AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Loving her might cost him everything.
Hud picked up some McDonald’s burgers for them on the way home, but she’d lost her appetite. When they got home, she went to her room, changed, and then came downstairs to make a sandwich. Instead, she stood in the bath of light from the fridge, trying to figure out why it bothered her so much.
He’d known. He’d known about it and never told her.
“Iris? You’re home early.” Fraser had come out of the office.
“Yep.” She closed the fridge. Turned to him. Considered him. “Have you ever royally screwed up? Cost someone something that you have a hard time forgiving yourself for?”
He raised an eyebrow. “Of course. I wish I’d done a better job of protecting Dr. Hansen in Nigeria, for one.”
“Does he blame you?”
“No. But I blame myself.”
“And what do you do with that?”
“I guess I just try and not let it happen again. And realize I’m not perfect.” He opened the fridge and pulled out a container of orange juice. “I suppose I also think that at the end of the day, it’s going to happen the way God has planned, and I need to trust that He has my back. Dad told me once that God’s design is for us to need help. We’re not supposed to be infallible or invincible.” He poured himself a glass of juice. “By the way, Coco got into Werner Vogel’s phone.” He put the juice back. “Apparently, he had confirmed the hit with the Orphans. He’s your assassin.”
“And he’s dead,” said Iris. “So it’s over? I can go back to my life?”
“If that’s what you want,” Fraser said. “Probably.”
“Good. Yes. That’s exactly what I want.” She picked up his glass of juice and took a drink.
But he was looking over her head, toward the dining room.
She turned.
Hud was standing there in a T-shirt and sweat pants.
Then he turned and headed back down the hall.
“Everything okay between you two?”
“Yep,” she said. “Everything is exactly what it should be.”
Then she walked to the sofa, lay down, and pulled the afghan over her head.
Because then no one, not even herself, could see her cry.
Ten
“So he walked out, just like that?”
The words, in accented Slovenian courtesy of Jonas’s girlfriend Sibba, lifted from the kitchen, down the hall to her father’s office where Iris was packing her bag. Not a big bag—she hadn’t left Europe with much. But she had her stripes and footwear and gear, and she’d manage until she got back to Milan.
With a stopover in Amsterdam. Where she’d put this whole thing behind her and get back to her life.
Her excellent, interesting, tailored life that she’d worked so hard for.
One that didn’t include Hudson Bly, thank you so much.
But yeah, he’d just walked out of her life, sometime early this morning, because when she’d gotten up, the sun pressing through the blinds of the office, breaking through the cloud cover, his rental car had been gone.
She’d walked into the kitchen, made coffee, and then, out of curiosity, walked down the hall to the guest room.
His door was open, the bed stripped, the sheets in a tumble on the floor, the blankets folded on a nearby chair.
