The corners of his lips turn up with satisfaction. “Why was that so hard to admit?”
He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything about me.
I can’t meet his gaze. I know the gold will be shining in the chestnut of his eyes. “I’m through with my coffee,” I say, starting to stand. “It’s time to leave.”
“Kate—” he says.
“I want to go home!” I interrupt.
That’s the first time I’ve thought of the Georgetown mansion ashome. The first time I’ve admitted, even in that roundabout way, that this is where I live now. That this is my life.
Wolf collects our cups and deposits them in the trash. He leads the way back to the car, flashing his arm in front of my body to keep me from crossing the street when a car darts through on an amber light.
There’s a ticket on the Bentley’s windscreen, but Wolf hardly seems to notice. He just folds it double and slips it inside his pocket. He doesn’t say a word as he navigates through thecity streets, around a traffic circle, and back to the high brick wall that I still have no way to clear.
Once he’s parked in the garage, he heads to his office. Only when I’m sitting in front of my own computer do I think of all the things I could have asked him.
When did you become so good at computers?
Do you ever want, even for a few seconds, to be with another human being, instead of on your own?
How did you learn the things we do in the basement?
Why won’t you let us fuck?
I think them. But I’m not sure I want to know the answers.
37
COLE
Kate picked a disaster of a day to break out.
I’ve sent a new employee, Tyler Orbach, up to Boston to handle Fiona Moran’s account, recalling the too-laid-back Jalen Carpenter. Tyler is under strict instructions to check in three times a day so I can intervene with Fiona at the first sign that anything’s going awry. I hope the kid can save the account.
I received a call from another member of the Diamond Ring, Gage Rider, with an offer of work. By day, Rider owns Atlantic City’s professional hockey team, the Aces. By night, he runs Kynk, an underground sex club in Brooklyn. Kynk needs to update its client management software. Ordinarily, that type of thing is way below my pay grade, but given the club’s elite clientele and their need for absolute security… I agreed to write the code.
I’m handling a small matter for FirstCayman Limited,reinforcing the bank’s firewall, which must be completed by close of business.
I’m consulting on the in-home computer network for a certain government official who has recently been named director of an agency so secret it doesn’t appear on any official site.
I’m keeping an eye on all the Ice Knights in Winter Reckoning, monitoring the conversation in their new, private chat room. Kate—CyberGhost—has heard about the new in-game status, and she’s demanded admission, but so far she seems content to wait for an answer.
I’m receiving a whole new round of questions from reporters about the client hit list. I don’t know if my blackmailer has released new information, or if the earlier list is simply being shared more broadly. I sent Nilsson out to clear the walk twice this morning, issuing a blanketNo Commentto paparazzi questions. I suspect the matter isn’t put to bed yet.
Barry Lynch has called six times since breakfast.
And I have ten days left to decide how to respond to my blackmailer’s threat to disclose my fraudulent past.
So I obviously didn’t have time to go chasing after Kate. Not when I’ve expressly forbidden her to leave the premises. Not when the tracker Nilsson placed in the seam of her new jacket went off like a tornado siren in the middle of a conference call with three Swiss bank presidents.
But it’s a good thing I followed her.
My sweet sub is wrestling with the truth. She’s accepting what I’ve known since my palm landed on her cheek in Boston. For the first time in her life, she’s willing to hand over all her power to another person—me—and it scares the ever-loving shit out of her.
Once I understood what she was grappling with, that she wasn’t just testing my rules for the usual hell of it, I was more than willing to buy her a cup of coffee. It was worth losing an hour, to give my wife what she needs.
I lost another hour, though, staring at my computer screen, wondering why it was so goddamn difficult for Kate to admit that her grandmother loves her. Actuallyprefersher to the seemingly perfect, unbearably dull Breagha.
