Erasing Faith(54)
He couldn’t even look at me. I saw him swallow several times, watched his eyes open and close rapidly as though they might somehow blink away whatever had just occurred. The girls were clapping and circling the table, each bearing small loops of sturdy white rope. When they grabbed my left hand and slid the tiny circular cord onto a very specific finger, I almost fell over in shock.
“Did they… did she…” I gulped for air. “Wes?” My voice was squeaky.
“I think…” He cleared his throat, hard, then looked over at me steadily. “Uh…”
I stared at him for a long, frozen moment, waiting for him to finish. Waiting for him to confirm that my suspicions, crazy as they might’ve seemed, were correct.
“Well, Red…” Something changed in his eyes. They went sort of soft as they moved over my face and the hint of a grin touched his lips. He took a deep breath before he spoke.
“I think we’re married.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven: WESTON
IN OTHER WORDS
There weren’t a lot of rules.
Lie.
Cheat.
Steal.
All perfectly fine with the agency.
Threaten.
Torture.
Kill.
Just another part of the job description.
Boundaries.
Ethics.
Morals.
They were blurred lines I was never forced to define and frequently found myself crossing.
My world didn’t distinguish right from wrong. Black and white were nothing more than lofty ideals. I lived in the gray area.
There weren’t a lot of limits, in the gray.
But there was one. A single, icon-clad, unbendable margin you did not cross.
Don’t get attached.
Don’t leave loose ends.
Don’t forget that it’s all temporary.
If there was one protocol you didn’t disregard, it was that one.
I looked down at my left hand. I would’ve laughed at the sight of the pure white cord wrapped just below my cracked red knuckle, but I couldn’t seem to find any humor in this situation. I wasn’t allowed to care about Faith. Wasn’t supposed to make any permanent connections or long-term bonds.
She wasn’t mine. She never would be.
Except, now… she kind of was.
And she was more than just a loose end.
She was my f*cking wife.
I’d crossed the line of demarcation. I’d broken the one rule I lived my life by. I’d disregarded my most important order.
In other words, I was f*cked.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: FAITH
RUN WILD
I was curled into a ball on the window seat in my bedroom with a large glass of wine in hand, listening to the mournful strains of Christina Perri’s Distance when I heard the front door open.
“Faith?” Margot called.
I took a large swallow of wine, listening to the sound of her approaching footsteps.
“You home?”
My bedroom door creaked ajar and Margot’s head popped through.
“Hey! There you are,” she said, walking into the room and settling in on the cushion beside me. “Didn’t you hear me calling you?”
“Sorry,” I murmured, staring at my toes. I really needed to repaint them — the deep blue Margot had applied before my date last week was already chipping.
She was silent for a moment. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” she asked finally.
I sighed. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
I took another sip of wine. “I don’t even want to say it out loud.”
“Is this about Wes?”
I nodded miserably.
“What’d he do this time? Bring you to practically the brink of orgasm and then bail with a lame excuse about having to work again?”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
“Okay, no.” She ran one hand through her pixie cut, mussing it instantly. “Did he force you to scale another tall building or monument and then kiss you at the top?”
I cracked a smile. “No.”
“Just tell me,” she whined. “I hate guessing.”
“Fine.” I straightened my shoulders out of the hunch they’d sunk into and braced myself for her reaction. “He…”
“Yeah?” Margot prompted.
“He kind of…”
She made an impatient hand gesture.
“…married me.” I winced, anticipating her response.
When she didn’t say anything, I glanced over and saw that her jaw had dropped open and her round eyes had zeroed in on my left hand like a laser beam. I let her absorb the news for almost a full minute in silence until, finally, her gaze refocused on my face and she reached out a hand toward my wine.
“I’m gonna need a sip of that before this conversation goes any further.”
I smiled and passed her the goblet, watching as she took a large swig.
“Now,” she said, turning to face me fully. “Start at the beginning and tell me everything. If you leave out a single detail I’ll eat all the Nutella in our pantry and play Justin Bieber songs on full volume for the next six months.”
My face contorted into a horrified expression at the thought of such torture. I quickly reclaimed my wine and launched into the story, making sure not to scrimp on the finer points — because, obviously, I wasn’t about to jeopardize my Nutella. I told her everything: the Anna altercation, the ride to Gyula, the festival, the gypsy’s tent. When I finished, she stared at me for nearly a minute with a bizarre look on her face.