He clapped Dakota on the shoulder and disappeared inside, leaving the patio door open behind him.
Lynx stood there, watching him go.
And then she stepped onto the patio.
He turned away.
The bridge was fully lit now, its golden arch bright against clouds that had turned deep violet. City lights sparkled across the water. The temperature had dropped.
She’d changed clothes, wearing a sweater over her yoga pants, her hair loose around her shoulders. And weirdly, she looked different than he’d ever seen her. Not the polished hotel inspector. Not the flirtatious travel companion. Not even the sharp-eyed operative from the coffee shop.
She looked tired. Vulnerable. Real.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Just that. Two words. Simple. No deflection, no performance, no carefully constructed excuse.
Dakota sighed. “I understand. I didn’t tell you what I was doing either.”
She nodded, acknowledging the grace he was offering.
She moved to stand beside him at the railing, and for a long moment, neither of them spoke. Just watched the bridge, the water, the lights of Sydney sparkling like scattered diamonds.
“You should know,” she said finally, her voice quiet, “that you made me feel seen. I haven’t felt that way since . . . well, since Skylar died.” She paused. “But I did lie to you.”
He glanced at her. “You said?—”
“Not about Skylar. But . . . about what happened before.”
Before?
Oh. The coworker she’d trusted. The one who’d betrayed her.
Dakota waited.
“His name was Ian. Dr. Ian Weber. Physicist. Brilliant. Kind. The kind of man who knew the names of all the security guards in his building and spent his lunch breaks trying to coax stray cats out of the rain.”
Dakota stayed quiet. Listening.
“I was assigned to protect him. Deep cover in Berlin—six months as Katya, a freelance translator who just happened to keep running into him at lectures and cafés.” Her voice went flat. “I was supposed to be invisible. Professional. Detached.”
“What happened?”
“We started dating. I though he had no idea who I was, and I fell in love with him.” The words came out like a confession. “Completely, stupidly in love with a man I was lying to about everything, including my own name.”
The bridge lights shimmered on the water. Somewhere below, a ferry horn echoed across the harbor.
“He asked me to go away with him. CERN—he’d been offered a position. He wanted me to come.” She finally looked at Dakota, and her eyes were bright with something she was fighting not to let fall. “For one perfect moment, I let myself imagine it. A real life. Family. Home.”
She looked away. “I thought he loved me, too. But it was never real. He used me to hack my computer, to get into the Black Swan network. And then he fed it back to the very people I was protecting him from.” She shook her head. “And I never saw it. That’s the part I can’t forgive. I . . .” She took a breath. “I caught him, confronted him and he told me the truth. And then I turned him over to the Swans and walked away. Left him sitting in a café.”
Dakota’s chest tightened, his breath caught.
“He died in a car bomb. Two days later.” Her voice was barely audible. “It wasn’t the Swans—I checked. No, the people he’d been working for don’t leave loose ends. The moment he was exposed, he stopped being useful—and they cleaned him up like he was nothing. I handed him over thinking justice would handle it. Instead I signed his death warrant and never even knew it.”
“Jayden—”
She turned to him. “So when I tell you that getting close to me ends badly, I’m not being dramatic.” She met his eyes. “I’m telling you what happened the last time I let someone in. I loved him, and the whole time he was using me—and I was too happy to see it. That’s what trusting me costs. Not because I’m dangerous. Because I can’t tell the real thing from the lie until it’s too late.”
