23. Isabelle
ISABELLE
As the evening wears on, I watch him from the bed, my knees still pulled to my chest. I'm still angry with him. But I can also see that this has been tearing him apart, that every moment he's spent protecting me while hiding the truth has been eating him alive from the inside out.
The room is full of tension—tension over what we're doing next, over the unknown, and most of all, what's hanging between us, these feelings and this desire that we're both pretending we can let go of when this is over.
I know I'll never forget him. And I can't stop thinking about the fact that he's so sure he'll die at the end of all of this, that there's nothing more than getting me to safety and then waiting for his past to catch up with him.
Maybe it is some kind of righteous retribution, for him to die at the hands of men just like him…
but much like he says he couldn't imagine me not alive after he knew me, I look at him across the room, and I can't imagine him gone.
The truth is… I can't imagine him not with me. But I don't know how to reconcile that with everything else.
I want what we had for a little while back.
I want the man who made sure I was safe and taken care of, who taught me to defend myself, who got drunk on a balcony with me and told me things I don't think he ever told anyone before.
But how can I trust that any of it is real?
That it wasn't just trauma making us open up to each other, all the while he was keeping something so big, so important, from me?
For a while, he works on his laptop, getting up to find us both some food from the kitchenette in the small room.
Later, I wander back in to see if there's anything else, and I find two bottles of wine, stashed at the back of the counter.
I open one and pour us each a glass, and bring one back to him.
He looks at it as I set it down, then back up at me.
"Thank you," he says quietly.
"Don't thank me yet. I'm still furious with you." But there's less heat in the words than there was before. "I just think we both need to breathe for a few hours before we walk into whatever hell is waiting for us in New York."
He nods and takes a drink of the wine. For a little while, we both drink in silence, me refilling our glasses until I start to feel warm all over. "I guess this is dinner," I say, topping off his glass. "Wine and some cheese and crackers."
"You'll get better food in New York. After we deal with Vivienne." He pauses, his jaw tightening. "After this is over."
"If we survive it."
"You will." He looks at me as he takes another drink. "I won't let anything happen to you."
"Even though you were supposed to kill me yourself?" The words come out sharper than I intended, the wine loosening my tongue.
Julian sets down his glass, his eyes meeting mine across the table. "Especially because of that. I owe you more than I can ever repay, Isabelle. I owe you your life, and I'm going to make sure you get to live it."
The sincerity in his voice makes my throat tight. I take another drink of wine, and the memory of the last time we did this slips in, warming me even more than the alcohol has. "Do you remember the balcony?" I ask, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. "In Prague. Before the phone call."
Julian goes very still, his hand frozen halfway to his glass. "Yes."
"You wanted me then." I bite my lip, looking at him over the rim of mine. "But you were fighting it, telling me we couldn't. You'd stop, every time. Was it because of the assassin thing?"
Julian almost spits out his drink. "Yes, it was because of the assassin thing," he says, sarcasm tinging his voice.
He's a little drunk now, too, I can tell.
"Jesus, Isabelle, you make it sound like nothing.
But you didn't know I was lying to you about everything.
" He picks up his wine and drains it in one swallow, his throat working.
"I would have been even more of a monster if I'd fucked you while I was lying to you. "
"Well, you did, in that hotel room."
"You made it too hard not to."
A slow smile twitches at the corners of my mouth, and I glance down pointedly below the table where he's sitting. "And is it, still? Hard, I mean?"
Julian sucks in a breath. "Isabelle…"
"Well? Is it?"
His eyes narrow, darkening. "It's always hard around you."
He knows exactly what I meant, and I know exactly what he's saying. A flush of heat washes through me, and I bite my lip.
"You have no idea how close I came to breaking.
How many times I almost gave in." His voice drops low.
"Every time you came out of the shower, I had to leave the room.
Because if I stayed, I would have touched you.
I would have pushed you against the wall and kissed you until you couldn't breathe, until you were begging me to fuck you the way I did in Ibiza.
