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“I’ve decided to take Taylor away for a few days. We’re leaving tomorrow morning.”
Both of them look surprised, but there’s an understanding on Mila’s face beneath her shock.
“Are you serious?” Dima asks. “You’re going to relinquish control of a mission this big?”
“I trust you two.” The pair of them fix me with knowing smiles. I grit my teeth. “She’s been through a lot. She needs time away to get her head on straight. And hopefully, by the time we get back, Archie will be on my property, not Benedict’s.”
Dima nods mockingly at me. “Riiight…”
“And what about Benedict?” Mila asks.
“It’s not enough to take out Benedict,” I say. “We need to take out his brother, too. Just do what you can, and I’ll handle the rest when I get back.”
Mila rolls her eyes. “You’ll be busy ‘handling’ something while you’re gone, I’m sure,” she snorts under her breath.
I laugh. “Don’t make me throw you in again.”
Mila rises to her feet, and her expression turns solemn. “I’m glad for you, Ilarion,” she says. “It’s been a while since anything has made you happy.”
Happy? Is that what I am? I wouldn’t go that far.
But for the first time in my life, I see happiness on the horizon. And happiness has green eyes like emeralds. Happiness has blond hair that soaks up the sun. Happiness has a dimple in its left cheek when it smiles, and a V-shaped crease in its forehead when it frowns, and happiness makes me feel like nothing else matters as long as I have it.
As long as I haveher.
Mila slips into the house. Dima watches her go, but he pulls his gaze away—somewhat reluctantly, if I had to put a word to it.
“So…you and Taylor, huh?” Dima asks, eyeing me curiously.
“Right now, there’s just me. And there’s Taylor.”
“But after this little getaway of yours…?”
“Celine’s still here.” I almost wince as I say it—I hear myself echoing Taylor and I don’t like it.
“She won’t be for long,” Dima gently reminds me, but it doesn’t really soften the harshness of what he’s saying. He seems to realize that, too, because he adds, “I’m just saying: the body’s here, but the mind is…well, who knows where?” He sighs and flicks water off the tip of his nose. “Mila’s right, though. You deserve to be happy.”
He stands and follows after Mila. I sit there for a while after he’s gone, watching the sapphire surface of the pool ripple in the moonlight.
Happy.I’d like to be.
But I’m not sure he’s right that I deserve it.
65
TAYLOR
I’ve never been to a cabin in the mountains before. Now that I’m here, I’m just mad I’ve spent my whole life not knowing that it’s likethis.
There’s something about the way the amber sunlight and cerulean sky peeks through the trees, bordered by majestic slopes and snow-capped mountains, that makes me feelalive. The cold air burns away everything impure inside of me. I feel like my whole body has been scrubbed clean within and without.
I’m only wearing a cable-knit sweater and jeans, but I welcome the cold. It crowds out all the other emotions I don’t need to be feeling right now.
My breath plumes out in soft white fog as I approach the lookout point on the cliff beyond the cabin. “This is insane.”
I risk a glance over my shoulder to Ilarion behind me. The sunlight glints off the high planes of his cheekbones. His black sweater fits snugly across his broad chest.
He’s as immovable as the mountains beyond him.
