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“The decision has been made,” I reply calmly.
“No! You have put me in an impossible situation now!”
“This isn’t about you.”
“You’ve made it about me by telling me all of this. Fuck you, Gideon! I swear you’re going to be the death of all of us.”
She storms over to the partially closed door and swings it open, only to come face-to-face with Isla, looking shell-shocked with a mug of coffee in her hand and a plate of toast, presumably for me.
“Fuck,” I mutter and rub my face again, in what appears to be my go-to move for dealing with shitshows. “Fucking hell, Sophia.”
50
ISLA
“Uhm,” I mutter as I stare between a furious Sophia and a resigned Gideon. “I’ll come back later.”
“Too late,” Sophia says, plastering a grin on her face and leaning in to give me an air kiss on each cheek, even though my hands are full. “Come in.”
Sidling past her as she gives Gideon a ferocious stare, I place the coffee and toast in front of Gideon. “Thought you could use this.”
“Thank you, Isla. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“You didn’t. I was up anyway. Couldn’t sleep.”
Shifting my gaze to Sophia; she is watching this encounter with narrowed eyes before she says, “Well, I guess I’ll leave you to it.”
Gideon ignores her as I wave her off absently. “Everything okay?” I ask cautiously. I’m not sure what I overheard, but whatever it was, has Sophia in a state.
“Yes,” Gideon says. “Everything is just fine. Did you hear much of that?”
“Some…” I know there is no point in lying, so I might as well just come out with it. “You work for something called Solitaire?” I’ve never heard the name before, but that doesn’t mean jack. Still, he needs to know what I overheard.
“No, Isla. IamSolitaire,” he says quietly, watching my reaction to that closely.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“I know you don’t, and that is why we need to have a conversation about it to clear things up.”
“We don’t have to.”
“Yes, we do.”
“No, really, if it’s going to cause trouble with your sister and other spies, it doesn’t matter. I won’t ask questions.”
“I don’t give a shit about causing trouble, Isla. What I do care about is not lying to you. I can’t expect you to trust me if you don’t know what you’re getting into.”
“Okay,” I murmur. “What is Solitaire then? An offshoot of MI6?”
He smiles that slow, sexy smile that drew me in instantly. “No. In a roundabout way, MI6 work for me.”
I take that in with what I hope is a straight face, but underneath, I’m impressed. “So, you’re high-level government?”
He shakes his head. “The government also work for me. As do several others in the world. I am the man behind a lot of the political scenes that you may or may not know about.”
“I’m still not sure what that means,” I say, even more confused than ever.
He stands up and takes my hand, leading me to the squishy leather sofa on the other side of the office. “Sit.”
