Chapter 13
SYLVIE
I TOLD MYSELF I was coming here to say goodbye. Before I convinced my sister to sneak away into the night with me, leaving without a trace.
That’s the story I ran the whole way across town: just a goodbye.
That’s all. I’m obviously compromised, he’s a liability, the smart move is to walk away, and put this whole disaster of a decade behind me.
Me and Fiona, together again, as it should’ve been from the beginning.
Maybe we’ll go back to the old country, settle somewhere in the green, rolling hills.
End our story with peace.
I’ve told myself a lot of lies disguised as stories in my life.
I’m great at it—twisting the truth. So much so, I almost believed this one right up until my knuckles hit his door, and then the story fell apart, because the truth is I’m standing outside a man’s apartment after midnight in the cold because I couldn’t stay away, because nearly a week of him not looking at me has done something to me that a bullet never could.
I am, apparently, desperate. And desperate has a smell—kind of like wet dog. I turn up my nose at my pathetic-ness. I’ve built an entire life out of not needing a single thing from anyone. And yet, here I am.
The door opens.
Callen fills the frame in a gray T-shirt, black sweatpants, looking remarkable in nothing fascinating.
I let out the breath I’ve been holding since he left me in that hallway.
His hair is a disaster again, a whole week of scruff built out, his eyes narrowed but not angry, as if his eyelids are heavy.
When he sees me, his face cracks. Just for a second, it looks like he’s trying to fight off an involuntary smile.
He doesn’t greet me. Instead, he leads with facts. “It’s the middle of the night.”
“I’m aware.”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m aware of that too.” I don’t move. I let him look at me.
I wore thigh-high boots and a trench coat with hardly anything under it because I’m not above fighting dirty.
If an apology won’t do it, maybe my body will.
I watch him silently for what feels like a full episode of my least favorite show.
The muscles in his jaw work and rework, loosen and tighten again like he’s chewing hard on a decision.
“Are you going to make me stand in the hall all night, Callen?”
“Would you?” he asks. “To prove a point?”
I nod. “Yes.”
He should close the door. We both know he should close the door.
He steps back. “Come in.”
The apartment’s dark, lit blue by a laptop screen on the coffee table. Callen shuts the door behind me and I thank all of my lucky stars that I’m on this side of it.
“Why are you here,” he asks simply. It’s not a question so much as a last line of defense.
“You know why.”
“Sylvie—”
“I haven’t slept,” I admit.
He folds his arms across his chest, a hazy nonchalance in his expression that says he’s not buying it. But I’m being genuine. For the first time in a really long time, I’m trying to connect. I take a step toward him. “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” He takes a step back in tandem with my advance.
I huff in frustration. “For whatever you want me to be sorry for.”
“That’s a shit apology.”
“Well, how about you start? You can show me how to apologize by doing it first.” I twist my foot into his floorboard like I’m squashing a bug. “Because you’re really starting to piss me off.”
That finally earns me a reaction. His brows furrow into a cocktail of confusion and anger. “What did I do?”
“You led me on. You made me feel…and then you just…shook my hand like we’re…?” I have never sounded more incoherent in my life, and that includes the time I took really good ’shrooms in Ibiza. “You didn’t call, you fucking asshole.”
“I didn’t know I was supposed to.” He shrugs. “I have nothing to say.”
I sigh in defeat and hold up five fingers. “Saoirse,” I say, letting my natural accent whisper through for one word. I fold down one finger. “Sylvie or Kezia.” I fold down another. “Samantha, Maeve, and Jennifer—just once at a coffee shop for no reason.”
“What are you doing?”
“Those are all the names I’ve used while I’ve been in D.C.
I am actually twenty-six. My favorite color is teal.
My favorite animal is a bat. I drink whiskey, neat, to impress men, but I prefer a lemon drop with extra maraschino cherries.
I hate marshmallows—the texture freaks me out.
I am a borderline kleptomaniac, but the job has to be a challenge.
I would’ve probably taken your Rolex the first night we met if it weren’t like stealing candy from a baby, that’s no fun.
I’ve never had a pet. I act confident, but I’m oddly insecure about my ass.
It’s a little lopsided. And last but not least, Oreos are my new favorite dessert.
I haven’t been able to stop—I will never stop—thinking about that night.
It was the best I’ve ever had. And now, I’ve told you more truths than lies.
So please”—I hold out my hand—“can we start over?”
He uncrosses his arms, but he doesn’t move.
