Page 80 of Salt Kiss
“It was a gift from Mark, for my birthday,” she says. She flips it easily in her hand, catching it by the blade with alarming confidence, and then holds it out to me.
I take it and trace my fingers over the floral pattern in the hilt.
“Honeysuckle,” she says. “It’s supposed to bring good luck to a marriage.”
I look up at her and hand it back with a smile. It’s so easy to smile at her, easier than it’s been in years. I’m not sure why, since it’s not like she’s smiling much back. “And if it doesn’t bring good luck, you can always stab him with it.”
“A shame he seems remarkably resilient to stab wounds then,” she says, and there’s the tiniest flicker of her eyebrow. My smile widens. Her dry riposte, her eyebrow—it feels like a victory somehow, like the rush of taking a hill in the forest or a contested bridge over a river. I’m ready to plant a flag here between us, right in front of her bare, delicate feet.
Her gaze drops to my mouth, and then her eyebrow lowers again. She turns away, walking over to where the knife’s sheath rests on the mat near the mirror.
“You looked lethal as hell, doing all that earlier,” I say, not wanting this moment to be over. “You could give Mr. Trevena lessons. He could have used them when Lyonesse was attacked.”
She picks up the sheath and slides the weapon inside as she stands, every shift and gesture as graceful and deliberate as her movements earlier, when it was just her and the mirror and the knife. “Did you see the attack? When it happened?”
“Yes.” I lean one shoulder against the mirror, my hands in the pockets of Mark’s shorts. “I was too late. Mark was trying to fight the guy off, but he was—” I pause, loyalty to Mark stilling my tongue. “Well, he’s been retired from the CIA for a while,” I hedge instead.
Her lower lip catches briefly on her teeth, like she’s trying to make sense of this. “I’ve only sparred him once, but he was incredibly good.Unfairlygood,” she says, and there’s a tinge of irritation to her voice, like this still stings. “It was a long time ago, though. These things can change.”
“I suppose.” I glance out the window, where a light drizzle has started. “What are you going to do with your day? I’m under strict orders to help you relax, you know, so please don’t say work.”
“My firm is able to spare me for a bit,” she says, “since I’ve just started there. So no work.”
“Good. I’ve always said that everyone needs a break from art history once in a while.”
She’s doing that mouth corner thing again, the almost-smile. “You’re not wrong about that,” she admits. “I actually wanted to major in theology instead of art history. Well, truthfully, I didn’t want to major at all because I wanted to become a nun after high school. But my father was not so keen on the idea.”
“Anun?” I’m fascinated. It’s quite a step fromnunto Mark Trevena.
The almost-smile deepens. “Yes, a nun. But my father convinced me otherwise. He wants me to take over Laurence Bank one day, and that would be difficult as someone who’d taken a vow of poverty. So...college. A double major in business finance and art history: finance for my father, and art history for me, because if I couldn’t be a nun, I still wanted to have a part of what I love about my church—the history and the beauty. I’ll get to spend every day looking at religious art and artifacts and making sure they’re finding the right homes.”
“And the bank?” I ask, desperate for her to keep talking. It’s the most she’s said at one time since I met her. “Doesn’t your father want you to come work for him and not for...Catholic artifacts?”
She’s drifted over to a window ledge now, unscrewing the top from a glass bottle of water. She takes a drink before she answers, and I look down at my feet on the mat. Cross my ankles, one foot propped on the toe of my shoe. Because watching her throat when she drinks feels like the uncleanest prurience right now.
“He does,” she says once she’s swallowed. She screws the cap back on the bottle with a quick, practiced spin, and tucks it into the crook of her elbow so she can slide the sheathed knife into the waistband of her shorts. Like she wants her hands free as much as possible, which is a preference I share. Old habit from my combat days.
“He wants me working there yesterday,” she continues. “But I’ve told him it needs to wait. I’ve already compromised enough by not going into the church. He doesn’t get to take the rest of my life away too. At least not yet.”
“But you wouldn’t have joined the church anyway,” I remark as I join her and walk out of the small training room. “Because you met Mr. Trevena and fell in love.”
She pauses as we step into the hallway.
“Very true,” she affirms after a beat, like I’ve made an interesting, if irrelevant, point. “But as it stands, I still don’t want to be a banker just yet. It’s an ongoing argument.”
I look at her, damp and flushed from her training, that strangely pretty knife shoved into her shorts. “No, I can’t say I see you as a banker myself.”
“What will you do with the rest ofyourday?” she asks. It’s still in that polite voice, like she’s dispensing with whatever social obligation I represent, but her eyes are on me and she’s turned toward me too. I have her full attention, which feels good.
“If it stops raining, I might try the pool,” I say. “It’s heated, supposedly, so it should be quite nice.”
“I really want to swim,” she says with a glance through the doorway to the window. “But I didn’t pack a swimsuit.”
“Have you checked your room?” I ask. “This yacht is like the castle inBeauty and the Beast. It will provide anything you need—dojo, chapel, swimsuit.”
“The yacht will provide. I like that.” Another almost-smile. She’s still looking at the window.
I decide that I’ve hovered long enough and make one of thoseI should get goingsighs, even though I have nowhere to get going to. Lunch is served buffet-style for us and the crew, and dinner isn’t for hours yet—and it’s not like I have a date. But as much as Mark wants me to put her at ease, I don’t want to smother her with attention. “I think I’m going to check out the basketball court and then maybe the gym, see if I can manage a treadmill on the waves.”
