She was hiding so many things from her ex, but this wasn’t one of them.
“I think it’s hard for him to trust anyone from an intelligence agency,” Ariel replied with sympathy. “Kim, I have to ask you what you’re doing. Not with work, but with Ezra. It’s been years since you divorced. Don’t you think it’s time to move on?”
Her heart clenched at the thought, but she knew her friend was right. “When I found out he was getting involved with McKay-Taggart, I knew he would be in danger because of who they were investigating. I’d stayed away for years, Ari. I gave him space. He was grieving and he needed a place to put it all. Then he was angry because he found out about the mistake I made with Levi.”
The biggest mistake of her life, and she’d made so many. She’d been divorced and she’d gone out with a man she’d thought was her friend, and he’d taken such advantage of her. She didn’t even remember the night. She was a deadly CIA operative and that night had proven she was still a woman and still fucking vulnerable.
“I don’t know that he’s in a place where he can forgive,” Ari said slowly, as if she knew the words would be a blow. “I’m not sure he ever will be. Obviously I didn’t know him before his brother was killed, but I know the man he is now. He’s perfectly reasonable until it comes to you. Normally I would say that means he’s still got feelings for you and as long as there’s an emotional connection, the relationship isn’t truly dead.”
“But his feelings for me are hurting him.” It was the conclusion she’d come to after long hours of self-reflection.
Ariel reached out, putting a hand on her shoulder. “They’re hurting you, too. I don’t like saying this, Kim, but he’s not in a place where he can find any peace with you around. And I don’t think you’ll find any either. Do you want to go have lunch? We can talk. I’ll wait around if your meeting takes longer than mine.”
The last thing she wanted to do was cry to her gorgeous, happily married friend who would likely start having babies and raising a gorgeous family with her loving husband. She hated the jealousy that gnawed at her. It wasn’t Ariel’s fault she’d done everything right.
But Kim had thought she would have a family by now. She’d thought she and Beck would have had their two point five kids and retired to the country where they would raise them, and she would sell homemade jam or some shit.
Instead she was thirty-four and had nothing but a bunch of medals she couldn’t bring out at parties to show for it. She’d tried dating over the years, tried to forget him, but the minute she’d found a way to work herself into his world she’d taken it.
“Come on, Kim. Please have lunch with me. We don’t have to turn it into a session,” Ari prompted. “I’ll stay at your place tonight and we can order in and drink as much as we like and watch ridiculous movies. I won’t say a thing to upset you.”
God, it was nice to have a friend. She was going to miss Ari because when she was back at the Agency, she would go deep this time. She would take an assignment that would last years and lose herself in it. She would start over again, and this time she wouldn’t let herself ever get pulled back in.
“I can’t tonight.” It would be too hard to keep from talking to Ari. Ari had a way of dragging the truth out of her, and there were some things she couldn’t admit to anyone. Some secrets that had to stay hidden or the world would crash in again.
She had promises to keep. Even if they cost her everything.
Ari nodded. “All right, but I won’t let you mope forever. Call me sometime this week. I want to get together before you go back to the States.”
She nodded, though it was another lie. Hopefully she would go back to the States as soon as this meeting was over. “Sure. I should go in. I’ll think about everything you said.”
She wouldn’t be able to do anything but think. That was why she needed to get out of Europe, away from him. Maybe then she could finally move on.
She watched as Ari took the stairs and then forced herself to walk into that office. She stopped at the reception desk and showed the badge she’d been given downstairs at the security check and then let herself be led down the hall to the conference room.
Solo felt every eye on her. It wasn’t that being looked at bothered her. She hadn’t worn the Louboutin boots that came up over her knees to be ignored. But this felt different. Had Damon Knight warned his old crew not to trust her?
Or had it been Beck?
She strode in, her Prada bag over her shoulder. What had her mother told her? Use clothes and makeup and looks like a shield.
No hate can get through a Prada bag, my darling.
Her mother had been wrong, of course.
Her mother had hated Beck. She loathed his middle-class background, and the fact that he hadn’t gone to an Ivy league school. Her mother had cheered on their divorce. Not that it had helped her mother’s cause. She’d died hating her daughter for not following in the family traditions and marrying the wealthiest man she could find.
“Hello, Beck.” She picked the chair furthest from him because his eyes were already staring a hole through her. He was dressed in what she thought of as his uniform. Dark shirt, pressed slacks. She couldn’t see his feet, but she knew he would
