Page 120 of Honey Cut
Why am I all over this box? Why are there pictures from before Mark and I even met?
Why—I don’t?—
“It’s old-fashioned of me to keep so much committed to paper, but I thought you as a saint would understand,” says Mark from the doorway to the office.
He arrived silently, is already leaning against the doorjamb with his arms crossed. Drawstring pants hang low on his waist, but he’s otherwise undressed.
You as a saint.
No.
No, he can’t mean?—
But here I am, his safe open, his wooden boxes in front of me. Here I am in the dark, in his office, alone.
And he doesn’t seem surprised in the least.
“After all,” Mark continues easily, “the Scales prefers paper, doesn’t he? We are alike in that way. I, of course, wouldn’t keep everything in a safe; I’m not a complete Luddite. But it is nice to have some things close at hand, convenient reminders for when the way forward is murky.”
The Scales.
How does he know about the Scales?
My hands are shaking. I press them to the glass top of the desk to hide my nerves.
“Why are there pictures of me in this box?” I ask. My voice isn’t steady, isn’t controlled, and I hate it, I hate that he’s now strolling toward me like nothing has changed, and I feel like I’ve been yanked underwater. Under cold, dark water.
Mark stops a few steps away from his desk and looks down at the scatter of pictures and articles. When he lifts his face to mine, it’s unreadable in the moonlight.
“You can’t guess?” he asks quietly.
I shake my head. I don’t trust myself to speak right now.
“I told you,” he says, “that first dinner of ours. Do you remember? I asked for you because I wanted you. Did you think it was because you were the Laurence heiress? Because I wanted to fuck you?”
I stare at him. I had thought that. That I was a business opportunity who also happened to be desirable.
“Your uncle, the spymaster. The head of the saints.” Mark’s voice is still quiet, but it is cold. So horribly cold. “The Scales, an identity no one can crack open. But what luck when I hear that his beautiful niece wants to join the Church when she grows up. His beautiful niece, a saint in training. His beautiful niece with her vain, foolish father who will give her away without wondering why an invaluable opportunity happened to fall into his lap without him seeking it. With her sly uncle, who will convince her the marriage is a sacrifice to God.”
Something runs down my face, fast and hot, and drops onto the desk.
“If I wanted His Eminence Mortimer Cashel, if I wanted the Scales, what better way than this lovely, sad girl, doomed to kill and kill again and forever be told it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough for God.”
I’m actually crying now, my lashes laden with tears, and I try to wipe them away. “I don’t understand how you know,” I whisper. “I don’t understand how you know what I’ve done.”
He gives me a pitying look. “I’ve always known what you’ve done, little wife. Since that first summer in Rome. I did warn you, didn’t I? That I’ve played this game a long time?”
“So was any of it real? Ever? What you said on our wedding night? What you said tonight?”
Something flashes through his face. “Yes, Isolde. All of that was real.”
“How?How can it have been real when our entire marriage is a lie?—”
“I don’t know!” he roars, and I step back, my fingers flexing instinctively in search of my knife—oh God, the knife he gave meknowinghow I’d use it.
“I don’t know,” he says again, stabbing a hand through his hair, suddenly as undone as I am. “It wasn’t supposed to happen, Isolde. I was supposed to use you and keep you at a distance. I was supposed to play the part within the part, the untouchable man inside the respectful but unattached husband. But then things started unraveling, tangling, and I thought putting distance between us would help, truly. It helped nothing. You came back, and I wanted to trap you inside my rib cage again, keep you inside me and next to my heart.”
“Am I supposed to believe that?” I manage to say. My voice is thick and choked with tears. “Am I supposed to believe that this isn’t another layer to the deception? So you can use me to…to what? To kill my uncle? To find the Scales?”
