Page 121 of My Beautiful Sin

Then, without really thinking about it at all, I sit on the bed and pull the computer into my lap. I shut down the program, then shoot off a quick email to Roger.

Render complete. Tell Corbin he may be a shit reporter, but he knows his way around a computer. Too bad the photo doesn’t help us. The figures are facing the wrong direction. No identifying features.

Was worth a shot, though.

I hit send before I have the chance to talk myself out of it. Except that’s not really true. I could have days to contemplate and engage in internal debate and self-reflection, but the result would still be the same. I’m not outing Devlin. Not like that.

Probably not ever.

I roll onto my side, then pull down a pillow and curl up against it as I wonder what kind of person that makes me.

More, I wonder what this tiny bit of help I just gave to Devlin and Ronan means for Devlin and me in the long run. Am I sliding back into his arms? Or am I simply doing what I can to clear a path so that I can walk away, leaving nothing behind except the status quo?

I wake to the sun streaming through the windows, my laptop’s battery run dry, and me still in clothes and on top of the covers.

I sit up, groggy, then jump when my phone chimes, recognizing the sound that had pulled me from sleep. I grab the phone from the far side of the bed where I must have pushed it in sleepy protest, then fumble to connect the call, only half acknowledging Tamra’s name on the screen.

“Um, hello?”

“Oh, sweetie, how are you?”

I sit up quickly, then put the phone on speaker as I rub my hands over my face, trying to eradicate the last wisps of sleep. “Devlin told you.”

“He did.”

I nod, expecting the answer. Of course he told Tamra. What I know now affects both Tamra and Anna deeply. But more than that, Devlin knows that Tamra cares about me, and that the feeling is mutual. He’d want me to be able to talk to her.

I smile a bit, appreciating that he’d thought of it even as I’d pushed him away.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Honestly? I don’t know.”

“I understand that. Sometimes a thing can be talked to death. Sometimes it’s not about words at all, but feelings.”

“I think it’s always about feelings,” I counter. “Right now, though, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel.”

“And then trying to find the words to describe it,” she adds with a laugh. “It all circles back again.”

“Maybe. For a writer, words are failing me.”

“I’m not surprised. Your head must be overflowing with emotions and facts and moral quandaries.”

“Pretty much.”

“Forgive me for adding to the morass, but I realized I never told you how I came to join Saint’s Angels. And I think the story might interest you.”

“It does,” I say, then slide up the bed so that I can sit more comfortably.

“I’ve known of Devlin since he was very young. But he didn’t know me until after he ran from his father. I told you that before, of course.

I nod, then say, “Right,” since, of course, she can’t see me.

“My husband led a military rescue mission. His team—they—they became trapped.” Her voice breaks, and I pull my knees up and hug them, anticipating what was coming. “They were taken. Held hostage. Ransomed. And tortured. We know because their captors sent pictures.” I hear her swallow. “We, however, sent no one. No rescue team. No support.”

“Devlin’s team got them out?” I hear the hope in my words.

“No. Devlin had no team. Not then. And soon I had no husband.” She pauses. “Devlin came to me a year later. He told me what he was doing with the foundation. He told me that it was both real and a front. He told me about Saint’s Angels. About the work he was doing on both sides. The foundation helping the kind of people his father’s enterprise turned into victims. And his invisible team helping to eradicate men like his father in the first place.”