Page 134 of The Saint (Gentlemen Rogues 3)
"Exactly. Anyway, I did make it home. But I didn't have a key, so I had to sit outside. And by then, it had started raining, so I just pulled up my little hood on my little rain coat, and I sat there waiting for her."
"I'm not sure I like your mother."
"Yeah, the feeling was mutual. Especially during my teens. I sat there for five whole minutes before she came out from the back garden. She'd been following me the whole way."
Saint pulled back and stared down at me. "Excuse me?"
"Yeah, making sure I was safe. She had an eye on me the whole time, ready to jump out and claim me if anyone asked me anything untoward. I was so relieved I cried."
"Of course, you did. I would have cried, too, even though my father was all about the boys-don't-cry mentality. Idiot."
"And as I cried, she held me and told me how brave I was, and how she was delighted that I even took a moment for myself and my sanity to ride the swing. And how even when I was scared, I still managed to do what I needed to do, and that was what I needed to remember. In that moment, it was funny, because I loved her so much. I loved her for not leaving me. I loved her because she was my mum. But as a teenager, when I thought back to that day, I hated her. I hated her so much that it consumed me. It was all I could think about, how she'd abandoned me. I can see now that she was making me strong, building me a suit of armor, test by test, tower by tower." I shook my head. "Now I see it's more complicated than that."
"It's always more complicated than that."
"And you and your dad?"
"Unfortunately, Dad and I are not more complicated. He hates me because my grandfather hated him and put me in charge of the company. I think Granddad could see that Adrianna wasn't interested, and I think he could see that while Trevor was interested, he was trying to prove something. But sometimes I wish he'd chosen Trevor. It would have made Trevor happier. At least, I think it would. I always wonder if he thinks of it as a slight and that Granddad didn't trust him, didn't believe in him or something."
"Do you think it was a slight?"
"I don't know, but the guilt I carry might as well be mine, right?"
"No. Even the guilt I have for not looking hard enough for mum, I recognize that that's not on me. I was fifteen. You had nothing to do with your grandfather making his choices in this world. You were a kid. It's what you do with it and how you handle it when you know better or learn more, I think."
"You're right."
"Your mum's silence, you have mixed feelings about it?"
"Yeah. Badass agent on one end, complicated mother on another. But through all of this, part of me is wondering if she actually is there. If she's still alive, is she around? Is she watching me?"
CHAPTER 42
SAINT
Our rideback to London was certainly tense and fraught with anxiety. I could tell that Kaya had a lot on her mind. We'd come all that way and still gotten no definitive answers. Not to mention someone had tried to kill us, which was par for the course these days.
If Gabe knew how dangerous this was going to be, then what the fuck was he doing? This whole time, I felt like I was fighting with a hand tied behind my back and that there was always something that I couldn't see. Some aspect that I couldn't touch.
What was he hiding? What was he keeping us from?
Oversight had a way of slipping in personal agendas. We'd certainly seen it with Saff and Gabe. Oversight had been eager to get Saff in the field. Gabe not so much. The missions we took on, the prioritizations. Who was pulling our strings now?
We arrived back on Rogues campus later that afternoon. Gemma was the first one to reach the parking lot, and she threw herself at Kaya. "Oh my God, I thought you went and died on me. What the fuck?" She turned to me then. "You, you're in trouble." She whacked me on the arm. "You took my best friend into danger." And then in the same breath, she hugged me. "But then you saved her life. So, yay."
I rubbed my arm. "You're surprisingly strong."
"I get that a lot." She turned her attention back toKaya. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah. Except for dry hair, I'm fine. Saint saved me. Honestly, without him, I don't know what would have happened."
"So what happens now?"
Gabe was hanging on the periphery. "What happens now is you debrief." When he turned his back to stalk back to the building, Kaya frowned at him.
"Well, he certainly does give off a welcoming aura, doesn't he?"
I chuckled low. "Yeah, that's Gabe for you."