“Please?” I ask again.
“Does Cricket know you’re here?”
I will never get used to all of these people calling my sister Cricket. What the fuck kind of name is “Cricket?” She seems to like it though. She seems to belong to whatever they are. It’s unnerving. I wasn’t aware that after what we’d been through, we could really belong to anything.
“No,” I answer. “She’s a little overbearing. I’ve been sleeping at my hotel the past two nights. I’m overwhelmed.”
“How do you mean?” He takes a step closer and I can almost feel the heat coming off him. Yet, a chill of vulnerability runs through my insides, so I wrap my arms around myself.
“It’s a lot. I buried Saoirse so deep that I forgot who she is. But Fiona—I mean Cricket—found a way to preserve all the best parts of her. She found Lance. She kept him all this time.” I nod like it makes sense. Of course, none of it does. “They look good together, don’t they?”
Callen gets this whimsical look on his face, and wets his lips. “I can’t remember a time when they weren’t attached at the hip, but believe it or not, not too long ago, Lance needed a bodyguard to protect him from her.” His face cringes up. “Your sister is a little stabby.”
“I’m worse. I’m a lot stabby.”
“I believe you.” Callen lets out a soft laugh, his shoulders relaxing. “You must’ve had a lot to talk about over the past week.”
“Yes.” I nod rapidly, tears out of nowhere beginning to break at my water line.
“Like how Luca Accardi, prince of the Italian mafia, locked my sister in his lair and raped her for weeks straight. And she let him because he promised I was alive. Or, how it turns out my mother didn’t die in a tragic car accident when we were little girls.
My dad ordered the hit on his own wife. He demanded that car be pushed into the river when she threatened to take me and Fiona away from his bloodlust tyranny.
” The tears break free, striping down my cheeks.
“All that and we might’ve watched Frozen by my recommendation. ”
“Frozen?”
“One and two. A double feature.”
One more step closer. “We already watched that, didn’t we?” Before I realize it, his thumbs are out, wiping the tears away from both cheeks.
“I didn’t see much the first time. I was watching you—your laughs and scoffs. The way you light up at the dumb moose.” I sniffle and more tears replace the ones Callen wiped away.
“It’s a reindeer,” he corrects. Then, he does it again, using the edge of his thumbs to trace the tear lines, and squeegee them away.
I look up. He’s towering over me. I forgot my boots only have a short heel. He feels so much more intimidating in dim lighting, looking at me like he can’t decide if I’m precious or a problem. “I like this a lot.”
“I don’t,” I try to shoot back, but my voice is all blubbery. “You like it when I cry, you sicko?”
“Tears like this are honest.”
“Callen,” I say, quietly now, but firm, “if you ever offer to shake my hand again, I’m going to break every finger you have. In two places each.”
“Noted,” he breathes out. “How should I say truce?”
“Kiss me.”
“I don’t kiss my colleagues, Sylvie.”
I find his eyes and hold them there, a dare and a door at the same time. “I’m not your fucking colleague. I’m the woman you wanted.” I crunch my toes in my boots, trying to control the pounding in my body. My instincts want to shy away from the danger, flee the room, pretend this didn’t happen.
My body fears the pain of rejection.
“Still want,” he admits softly. Just like that, it’s wind under wings, thirst quenched, light in the darkest space.
He dips down and gently presses his lips to mine, arm slinking around my waist to pull me closer.
For one second it’s soft—a question, an apology, the soft start-over I asked for.
And then his hand comes up into my hair and balls into a fist. The softness burns off in an instant, and I kiss him back with a week’s worth of sleepless fury.
The sound he makes when I kiss him too hard is less a grunt and more the air leaving a punched lung. But it coaxes him on.
It isn’t gentle. None of it is. He walks me backward until my spine hits the wall and he kisses me like he’s furious, like he’s grieving, like he’s been starving and only just confessed it.
I give it right back, reaching up to hold the back of his neck, keeping him in place, so my tongue is free to dominate his.
I reach down to cup his dick which is complete steel, angrily hard. Hmm, interesting. It’s kissing like this that turns him on, like intimacy is the magic trick.
“Should we really be doing this?” he asks into my mouth.
“I don’t care.”
I push him away, barely a nudge, but he takes a leap backward as if I said no. I only wanted room to give him a show. I untie my waistband. Button by button I unfasten my long coat and let it drop from my shoulders, wearing nothing but sheer black, lace underwear and my tall boots.