“Does Dash believe that?”
Gideon let out a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh.
“Dash believes what he must in order to keep breathing.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
But her question brought them back to other things Dash believed. A good deal of it lies.
Gideon shook his head.
He couldn’t rewrite the past, but he needed to set things straight in the present. And that meant telling his friend the truth.
He exhaled a slow breath and then lifted his gaze to hers. “I cannot keep secrets from him, Beatrice,” he said. “Not any longer.”
Her brow furrowed. “Which secrets?”
“All of them. About… us. About the skirmishes you’ve had. The lessons. Your mission, and why–”
“No!” She shot up from the sofa.
“He needs to know.”
“No.” Her voice sharpened. “He does not.”
“Beatrice—”
“You would not dare. That is my secret. Leave Dash out of it.”
Gideon’s jaw tightened.
She thought he did not understand. But he did.
Dash believed his sister had suffered some ordinary disappointment of the heart. He had no notion what drove her watchfulness. What had driven her to stand between other women and men who ought to have been dragged into the street and beaten senseless.
And while Dash had buried himself in his own misery, Beatrice had carried all of it alone.
“He thinks you were jilted in love,” Gideon said.
Beatrice went very still.
“And that is a convenient explanation,” he continued. “One he can go right on believing.”
Her eyes flashed. “Do not.”
“Dash needs to understand that you have needed him.”
“No.”
“He needs to know what you have carried all these years. And he needs to know that you have been risking yourself because of it.”
“I said no.”
Gideon’s voice lowered. “He needs to be your brother again, Beatrice.”
For one suspended moment, her expression changed.
Then the hurt came back harder.
