eyebrow at him, not quite sure she believed his story, knowing how often he deflected when she questioned how much he spent on her.
“They gave me two, actually. Their great-grandfather carved them in the late 1890s.” He explained, taking it from her and running his fingers over it delicately.
“They had about a dozen different carved animals in a glass cabinet in their office that I would frequently look at while they were in meetings, including a much larger owl with its wings spread and claws outstretched like it was coming in for a kill. They offered that one to me, but I asked for the bear.” He smiled and passed it back to her. “So, they gave me both.”
Evie looked down at the bear in her hand. If the owl were done with even half the precision and detail as the bear, it would easily be worth a couple of thousand euros. “They must have been very, very, very grateful then.”
“Oh yes, image and family life play a significant role in Germany when you have power.” Thorn inclined his head slightly. “Having it come out that your spouse was passing on information to a far-right extremist group, even accidentally, would have destroyed their career.”
He cleared his throat. “Speaking of careers, before I left, I spoke with Tommy about switching to Consulting. He was not exactly happy, but he agreed it was the best place for me. Even admitted he was putting off discussing it with me because he did not want to add the Security Services back to his plate.”
Evie leaned forward and set the bear on the coffee table. “That’s great! How long before you make the switch?”
“He asked me to stay in the director role until January and put together a short list of potential candidates to take over. We will let them know they have been chosen on Monday, giving them until July 31st to decide whether to remain in consideration or drop out. Then we will start assessing them for the role in August, announcing who will get the promotion after the new year.”
“Five months of assessments?” Evie tilted her head, confused. “Why?”
“Mostly because I am so heavily involved in all aspects of the division. We won’t expect that from the successful candidate.
Instead, we will create several leadership roles across the different areas to help ease the amount of work the director needs to do.
” He rested his arm on the back of the couch behind her head as he explained, leaning back as he got comfortable again.
“We are also considering making the split between the Security side and the Protection side more defined. Instead of having a Director of Protective Services who oversees both, we may create a Director of Security Services position to manage the guards, so the Director of Protective Services just has to focus on the bodyguards and protective details.”
“Ohhh.” Evie nodded as she understood his and Tommy’s thought process. “So, by having a list of candidates go through the assessment process, you can figure out who would be best suited to each role when you have the job descriptions figured out.”
“Exactly,” he inclined his head. “I already have several people who are unofficially in leadership roles, so they will be considered for the director roles, and there are a few people I believe have the skills to step into leadership roles that will also be considered.”
“One of the people who made the shortlist is Alex.” He added it in an almost too-casual tone, and Evie could see he was watching her out of the corner of his eye. “He’s been asking about you, you know.”
Evie winced. She felt guilty about the whole situation.
After her mother died, she’d stopped responding to Alex’s messages, and after a few weeks, he stopped trying.
By the time she felt able to talk again, four months had passed since his last text.
She assumed he had moved on, so she left things as they were.
The decision had come with relief at the time, but her stomach gave a little flip when Thorn said he’d been asking about her.
“I didn’t leave him because he wasn’t making enough money or didn’t have a higher position.” She deflected, hoping playing dumb would get her out of the conversation. “I left because I couldn’t mentally or emotionally be with him while everything was happening with Mom.”
“Maybe you should reconsider.” Thorn smiled and stood, tucking his empty soda bottle and the tissue paper into the bag. He leaned down and kissed her cheek. “It is getting late, and we both have to work in the morning. I will see you tomorrow.”
Evie glanced at her watch; he was right. She was usually in bed by now. “Yeah.” She got up and followed him to the door. “Thank you for my gift, and I’m very happy to have you home again.” She smiled warmly as he let himself out. “Night.”
“I am happy to be home. Good night, Mali?a.”
She locked the door and went through her nightly routine, turning off lights as she went and thinking about what Thorn had said.
She could understand why he was encouraging her. Alex was a hard worker and well-liked in the tower, not just among co-workers. He was often assigned across Sloane Technologies’ divisions and considered almost everyone he worked with a friend.
And on paper, he was a great boyfriend - attentive, considerate, affectionate. He constantly told her she was beautiful and how lucky he felt to have her.
She just didn’t know if she could handle his particular brand of BDSM and the way he pushed her boundaries. He always promised to tone it down, but any faint hint that she might be okay with something became an excuse to escalate again until she had to talk to him about it.
As she climbed into bed, she remembered he had promised to work on his boundary issues, and after some internal debate, decided it wouldn’t hurt to text him in the morning and ask if he wanted to get coffee sometime. He would probably say no anyway.
Decision made, she rolled over and closed her eyes. Wondering if the slight flutter in her stomach was from excitement or a warning.