Chapter 4 Tag
TAG
“We can’t do this.”
Leila’s defensive wall slid into place as though she’d learned how best to protect herself from disappointment when my harsh words escaped before I could stop them.
Her body was warm despite the cold floor beneath us, and her pulse raced under my hand. The taste of honey, heat, and denied wanting lingered on my lips. Our kiss had been everything I imagined and more, which was exactly why it could never happen again.
“I—” She stopped herself, then shifted away from me entirely. “Are you hurt?” she asked. “Your back took most of the impact.”
“I’m fine.” The lie came automatically, though my spine screamed in protest where it had connected with the stone surface. But the physical pain was manageable. What I’d done—kissing her like a man starved, pulling her against me like I had any right to—that was the real damage.
After helping her stand, my hands moved over her body, checking the shoulder that had hit the wall and the hip where her clothes had torn.
Even through the fabric, I could feel her strength and the toned muscles that came from years of training.
She tolerated my inspection for a few seconds before withdrawing.
“I need to clean up.” Her jaw was tight as she spoke, her words so measured they could have been about ops protocol or mission goals. Without waiting for a response, she turned and headed up the stairs, moving far slower than before and with the kind of dignity that made my chest constrict.
I remained at the bottom, gripping the banister until the wood groaned under my hands. My knuckles went white, then whiter still, as I fought the urge to follow her. To explain. To apologize. And God help me, to kiss her again.
Christ. What had I been thinking?
The answer was simple. I hadn’t been. I’d spent years keeping her at arm’s length, calling her “kid” to remind us both of what she was to me—Idris’ sister. That familiar refrain had kept me in check through countless missions and all the times she’d gazed at me with something more than respect.
It was more than her being my dead asset’s sister who I promised to protect. Leila was the kind of woman I couldn’t just walk away from without a backward glance. She’d need more, want more, and deserved more. None of which I could give her.
But the memory of her response threatened to shred every rational argument I’d built.
She’d kissed me like she was waiting for it.
Like she’d been thinking about it for as long as I had.
The sound she’d made when I deepened the kiss, the way her fingers had tangled in my hair, the way her body had melted against mine—
No. I couldn’t think about that. I wouldn’t allow myself to.
I forced myself to move, to climb the stairs on unsteady legs. I owed her a proper explanation, not the harsh rejection I’d just thrown at her, but the truth about why what had happened, incredible as it had been, could never again.
I searched the castle’s maze of rooms, finally finding her in the second-level library twenty minutes later.
She stood at one of the tall windows, watching the maelstrom rage against the glass.
The light, more like dusk than morning, caught her profile—her defined cheekbones and the way her hair, now freed, fell in waves past her shoulders.
She’d changed into other clothes—black leggings that outlined legs I shouldn’t notice and an oversized jumper that made her look both younger and impossibly alluring.
The bruise blooming on her cheekbone from the fall made protective instincts rise in my chest.
The room itself seemed to mock me with its floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with leather-bound volumes, a fire crackling in the massive hearth, and the relentless rain that continued falling.
It was the kind of romantic setting found in the novels my sister would talk about, where the brooding lord finally confessed his feelings to the governess or whoever.
Except this wasn’t a romance novel, and I wasn’t about to confess anything except why we couldn’t be together.
“Leila, we need to talk. There are things you should know—”
When she turned to face me, the cool assessment in her eyes stopped me.
Gone was any trace of the woman who’d kissed me less than half an hour ago.
This was Special Agent Nassar, code name Nightingale, regarding me with the same detachment she might show a problematic asset.
But I knew her well enough to see the hurt beneath the surface, the way her full lips pressed together, and the tension that had settled in her shoulders.
“I get it, Tag. I’m a responsibility. Nothing more.”
“That isn’t true, and while I know it sounds trite, in this case, it isn’t you, Leila. It’s me.”
