“Are you sorry?” She turns back to me from the window and interrupts my preamble to the truth as if she’s heard none of it.
My breath stalls in my throat, then releases in a gasp of rueful laughter. “My God, Talia.Yes.If I had it all to do over…” I shake my head, and my eyes burn with reluctant tears. I take one of her hands in mine and cover my forehead briefly with the other. “I knew immediately it was wrong. But the die had been cast. Please—” I squeeze her cold fingers. “Let me explain what really happened. You have the wrong idea.”
She puts a finger to my lips, a quick touch. “But you’ve learned from your mistake? Nothing like it will ever happen again?” Before I can reply, she rushes on, speaking in an avalanche of words directed into her lap. “Because one of the most useful things I learned from Phae, back when she was helping me with math in college, is that errors are good information. You learnmoreby screwing up and reflecting on it.” She scoots closer.
“Talia, wait,” I manage, barely audible.
I know she’s not going to let me say it, and… yes, I know I could blurt out the full story, but part of me is whispering,This is still salvageable if you say no more. She’s writing you a blank check on forgiveness, even thinking you’ve potentially committed corporate espionage. Accept that check and spend it elsewhere. It’s true that you’ve learned your lesson, isn’t it? That’s all she really wants…
“So, you know what?” she continues, eyes bright, her face so close to mine. “We’ve made alotof mistakes, you and I.” She interjects a tiny, tired laugh. “Maybe we got them all out of the way. And…” She leans in and kisses me, just a brush against my lower lip. “This time we have a better chance. Possiblybecauseof how hard we’ve struggled to get here.”
My shoulders sag, and I know she’s confused and hurt by the response, so I force a weak smile. “I believe that too.I do.But only if I tell you everything.”
She sits up straight. “No one can legally ask me about what Ihaven’tbeen told. I’m rejecting the intel on that USB stick because I don’t know the source. Let’s keep it that way.”
“The source,” I murmur, staring down at where our hands are entwined in Natalia’s lap. “The fucking source…” Guilt wells up around me like water trapping a passenger on a sinking ship. I pullher close and linger on a kiss to her forehead, choosing my words carefully. “Did you happen to show the contents of the flash drive to your publisher?”
She shakes her head. “When Nefeli asked to look, I panicked. I didn’t want her to force me to move on it. So, uh… I claimed it was ‘clearly a prank’ and said I’d thrown away the flash drive.” She winces. “Because Alexander Laskarisdidsee it first. Me saying it was a hoax bought some time.”
My stomach sinks. I cradle one side of her face. “You oughtn’t have risked your job like that. She’ll think you’re biased, or at the very least, terribly careless.”
“I know.” She leans into my palm, then takes my hand between both of hers. “Clean slate, okay? The past is the past—whatever was done or said by either of us. I don’t want to haul our old screwups around anymore like a sack of wet laundry.”
I nod. “You’re certain you could forgive me if I gave you details?”
A look of wry humor flits over her lips. “Wow, you’re making it sound pretty bad. Am I going to be sorry I said yes when I find skeletons buried under your rosebushes?”
Relieved laughter stutters out of me. “Nothing of the sort, that much I can swear. My crime is… of an ethical nature. And more personal than professional.”
Her fingers comb through the hair over my left ear. “You look so sheepish. Like a guilty little boy. And I love—” She sucks in a breath, then bites her lower lip.
In the fading light, Natalia and I study each other.
Leaning in for a delicate kiss, I ask, “Were you going to say you love me?”
“Maybe,” she whispers against my lips. “Possibly.” She pushes my jacket off and begins unbuttoning my shirt. I slide a hand up her thigh, and she opens her legs to give me access. “It’s been too long—all the waiting is torture…”
A lingering cloud of guilt over what hasn’t been said hovers near, but the momentum of lust propels us forward nonetheless. I want to give her more pleasure than she’s ever known, more connection than I’ve ever dared. Perhaps it’s naïve to think we can fix everything with our bodies, but tonight—after a month of self-recrimination—I finally feel hope again.
Everything in me needs to honor her, worship her.
My fingers reach the warm satin stretched taut over her pussy as she angles toward me. I caress slowly front to back, then settle my thumb over her clit, pressing down lightly and then stopping. Her tightly shut eyes open with a longing look. She arches a few inches to take the tension out of the fabric from the way she’s twisted in the seat. I hook a fingertip into the gusset and draw the damp fabric aside, zeroing in on her swollen bud and stroking.
Her head drops back against the seat. For a few minutes, she breathes in a fractured pattern of sighs, punctuated with silence as she holds her breath, chasing her pleasure.
“Let’s get in the back,” she manages, just above a whisper. “I want more.”
“You forget, kleine Hexe, that I’ve neglected to bring my…
umbrella.”
Her laugh is a groan, and her thighs tighten around my hand. “We can do other things. Come on.”
We straighten our disarrayed clothes enough to exit and relocate into the back. Natalia adjusts the bench-style seat, creatingmaximal room. Wrestling out of her blouse, she sits perpendicular to me, legs draped sideways over mine. A mosaic of sunset-pinked light and ginkgo tree shadow paints her bare calves. I smooth a hand from her ankles up to the eager heat at the apex of her thighs.
“I’m so glad it’s too hot for tights,” she breathes.
I slip my other hand under the skirt and pinch one side of her silky panties, giving a little tug. “Shall we remove these?”
