Chapter 25
Arthur
I filled a pot with water and set it on the back burner to boil.
The tomatoes had broken down in the pan, the olives were soft, and the kitchen smelled almost as good as Hettie’s had.
All I was missing were the anchovies. Just like every time I made this dish, I was twelve years old, and she was teaching me to cook because my parents were at a fundraiser and the nanny had called in sick.
Ten feet away, Gwen stared at her laptop. She’d been scrolling through research papers since I’d put the pan on, and every so often she’d read a few paragraphs aloud. Not to me, exactly. More to the room, as though saying it out loud helped her process it.
I stirred the sauce. “Was he right?”
“I’m not sure it matters. Here’s another one from 2017 where he tears apart a grad student’s thesis on inscription patterns in West Country churches.” Her chair creaked. “And one from 2021 dismissing a conference paper on Cornish ecclesiastical records.”
“Isn’t he a metalwork specialist?”
“Early medieval jewelry and metalwork, yeah.” She clicked and clicked, documents and websites flashing as she went. “I don’t think that’s his target, though. All of these rebuttals have two things in common: Templars and South West England.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” She hummed before the tapping resumed. “Something’s here, but I can’t figure it out.”
From the sounds of it, Dr. Hopkins was as protective of the area as my father was. “How many papers are you looking at?”
“It’s not all papers. He’s commented on Fergus’s Glastonbury blog a few times, too. Some are social media posts where he’s slamming someone else’s theories. I’ve found…” She read from her notebook. “Thirty-six so far, but twenty of them are specific to Templar-related findings in the West Country.”
“Maybe he’s a contrarian?” I tried a few drawers before I found the one with the cutlery and plucked out a spoon. “Or he doesn’t like outsiders writing about his home turf?”
“Maybe?” She let out a breath and jotted a few more things in her notebook.
I tasted the sauce. It needed more salt. “What’s the pattern in the ones that aren’t Templar or West Country?”
“There isn’t one. They span the United Kingdom and Europe, and cover research from several centuries. Corrosion analysis, dating methods, conservation techniques.”
I added salt to the sauce and checked it again. Perfect. “But over half of his rebuttals are targeted?”
“Targeted.” She swiveled in her chair and pointed at me. “That’s the word I needed. They feel targeted.”
“Against a particular researcher?”
She turned back to her laptop, narrowing her eyes at the document she settled on.
I’d been watching her work since the day we met in the Ferraro’s storage room. She was hardly the first academic I’d run protection for, but she was different. It wasn’t the reverence for her work—I’d seen that plenty of times—but Dr. Gwen Lyons at work was simply enthralling.
Maybe it was the way her whole face lit up when a piece dropped into place. Or the way she tapped her finger on her mouse, wrote incessantly in her notebook, or hummed quietly when she was deep in thought.
It likely has more to do with her smile, her laugh, or the way she felt in your arms earlier, you idiot.
Fuck.
We’d been attacked by three men this afternoon. I should have been thinking strategically. I should have been focused on swapping the car. I should have—
Should not have hugged her.
But fuck me, she’d practically collapsed once I’d cleared the house. I definitely shouldn’t have hugged her, but my body had stopped listening to my brain.
“It doesn’t seem to be about one particular researcher.” She shook her head. “There’s one guy he’s gone after several times, but most of them are different authors.”
I had to keep her talking. As long as her mouth was moving, she wasn’t crying. As long as she was processing facts, she couldn’t process emotions. And for right now, we both needed her thinking instead of feeling.
But what I wanted was to grab her. I wanted her head tucked against my shoulder so I could press her close and tell her everything would be all right.
It was a line I shouldn’t have crossed earlier, and certainly would not cross again.
The water started bubbling, so I dropped the pasta in. “Maybe it’s several researchers linked in some way? Some fraternity or a past job?”
“That’s possible.” Her head rolled forward, and my stomach sank. She couldn’t give up this easily. No more tears tonight. “I’m missing something.”
“You’re running on fumes, Gwen. You probably need food.”
She smiled, and my fuck, but my heart flipped end over end at the sight. “Probably.”
“I don’t have any crusty bread to test with, but—” I pulled out a fresh spoon and returned to the sauce. “Why don’t you taste this and let me know if it needs anything?”
“I’d love to.” She got up and joined me at the stove.