“It isn’t necessary to explain,” she said, stepping away from the window and putting the heavy oak reading table between us like a battle line. The movement highlighted her grace and the way she carried herself with the confidence of someone who knew exactly what her body was capable of.
“My mother and father…” I cleared my throat when my words felt like glass in my throat.
I’d never told anyone the entire story, not even Con, Ash, or Gus.
Although they’d witnessed most of it firsthand.
“They met at university in Edinburgh. My mum was studying art history, my dad economics. According to my aunt, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
They had the kind of passion that singed everything in its path. ”
Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t speak.
“They married within six months of meeting. Then had me within the year. My brother was born two years later, and my sister eighteen months after that. Sometime between the wedding and my fifth birthday, their passionate love turned poisonous.” I moved to the hearth.
I needed something to do with my hands, so I added wood to the dying flames.
The logs, damp from the humidity, hissed as they caught.
“Every day became a new battle. Breakfast was a minefield of passive aggression, while dinner was open warfare. They knew exactly how to wound each other. They’d spent years refining their aim. ”
The blaze caught properly, but the warmth did nothing to ease the chill that had settled in my chest from the memories.
“The affairs began when I was seven. First, my dad had one with his secretary, then my mum with her tennis instructor. They didn’t even try to hide them from us by the end.
When she’d come home with her lipstick smudged, smelling of another man’s cologne, my father would pour himself another whiskey.
He’d disappear for entire weekends with women half his age while she entertained her lovers in our home.
” I turned to face Leila, forcing myself to meet her gaze.
“They stayed together out of spite, I think. Wanting to see who could hurt the other more, to see who would break first. They used us—my siblings and me—as weapons in their war. We became their leverage, their ammunition.”
“Tag…” Leila’s voice was soft, comforting, but I couldn’t let myself get lost in it.
“When I was sixteen, my mum finally left. We—my brother, sister, and I—came home from boarding school for a long weekend holiday to find her things missing. She’d taken everything that was hers, the paintings she’d inherited from her grandparents, the silver, even the photo albums with our baby pictures.
But she left us. Her children. We haven’t seen her since. ”
The silence between us was broken only by the raging weather outside.
“We found our father in the drawing room. God only knew how long he’d been drunk. By the looks of it, it had been days.”
Leila’s eyes filled with tears. Of pity no doubt, but I’d begun this story, and I had to finish it.
“That same day, standing in what was left of our home, I made a decision. I vowed I would never marry, never enter into something that could become that toxic, never give someone the power to destroy me the way they destroyed each other.”
“You chose to never let anyone close.” Her voice was quiet, understanding rather than questioning.
“I chose to accept that love wasn’t real. Passion was. But in the end, it always morphed into destruction waiting to happen. I’m thirty-four, Leila, and I’ve never had a relationship last longer than a weekend. That’s not by accident—it’s by design.”
Her hands gripped the edge of the table. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you’re twenty-two. You’re brilliant and capable and fierce.
You have your whole life ahead of you, a chance at something real with someone who can give you what you deserve.
You shouldn’t waste your time on someone who’s already decided how this ends.
On someone who witnessed love turn malignant and decided the only winning move was not to play. ”
The anger that flashed across her face was breathtaking. When she pushed away from the table, the light caught the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, turning them molten.
“You don’t get to decide what I should or shouldn’t waste my time on.”
“Leila—”
“No.” She was close enough now that I could see every detail—the way her chest rose and fell, the flush on her cheeks, the determined set of her beautiful mouth. “You don’t get to kiss me the way you did, then tell me it’s for my own good that it won’t happen again.”
“That kiss was my fault. I lost control, and no, it will not happen again.”
She stared at me for several heartbeats before her expression shifted.
“Right. Your fault. Your control. Your decision.” Each step was measured and deliberate as she moved toward the door.
“Message received, Tag. Loud and clear. You’ve decided I’m too young, too innocent, too whatever to know what I want.
Like you’ve done since the day you met me. ”
“That’s not—”