Surrender (Careless Whispers #3)(22)

I reach up, yanking what’s left of it free, and in the process, my gaze catches on my new tattoo. I reach out and trace the pink wings of the hawk, and the truth is, I am already Kayden’s wife to everyone who knows him as The Hawk. I know this. I also know that together, we made this choice and declared our bond. But Kayden felt pressured to protect me, while I . . . I love him. It really isn’t a question for me, so why am I hesitating to marry him now?

Suddenly Kayden is sitting in front of me, his pants now on, his hand going to the back of my tattooed wrist and pulling it between us. “Wearing the bracelet to the party and getting this tattoo protects you, like I always will.”

“I realize that, and I appreciate that you did this for me.”

“I did this for us, Ella, and under different circumstances those things would have been choices, a commitment to me and us, to this life, but I realize that you really didn’t have that option with Niccolo looking for you. Marrying me—that is a choice. It’s you saying you want to spend the rest of your life with me.”

And there it is. The reason I’m hesitating. I don’t want to make the same mistakes my father made.

“Instead, you’re doing what you said you don’t do,” he accuses softly.

“Which is what?”

“Running.”

My defenses prickle. “I’m right here. I’m not running.”

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m the one who wants to go to Paris.”

“That’s suicide. That’s what people do when they can’t run anymore.”

“I’m not running and I’m not trying to commit suicide,” I say, but I hate that in the back of my mind I’m already questioning myself. “This isn’t a choice either of us can afford for me to make right now. Not when we don’t know who I am.”

“We absolutely know who you are.”

“We know things about me. We don’t know who I really am—and most importantly, we don’t know what I am. There’s no way I’m working for that monster Neuville, but I could be working for Niccolo.”

“Your memory snaps back when you’re presented with pictures and people. You’d know at this point if that were true.”

“What I know is that there is much more about me than we’ve pieced together.”

“You’re obviously leading me somewhere. What is your point?”

“I’m complicated.”

“My life is a fucking foreign novel written in twenty languages, sweetheart. Complicated is what I do.”

“You aren’t hearing me again, Kayden. There is more to me than meets the eye.”

“I’m more than aware of that fact.”

“And I was aware of the French marriage laws when I eloped to Paris. I knew I couldn’t marry him, so clearly I was using David. What does that say about who and what I may be?”

“Quid pro quo, sweetheart. You were smart enough to sense he was using you, even if you didn’t know why.”

“Was he using me? Or was that me setting him up? If I’m CIA—”

“I am not your enemy, if that’s where we’re going yet again.”

“We don’t know what I am, or what that makes us. And if you marry the wrong person and your men find out, it will damage you, Kayden.”

He gently strokes just above my freshly tattooed skin. “To my men, this tattoo is a more powerful declaration than marriage. It’s about trust and an invitation inside the secrecy of our organization, and at the highest level. It’s done to them.”

“You didn’t have a choice, either.”

“You’re wrong on that, Ella. I could have sent you far, far away where you couldn’t be found and cleared a path for you later. But I didn’t—and by invoking Evil Eye, I made sure I never have to.”

“And yet you fight me on Paris.”

“I told you. Evil Eye or not, you don’t taunt a monster scorned, and you scorned Neuville. And this isn’t about him right now.”

“But it is. I’m a target. You’re a target. I want to know that I can’t hurt you. And you can’t just dismiss my connection to the CIA, whatever that may be.”

“Right. The CIA. Which I’ve explained does not put us at odds, but you don’t seem to want to hear that. Maybe you think that if you’re CIA, you won’t approve of who and what I am. Maybe that’s already happening. Maybe, for your sake, that’s a good thing.” He faces forward, grabs his boots, and starts putting them on.

I blanch. “What? No! It’s not a good thing. It’s not a thing at all. I know what you are. I know you. It’s me we don’t know.” Wishing half my clothes weren’t across the room, I wrap the blanket more fully around me and sit up next to him. “This is about me.”

He finishes putting his boots on and grabs his shirt from the floor, pulling it over his head, and then settling his elbows on his knees. He doesn’t speak, the dark edginess of his mood thickening the air, suffocating me, until I can take it no more.

“Kayden—”

“The truth is, Ella,” he says, still not looking at me, “there are things about me you don’t know, too. Things I’ve done. Things I’ll do again if so needed. Maybe those things just won’t work for you. And maybe I’m fucked in the head for suggesting this.”