I should have waited the five seconds it took, handed her the spoon, and stepped away. Instead, I dipped the spoon, made sure I caught one of the olives, and blew on it as she walked. I held it out for her, my free hand under the spoon to catch any drips.
She leaned in, and her lips closed around it.
You should have maintained your distance.
Her eyes closed. She straightened, ran her tongue across her lower lip, and let out a sigh that went straight to my dick.
That sound.
That fucking sound she’d made at The Train Station, after her first bite of the triple-layer chocolate cake she’d ordered for dessert. I would cook or bake for this woman every goddamn day if she’d keep making that noise.
“It’s amazing,” she said, opening her eyes.
“It’s missing anchovies.”
She gave a half-shrug, her smile not slipping. “It’s still delicious.”
A spot of sauce clung to her chin.
“You’ve got some…” I gestured at my own chin.
She wiped at it with her fingers and missed.
“Here.” I put down the spoon and swiped my thumb across her chin. For some reason, the thumb wound up in my mouth, rather than on a dish rag.
Her eyes widened, and the tiny movement hit me as hard as the sigh. She should have gone back to the table by now. Why was she standing so close, with her face tilted up toward mine, and her eyes pinning me in place?
And why was my hand on her face? Or my fingers curving against her cheek?
She didn’t pull back. Didn’t look away. Her lips parted—the smallest change, an opening, a question—and my chest seized the same way it had the day I’d met her.
Don’t do this, Penn.
Shut up, self.
I leaned down and kissed her.
Soft. Her mouth was warm against mine, and we stood there like two kids kissing for the first time, with no idea what came next.
But then her hand slid up my arm, fingers curling around my bicep.
My hand found her waist. She stepped closer.
Or I pulled her closer. Her other hand pressed flat against my chest, and her lips opened for me.
Stop.
I didn’t stop. I kissed her deeper, and she matched me. She made that sound again. The cake sound. And my cock whispered, ‘Told you that’s what the sound meant.’ My hand moved from her cheek into her hair, and her fingers tightened on my arm.
I’d been trying not to want this. I’d been fighting it since the restaurant, since the ferry, since the night I’d stood over her sleeping on a couch and couldn’t bring myself to wake her. Every time I’d gotten close, the voices in my head had stopped me.
It’s a job.
Emotional connections are dangerous.
She’s your client.
Her fingers found the hair at the back of my neck, and all the little voices went quiet. I drew her in, and there was nothing else in my world. Everything was her mouth and her body against mine and the realization that I’d been denying her, not just myself.
Stop.
I didn’t want to stop.
But she hesitated.
Not much. But it was unquestionably there. A stillness. A half-breath where her mouth paused against mine, and her fingers stopped moving.
She doesn’t want this, Penn.
I was suddenly at my parents’ house in Greenwich, the night of my mother’s fiftieth birthday party.
I was home for the weekend—a visit my father had arranged, even though my SEAL team was preparing for a deployment.
Through the study wall, I heard my mother’s voice rise, followed by my father’s flat and final tone.
The seating chart. Someone he shouldn’t have invited. Then the doorbell.
And they walked out of the study together, with his hand on her lower back, and her smile as bright and automatic as it always was. Guests meant performance.
Because emotional connections are dangerous.
That was what hesitation meant. A woman kissing you because you’d protected her and fed her. A woman kissing you because she thought she owed you something she couldn’t pay for.
I was my goddamn father, exchanging one favor for another.
Fuck.
That.
I let my hand drop from her hair and stepped back.
Her eyes were still on me, but I couldn’t look directly at them.
“I need to—” To what? The car. That was it. “I should try to swap the car. Those men saw the plates.”
She blinked, her fists curling in toward her chest. “Nothing’s going to be open at this hour.”
“Shirts.” I walked past her, to the table where she’d been working, and grabbed my jacket from where I’d tossed it. “I’m covered in blood and got some on you, and we can’t—there might be an all-night pharmacy or a gas station.”
“In the middle of nowhere? At this hour?”
“I’ll find somewhere.”
“Arthur—”
“I’ll grab whatever I can find and come right back.” My voice sounded normal. Not really. But almost.
Get out.
Before I opened the door, I said, “The sauce is ready. Pasta needs another minute.”
“Okay.” No argument. No attempt to stop me.
Because she’s grateful you stopped.
Fuck.
I left without looking back.