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After a deep breath, I pull my phone out and make the call.
“Good,” Kordin says when I’m finished. “Tomorrow I’ll let them know to cancel my membership.”
Two birds just met their demise and there’s nothing I can do about it. Despite only having his left hand, Kordin still pitched his one stone with perfect precision. I’m once again cut off from his secret connections and he gets a weekend with whichever girlfriend he chooses.
“Thank you, Kordin. You think of everything.”
“Anything for my wife,” comes out in an equally placating, borderline patronizing, tone as mine.
Lex
Reece enters my office, stands across from me, and sets the flower and dark-looking romance down without bothering to sit. It’s the same energy he’s been using all week, like he’s on autopilot. He’s doing what he’s done every day he’s worked here, and yet now he’s doing itwrong.
“Have anything new to tell me?” I ask him despite already knowing his answer.
“No,” he says for the fifth day in a row before twisting away so he’s no longer facing me.
I leave for the mountains in a matter of hours and I still haven’t told Reece, mainly because he doesn’t stick around long enough for me to be able to, but also because of this…indifference. He barely meets my eyes, he speaks in a clipped tone, and he doesn’t bring us up at all—not what happened between us, not what he wishes would happen between us, nothing. He just gives me a rundown of his workday—his actual workday—before walking right back out.
The ring I gave him is still on his finger though. I can’t help seeking it out each and every time I look at him. Even when I see him watching me out in the parking lot, his fist tightened on the top of his steering wheel, I search for the custom band.
It means nothing,I remind myself.
Unlike today’s flower, a black Dahlia, which I know has a meaning. Probably an ominous one. Yesterday’s was a Begonia. I looked it up and none of its meanings were good. Lots about caution and warnings, but also deep thinking.
If he has a warning for me, I need to know now. I’m still just as out of the loop as I’ve always been. In spite of requiring Reece’s eyes and ears, all I’ve managed to utilize so far is his cock.
It is a fabulous cock though. The man attached to it isn’t that bad either, not that I could ever tell him that.
With a sigh, I relocate both gifts to my bottom drawer, careful not to smash any of the other flowers.
“I’ve gotta check out a building over on Birch and—”
“What does it mean?” I ask him point-blank, a little mad at myself for caring so much. Not a little. A lot. I shouldn’t care at all. I wish he’d stop giving me flowers altogether.
Reece releases his own heavy exhale. “Some countries think birch is a symbol of good luck.”
“What does the Dahlia mean?” I snap, because the truth is I hope he never stops giving me flowers.
And that’s the problem. I don’t like him being distant and I should. I should be ecstatic he’s finally heeding my own warning. I should be, but I’m not.
Reece stares into my eyes for the first time in a week. I hold the black volcanic glass pools, desperately wanting to understand what’s below their surface.
“Dishonesty. Betrayal,” he bites out, the disapproval rattling my ears like a clap of thunder, the finality ringing long after. It hurts my ears, but more than that, it hurts something deeper inside me.
Nobody was supposed to ever reach that.
“You’re sure you weren’t able to get anything out of Kaisin?”
I know he got Kaisin drunk on purpose. He took him home, too, which gave him the perfect opportunity to get some answers—assuming Kaisin had any to give—but every time I ask, Reece acts oblivious. Something changed over the weekend to make him behave like this. Why won’t he tell me what it was?
His shrug is too easy, too relaxed. “He didn’t say a word.”
Either Reece is a terrible spy, he’s lying, or both.
“And you’re sure you’re not responsible for his hand being injured?”
Monday morning Kaisin had a thick padding of gauze wrapped around his right hand. On my way into my office, I heard somebody ask him what happened, causing his face to turn a very perplexing shade of red as he muttered through a completely implausible story.
