She didn’t want that, did she? Her chest constricted. “He just saved our lives.”
“If he hadn’t distracted you, you wouldn’t have needed saving.”
Good point.
Walking alongside him, she twined their fingers together and acknowledged the guilt stabbing her insides. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.” He glanced at her sidelong, the anger still alive in his eyes. “What did he say to you?”
Lowering her voice, she recapped every word she’d shared with Cole. When she fell quiet, his expression darkened, and he quickened his gait.
She jogged to keep up, wobbling in the heels. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” He stopped abruptly and turned to glare at her. “He followed you across Europe for six months. You haven’t just become his mission. You’ve become his obsession.”
London, England
Eight months later
Lydia had become a dangerous obsession.
An obsession that had brought Cole to this tattoo parlor to do something he never fathomed.
Why?
She was an anomaly. A goddamn mystery. He knew so little about her, and that only made him crave and crave and crave. His thirst for knowledge demanded he unravel her.
Who was she? Where had she come from? Why was she always on the move?
Why am I still following her?
It had been fourteen months since she’d saved his life beneath the stonecutter. He’d given her the location of the hard drive, and she wasn’t even trying to infiltrate the Romanian mafia.
Instead, she visited strip clubs, nightclubs, fluttering from venue to venue in red-light districts across Europe. Dancing. Or attempting to dance. She had terrible coordination.
Still, he loved watching her. Stalking her. He couldn’t let go of this infatuation.
She and Mike never used the same last name twice. Their identification documents were forged. They paid for everything in cash, traveled light, and spent little, sleeping on trains and staying in low-rent hostels and dingy hotels.
They must’ve had a plan, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure it out.
“Almost finished.” A twenty-something Englishman wiped a towel along Cole’s forearm, admiring the artwork. “You ready to see it?”
He hadn’t looked at his arm. Not once in five hours as the tattoo gun stabbed into his skin. He couldn’t bear to watch the inked symbol of Danni slowly disappear. He just wanted it gone.
Out with the old obsession, in with the new one.
Breathing deeply, he turned his gaze on the fresh ink.
From wrist to elbow, a deadly snake coiled tightly around his arm, leaving no unmarked skin between the tight spiral of its thick, scaly body.
It was a diamondback rattlesnake, commonly found in the Chihuahuan Desert where he’d met Lydia.
Warmth spread through his chest as he held it up for a closer inspection. Shocking bursts of red poked out from beneath the twisting, winding predator. Red feathers.
He turned his arm, revealing the head of a red swallow peering out of the snake’s constricting hold.
His lips twitched with morbid satisfaction. “It’s perfect.”
“Ace.” The tattoo artist grinned. “You got a pet snake, mate?”
“A pet bird.”
“Ah.” The man’s eyes twinkled as if he comprehended the meaning.
He didn’t. Cole didn’t even understand it.
As the Brit wrapped up his arm, the TV on the wall streamed endless commercials, each one to the tune of a Christmas jingle. It was the first week of December, and the holiday season was choking the life out of the air.
Blinking lights, glittery ribbons, peppermint coffee, swarms of shoppers, singing, and laughing—the spirit of Christmas forced itself on everyone, everywhere. He couldn’t escape it. Not even here. Sitting in a dark, grungy tattoo parlor on the outskirts of London, he felt it jabbing under his skin.
He despised this time of year, for it only served to remind him just how goddamn lonely he was.
He’d turned thirty-eight this year. Thirty-eight Christmases, and he’d spent half of those alone. He should’ve been used to it by now. But he couldn’t forget the holidays he’d shared with Trace and one he’d had with Danni. Those were good times. The best.
Maybe that was why he hated Christmas so much.
“Hell of a time to be an American.” The tattooist nodded at the TV, which had switched to a world news report about American politics.
It was an election year in the states, and though the election had ended a month ago, the country was in an uproar over who had unofficially won. The President-elect wasn’t a politician. He was a business magnate, software developer, and philanthropist.
His presence in the White House promised to shake things up. Maybe that was what the country needed, but Cole didn’t hold out hope. He knew too much about the collusion and cronyism that existed within the U.S. political system.
“Can you turn that off?” He flicked a hand at the TV.
“Sure.”
Christ, he was in a mood. If he were honest, his head hadn’t been in a good place for months.
He needed to see her.
No, he needed more than that. He needed to feel Lydia’s warmth under his hands, taste her cherry lips on his tongue, and hear her husky voice whispering his name.
He longed to make contact with her, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t the only one watching her. Whatever she was involved in, people were hunting her. They would’ve been tracking him, too, but he kept himself hidden.
Until eight months ago.
In a total lapse of sanity, he’d approached her in that nightclub in Rome. He’d done it to protect her. Mike had left her alone with a damn assassin in the building.
Dancing with her had gone too far. He’d needlessly and recklessly indulged. Holy fuck, he’d indulged in every inch of her luscious body.
He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t be seen with her. Couldn’t get involved.
He told her he wouldn’t help her, and he meant it.
When he finished his transaction at the tattoo parlor, he returned to Central London and walked the streets, soaking in the historical ambiance while evading the Christmas shoppers. He was looking for something, searching for a distraction from his thoughts.
Lydia was somewhere in the city. According to Romero, she’d arrived yesterday by train.
He told himself he wouldn’t walk by her hotel this time, that he wouldn’t watch her from the shadows. But he knew it was a lie. She was the only reason he’d flown in this morning.
Wandering aimlessly with his hands tucked in his pockets, he kept to the side streets, kept his feet moving, tried to keep his thoughts away from the object of his obsession.
Late into the early morning, the foot traffic died down, the tourists all tucked into their temporary beds.
Was Lydia out dancing in some dodgy nightclub? Or was she in bed, too? With Mike?
His stomach buckled, roiling with acid. The undetermined state of her relationship with Mike twisted him up. He tried not to think about it, but his imagination was a bitch.
So was his jealousy.
It awakened toxic memories. Memories of the months he’d shared Danni with Trace. He wouldn’t do that again. Not with any woman. No matter how fucking lonely he was.