“What a welcome,” I say, cradling her face and brushing a light kiss on each of her soft eyebrows.
“You don’t seem to be complaining from the waist down,” she teases, grazing her hips side to side against mine.
“No complaints.” I trail my thumb below her ear and down the side of her neck. She closes her eyes, tipping her head to encourage my touch.
“I ha—” She breaks off with a happy little whimper. “Mmm. Oh God, that’s lovely.”
The tips of my knuckles define a path from her shoulder back up to her hairline. I comb my fingers into the back of her hair and slowly squeeze a handful of the tresses, watching the convergent dip of Natalia’s brows, which betrays her pleasure.
Blue eyes open, misty as a daydream. “I have something for you.”
“More than this?” I stroke her lower lip with the thumb of my free hand. “You’ll spoil me, kleine Hexe.”
She laughs and takes a step back, catching my hand in hers and pulling me toward the car. “It needs privacy.”
“You have my full attention,” I say playfully. “Lead on.”
We get into the car and she reaches behind my seat, retrieving her handbag and setting it on her lap. She unzips the top, then leans toward the windscreen to peer up and around, as if searching for CCTV cameras. Biting her lip, she zips her bag closed again and starts the car.
“What are you up to, little spy?” I ask. “Quite cloak-and-dagger.”
“With caution, condoms, and umbrellas,” she states, holding a finger aloft as if quoting someone, “it’s better to have it and not need it than the other way around.” She stops at the car park exit, then takes a right onto the road. “So sayeth my auntie Min.”
“Wise woman. I regret to inform you I’ve forgotten my umbrella.”
Natalia lets out a giddy cackle of laughter. “Impeccable comic timing, sir.” She angles a side-eye at me. “Are you saying youdohave condoms?”
“Your asking makes me wish I did.”
For the next ten minutes, she explores various roads, settling on a dead end with a large ginkgo tree and no buildings or footpaths nearby. She parks beneath the tree and shuts off the car. It’ssunset, the skies faded to the lavender gray-blue of alpine sea holly, blotched with patches of cloud.
For a long moment, Natalia studies me with concern, until I lift my eyebrows, mouthing a helpless,What?
She digs in her handbag and produces a USB thumb drive. “I’ve held on to this for a month,” she explains in a rush, “torn about what to do. It contains confidential information that’s… well, it doesn’t look good, Klaus. You said I have no obligation to go easy on you, and—” The look on my face must be telling, because she stops, mirroring my stricken expression. “Wait… do you… know what’s on here? You look like you already know.”
I can’t hold her gaze, seeing the woundedness there. My eyes drop. “Yes. And it was my intention to speak with you about this tonight. I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
She sits back, one hand over her mouth, watching me. Above her eyes—glistening in the dusky light—her feathery arched brows are crumpled with emotion.
Her hand falls away. “Under other circumstances,” she says carefully, “I might’ve taken this ball and run with it. But something about it seemed off.”
She sets the USB drive on my palm and folds my fingers closed.
“It has emails, blueprints, aero testing results. But I don’t know who the source is. On the screenshots, names and email addresses are redacted. The mention of money seems too clumsy. It couldn’t be you. I mean… you don’t even need the money. So you’d have to be protecting someone.” As I open my mouth to speak, she hurriedly says, “And I don’t want to know who—seriously.”
“That’s not it at all. You’ve misunderstood.”
“No, I really don’t think I have. I know very well how devastating this could be. And I wasn’t willing to risk Emerald’s reputation on it without being a hundred percent sure.” She swallows hard. “But if I’m understanding you right, you’re saying… it’s all true?”
I caress down her arms and clasp both her hands in my own. “Let me explain. It’s not what you assume. I sent—”
“Stop.Don’tsay it. Please? I need to think.” She pulls away from my touch, then pivots to look out the window for a long, quiet minute. “Shit, I didn’t expect this,” she murmurs under her breath.
I know what I have to say. Now is the time. Theonlytime. But in this moment, I’m not sure what’s worse—the mistake she thinks I’ve made, or the real one that’s much worse… and potentially dangerous to reveal. The fact that I thought I was protecting her wouldn’t garner much sympathy.
It’s all or nothing. I’d rather look like a scoundrel than risk her safety.
“Talia. I know you’ll be disappointed in what I must tell you, but I can’t hide this from you if we’re to make things between us work. It’s a serious issue. Big news, with devastating repercussions. I didn’t want you to know about it because I thought you’d—”
