Hidden Devotion (Trinity Masters #5)(8)

“And how is Rose?”

“She’s well.”

“Still in California?”

“Yes.”

Juliette watched the clock on the microwave, timing the brew. It gave her an excuse not to look at Devon as the silence lengthened.

“If you’re in the states for a while, we could head out there to see her.”

“How sweet, bonding time with your wives.” Juliette turned just enough so he could see her flutter her eyelashes. For a moment his composure cracked and he looked irritated. Good. She was irritated; he might as well be, too.

“Yes, clearly that’s why I suggested it, because I want to play lord and master over my women.”

Now Juliette laughed—the way he said it, wryly and with a clear understanding that he’d have better luck pulling down the moon than being lord and master over either Juliette or Rose, was heartening. It didn’t change the fact that their betrothal was a giant purple elephant in the room.

She poured cups of tea then motioned toward the kitchen door. “Let’s sit in the living room.”

Devon waited until her back was turned to let his shoulders relax. Sometimes they could go days stuck in a pattern of stiff formality and sly jabs. Other times…other times there weren’t even words to describe the magic.

He brushed aside the nagging guilt he felt from lying to her—Rose had texted him that she’d heard Juliette was on her way to Boston, but that text had come a day after he’d already learned of her travel plans. Juliette would not appreciate knowing how he knew. It was a conversation he needed to have with her, but later, after they’d been called to the altar and their trinity sealed.

Hopefully, that wait was almost over. If Juliette was in Boston it must mean her brother, the Grand Master, had summoned her, and there was only one reason Harrison would have summoned Juliette—he was preparing to call them to the altar.

Rose had assumed the same, and asked him to text her as soon as he knew what was going on. Both he and Rose were well aware that the sticking point in their trinity would be Juliette, and it was something they’d had plenty of conversations about. He and Rose had a less-tumultuous, friend-based relationship, though her move to the West Coast had caused some distance between them.

So far, nothing Juliette had said or done indicated they were days away from the life-changing altar ceremony. Either she’d gotten even better at hiding her thoughts and feelings or she was being willfully blind as to why her brother had called her home. Both were strong possibilities.

He lit the gas insert in the elegant plaster-and-marble fireplace. When Juliette curled up on one end of a low leather couch, he took a seat in the chair beside it. He wanted to sit with her, to pull her onto his lap and strip off that sweater and…

Devon took a sip of the tea, forcing himself to think about something else. “How’s your work with North Star?”

“Good. Challenging. It’s hard to reach the people we’re trying to help, and asking them to use and trust technology is an uphill battle.”

“Is the planning complete?” Last time he’d seen her, she’d been helping to map out services and reporting lines that would mirror the routes women and children were trafficked along. They were trying to create a reporting pipeline that would allow them to not only establish how and when people were being trafficked, but allow them to connect the dots, possibly tracing and locating individuals.

“We finished identifying optimal geographic locations last year. I’ve been working implementation since then.”

“What does implementation entail?”

She settled back, cup in one hand, saucer in the other, and started talking. Devon would sooner die than admit he knew most of what she was telling him—he was just happy she was talking at all. As she continued explaining, he could hear the rhythm in the words, a sign that she’d explained what, how and why she did this work before—to funders, to community leaders, to foreign governments. The way she spoke both told a story and invited him to be a part of the solution. It was a quiet call to arms, a gentle but heart-wrenching tale. The firelight made her hair glow gold and her eyes were bright with conviction.

He was reminded anew as to exactly how good she was at what she did, and how dangerous she could have been had she chosen a different career.

He asked questions, the motivation flipping from a desire to keep her talking to genuine interest. It was going well until she started talking about sneaking into a brothel and then onto a transport truck to get footage and firsthand experience that could be used by North Star for promotional and explanatory materials.

“Juliette!”

She jumped slightly. “What?”

“You could have been killed, or disappeared into some underground sex-slavery ring.” Devon felt slightly ill. How had he not heard about this?

“That was kind of the point. I was wearing a GPS monitor, a hidden camera and carrying notarized copies of my passport. If they’d figured out who I was, they would have let me go. An American citizen is like a stick of lit dynamite—no one wants to be caught holding one.”

“You just spent half an hour describing the kinds of horrors these women suffer and are surprised I’m upset that you deliberately put yourself in the way?”

“I’m not stupid or reckless.” Her cup clattered against the saucer when she put them down. “I took all available precautions.”