" He takes a drink, his throat working. "Every time, I had to remind myself why I couldn't have you.
Why touching you would be wrong when you didn't know the truth about what I was.
"That self-defense training was torture. Having you that close, feeling your body against mine—" His jaw tightens. "I was hard the entire time. Aching with it. And you knew exactly what you were doing to me."
"I wanted what we had in Ibiza." I take another drink, swallowing hard.
"Before all of this. You made me feel so good.
Not just the sex, even though that was incredible…
but you made me feel like I could just be…
me. I know I can be spoiled and sheltered and naive, but you stripped me all the way down and let me be myself.
I've never had anything like that before, and I…
" I never will again, I almost say, but that feels like too much even for tonight, when we're a little wine drunk right before this all comes to a head.
I can't let him have that much, not until he gives me more. Maybe not ever.
"I couldn't. Not while I was lying to you.
Not while you didn't know—" He stops, his hand clenching around his glass.
"I'm a trained soldier. An elite assassin.
I've killed more people than I can count.
I've faced down armed enemies and walked away without a scratch.
But you—" His eyes meet mine. "You unmade me.
You destroyed my control. I've never felt so powerless in my life. "
He presses his lips together. "But you said no more. Even after that last time… you said we needed to stop. Not friends, not lovers." He leans back in his chair. "I might be a killer, but I can respect boundaries, Isabelle."
The words send a thrill through me. I like that about him.
I like that even now, even wanting me, he's not pushing past the line I drew.
That he's giving me the choice, the control, the power to decide what happens next.
I see the heat in his eyes, the dark, wide pupils, the quick pulse in his throat, and the rise of his chest as he breathes heavily.
I know he's hard right now. He wants me, but he won't take me.
Not unless I make him feel sure that I want it.
I want more than just sex from him. But sex is the easiest thing in the world to relent on, especially with him. And the idea of making him beg for it, getting back a little of what I feel I lost by giving him so much when there was so much I didn't know…
I take another drink of wine, feeling the alcohol buzzing through my veins, loosening the last of my inhibitions. "What if I said I could be convinced?"
Julian goes very still, his eyes narrowing. "Convinced of what?"
"To forgive you. To let you back in." I set down my glass and stand. "If you groveled well enough. If your apology was sufficiently thorough."
His eyes narrow, and his gaze slides over me, dark and hungry. "What kind of groveling did you have in mind?"
"I'll know it when I see it." I'm playing with fire, and I know it, but the wine has made me reckless.
Made me willing to take what I want instead of denying myself out of anger, hurt, or pride.
Or maybe it's more than the wine—maybe it's the fact that tomorrow, we either fix this or we fail, and if the latter happens, if Vivienne can't be convinced to call off the contract, I don't know what happens next.
Either way, this is my last night with Julian. And I want to remember it my way.
I look at him steadily, across the room. "Show me how sorry you are, Julian."
For a long moment, he doesn't move. He just sits there staring up at me with those dark eyes, his jaw tight, his hands clenched on the arms of the chair. Then, slowly, he slides out of the chair and onto his knees.
"Like this?" he asks, his voice rough. "Is this what you want?"
I look down at him—this dangerous, lethal man on his knees before me—and feel power surge through me like electricity. "It's a start. But I think you can do better."
"Better how?"
"With less clothing." The words come out confident, even though my heart is pounding. "Crawl to me properly, Julian. Show me you mean it."
His eyes flash, but he doesn't argue. He reaches for the hem of his shirt and pulls it over his head in one smooth motion, tossing it aside. His chest is bare now, all lean muscle and scattered scars, and I can see his breathing has quickened. "Better?" he asks.
"Keep going."
He crawls toward me slowly, and I watch the play of muscles beneath his skin as his back flexes. My heartbeat pounds at the sight of him, this deadly man, crawling on the floor toward me. I feel a throb between my thighs, my pulse quickening, a power like I've never known surging through me.
I could get used to this.
When he reaches me, he looks up, waiting for my next instruction. "More," I say simply.