AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Groaning, she glanced toward the window to her right and saw the familiar mountain range of her homeland. “Let me guess. My father probably knew about the accident five minutes before it happened.”
There was no point in bemoaning the news. She would get the best medical care here, and then she would leave again. Nothing had changed. She had made that choice long ago.
“Close to it,” Gideon said. “We were picked up a few hours after it happened.”
“Thank you for coming with me. I’m sure that was no fun.”
When he didn’t answer right away, she knew all was not right. “Uh-oh, Papa didn’t give you a hard time, did he?”
Her closest relatives knew that Gideon was her best friend and had every right to be wherever she was, but with a family as opinionated as hers was, there were always differing views of how things should be done.
“No, everyone has been very gracious.”
“Good.” Her father was likely a nervous wreck. Her brothers were probably just as bad. They would have so many questions she didn’t want to answer. Over the years, her father had come to terms with both her profession and her chosen way of life, but her brothers had been kept out of the details. They knew almost nothing about her real life.
But to all of them, seeing her like this would be a dark reminder of horrific things they’d all tried to forget.
“There’s something else you need to know, Eve.”
Frowning at the grave expression on his face, she whispered, “Something’s happened. Tell me quick. Who’s hurt?”
“No one. It’s not that.”
“Then what, Gideon? You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t just work for Option Zero. I have another responsibility.”
She struggled to comprehend what he was trying to tell her. Admittedly, her head was pounding, and her body felt as if she’d gone twelve bouts with a heavyweight fighter, but she shouldn’t be this slow on the uptake.
“What are you talking about?”
“You, Eve. You’re my responsibility.”
Relief flooded her, along with a wave of adoration for this wonderful man. “Of course I’m your responsibility, Gideon. Just like you’re mine. We take care of each other. That’s who we are.”
“No. Not like that.”
“I don’t understand. What are you trying to say?”
“I work for your father. I have for years. I was hired to protect you.”
All air left the room. Everything within Eve froze. She thought perhaps her heart had stopped beating, too, and a small part of her said that was okay, because if it didn’t stop beating, then it was going to shatter into infinitesimal fragments.
“How long?” Her voice sounded dry, unemotional, as though she didn’t care. But his answer to this question might well be the most important one of all. Everything depended upon this answer.
When he blew out a ragged sigh, she could tell Gideon knew exactly how important the answer would be and that it was going to destroy them.
“A little over ten years.”
And there went her heart, shattering into a billion little pieces. Before she allowed herself to acknowledge the pain, every muscle in her body clenched in fury. Blood pumped through her veins with a vicious surge of anger.
She could see the distress on his face, the tension around his eyes and mouth. He knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling. That was the problem with knowing each other so well. It was hard to hide feelings.
But apparently, it wasn’t hard for him to hide other things.
Betrayal. There was no other word for it, but what a silly-sounding, innocuous term for such a painful event. She had been betrayed in the past, in a hideous, brutal way, but this? She knew in her heart she would never recover from this one.
“Talk to me, Eve,” Gideon said. “Yell at me. Just say something.”
