Page 10 of Honey Cut
“Mark is hard to read, so it’s impossible to say for certain—but I don’t think so.” Tristan squeezed my hand. “If I had to guess, I think Sedge suspects there’s something unusual about your marriage and is reluctant to embarrass himself by coming to Mark with something Mark won’t actually care about. But we should still be careful. Check our own rooms here for cameras. Assume Sedge is watching.”
I squeeze his hand back. I don’t want to let go. The simple touch is so reassuring, so anchoring, and it makes something protective flare in my chest. I want to keep him safe from Mark’s games. From my own. I want that goodness inside him to stay good, no matter how much I also want to eat it from its source.
I’ll have to be strong for the both of us.
“You’re right,” I say. “You should go. Tomorrow, we’ll search our rooms and we’ll be…better.”
He bends over, presses his forehead to the back of my hand. I allow myself one caress of his thick, silky hair and then lift my fingers away.
He exits with the heavy tread of a soldier, and I’m left with a loneliness so heavy and familiar that it feels like I’ve never known anything else in my life.
four
ISOLDE
“I thinkwe met at a place much like this.”
I don’t turn as Mark joins me at the glass railing of the rooftop terrace. It’s the night of the engagement party, and Mark and I are waiting for the first of our guests. Behind us, servers are loading trays with flutes of champagne and canapés, and a quartet in the corner is warming up. Mark is wearing a tuxedo—Zegna, I think—the double-breasted jacket fitted tightly to his waist, the creases of the trousers razor-sharp. His shoes shine like an oil spill.
“You know we did,” I murmur.
“You look stunning, by the way.”
He had a late meeting today, and so we arrived here separately, not seeing each other until now. In fact, I’ve barely seen him since the day I came home to Manhattan. I wake early, in the dark, and pray until it’s time to go to the dojo, where I train until it’s time to go to the antiquities firm I use as a cover for my real job for the Church. Mark’s had his own work, his own meetings, and Tristan’s split his time between us, escorting me to the dojo and to the office and then home again.
At night, Tristan and I stay in our own beds, although when I finally shake off the nightmares and make myself breathe again, I can hear the brush of Tristan’s hand flat against my door, like it’s taking everything he’s got not to come in and help me.
At no point has Mark indicated that he knows about what Tristan and I did on the yacht. Even Sedge ignores me when he sees me.
But no matter how I rationalize it to myself, no matter how much I remind myself that I didn’t do anything wrong, Sedge knowing about Tristan and me feels dangerous. Omen-like, even.
And all I can do is wait and hope Sedge chooses silence.
“Thank you,” I say now. I’m in a periwinkle chiffon dress with a high slit and a bodice that drops in a daring, if narrow, plunge to my sternum. The collar of the dress comes high around my neck and then billows behind me like a scarf or a cape down to the floor. The whole effect is fluttering, traditionally feminine, perfect for a Laurence bride.
But the glimpses of skin, the collar, all speak to beingMark’sbride.
I glance over at him and wish I hadn’t. His dark-gold hair is styled back from his face, making him look more debonair than usual, and he’s freshly shaven, meaning there’s nothing hiding the carved jaw and cheekbones. If Tristan looks like a Victorian painting, then Mark looks like a statue of a god, the kind that stares vengefully up at whatever unlucky archaeologist happens to uncover it.
I look away before he can catch my gaze. The last thing I need are those blue eyes while I’m trying to stay steady. While I’m steeling myself for the job to come.
“Tonight will be threading a needle,” I say. The guest list for the party is a mix of society types, politicians, and businesspeople—and several of those guests are also members of Lyonesse. We’ll need to show a traditional power couple to one group of guests and a kinky one to the other.
Not to mention that my fiancé is someone who got stabbed in his own club less than two months ago. I can’t forget that Mark’s world is a perilous one…and that he is the one who makes it perilous.
He turns so that his back is to the wall and he’s facing the terrace. His hand is in his pocket now, and he’s leaning back with his elbow propped on the railing. “Yes. But you’re good at that, are you not? Pretending different things to different people?”
My pulse gives a heavy, cortisol-laced rush, but I betray nothing, breathing the same, blinking the same. He means our marriage. He doesn’t mean that I’ve been pretending not to be an assassin for the Catholic Church for the past three years. He doesn’t mean that I’ve been pretending to accept this marriage for my father’s sake rather than for God’s.
He doesn’t mean that I’ve been pretending I don’t know what his bodyguard’s mouth feels like.
“I’m out of practice with the Lyonesse version of myself,” I say instead of answering him directly.
“I’ll guide you if you need it,” he says. “You remember our signals?”
I nod. A thumb running over his fingertips forgood. A thumb in the middle of his palm forwatch me. A thumb and forefinger pressed together forstop.
“There is one more thing,” he says, straightening off the railing and coming to stand behind me. I look back at him as he brushes a length of chiffon from my shoulder. His hand leaves warmth behind it, electricity, even in the heat of this summer evening.
