Page 35 of Stay Close
I knew if I asked her a question, she’d answer it. Honestly. Bravely. How could I stop myself from loving her?
The door is locked. The door is double locked. The walls are three feet thick in places. I’ve checked under the bed. No one could possibly get in. I lean forward, bracing my hands on the back of the sofa. I give her time and more time to shift away, butEdie is as still as a sniper in a snowbank with that arm over her eyes.
“We shouldn’t,” I say, a last effort to remind myself why I’m here.
She finds my shirt front and tugs me closer.
I can stop her.
When I guide a client through a dangerous situation, I tell them what to do. I direct every step they take.Don’t move. Wait. Keep quiet. Stay close.They trust me because I have the skills to keep them safe, to see hazards they can’t.
Edie is leading me. I almost hear the moment she decides.Now.
The distance between us evaporates, and I give up trying to fight what I want. Our lips touch, and I’m nervous to kiss her. This time I know what it means. This is my girl. Her hands are on my neck, under my ears. She guides me where she wants to go, and when she lifts her head, her eyes dance.
“We shouldn’t do this tomorrow,” I say.
She laughs like she’s won a prize at the county fair. I roll her into my arms, lifting her lips to my mouth.
CHAPTER 13
Edie
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Isay, calling the committee to order. “We have had enough of these games.”
The final straw was a slide presentation containing the suggestion that Sove belongs to Vorburg because a vessel chartered by a Vorburgian environmental awareness organization sank three nautical kilometers from its location. “It’s practically a Vorburgian burial ground,” the diplomat insisted.
“No hippie was lost,” Prime Minister Torbald countered. “We even rescued the goats.”
At that point, Torbald’s executive secretary produced a historical map of the ocean floor positing that the ancient forest likely contained more Sondish species than Vorburgian.
No wonder these two countries spent centuries warring with one another. They come to the table looking for reasons to fight.
We’re dancing on the head of a pin with rapidly diminishing real estate. I eye the clock and wish my security needs would allow me to dump my papers into a briefcase, swirl on a winter coat, and stride from the room. “I’m calling for final arguments. I’ll hear them in two days.”
Petty bureaucrats aren’t called petty without reason. The room erupts in a storm of outrage, with voices shouting about the lateness of the notice, the importance of the deliberations, and the ancestral ties to a speck of land in the North Sea.
For once, I am unbending. If I give them another month, they’ll deliver a coven of Sondish witches willing to swear that the spirit of Sove spoke to them, crying out to be returned to her native soil. Vorburg will produce newly discovered Viking runes inscribed by the first man to step foot on the tiny island, claiming it for his natal country in a fit of patriotic pride.
Several diplomats, exploiting the rule that recording devices aren’t allowed in the room, invade my personal space, bellowing about maritime law and climate change and the ineffable spiritual claims of homeland and native soil. The last of these, after calling me an imperial dog, is hauled away by Lucas, shaking his fist as he goes.
“Say the word and I’ll put that guy in a headlock next time,” Lucas says when he secures the room. He uncaps a water bottle and hands it over.
We haven’t spoken about the other night. Haven’t said a word about how I got him to kiss me.
I’d remembered all those times when I sat in the front row of a college class, braces on my teeth and face wash just barely keeping the dermatological scourge of adolescence at bay, hardly a person to my classmates. Certainly not a girl. Legally-speaking, that was as it should be. But the aura of being completely off-limits is difficult to shake. I didn’t want him to see me that way—as a string of initials and credentials instead of Edie.
I got what I wanted, but when he said “We shouldn't do this tomorrow,” he meant it. We haven’t kissed since. Formal client-protection officer relations have been reestablished. Tomorrow turned into a string of tomorrows. I can’t forget that I want more. I think he does, too.
“In the interests of diplomacy,” I smile, “you’d have to put them all in headlocks.”
I shed my sweater, and he straps me into the armored vest with brisk, businesslike movements. “I’m at your service.”
It’s not flirting. We can’t do that on the job. New rules. I’m one million percent professional, but it will be a relief when this is all over. Let Vorburg and Sondmark ease into comfortable diplomatic relations. Let me and Lucas decide what we want to be without the looming threat of an enraged nationalist.
My phone, set to send me alerts anytime a news site mentions the Sove negotiations, buzzes, and I swipe to open the screen, automatically tapping the translation feature.
“Prime Minister Announces Final Date on Sove Deal: “Sondmark can make their voices heard by rallying on the final day of negotiations.”
