A Gift of Thought (19 page)

Sylvie paused, uncertain, and then rested her hand on the desk beside her, feeling the cool wood under her fingers. This didn’t make sense. Lucas seemed completely open, no hidden guilt, unlike her own. Some of the things she’d said in Milan had been cruel.

“Yeah,” he agreed with her thought, his smile wry but his eyes serious. “But you weren’t wrong. You’d been serving our country while I’d been playing the stock market. The stock market’s way more profitable, but I think you’ll like some of the ways GD’s expanded in the last decade.”

Sylvie frowned. “You expanded your dad’s company?”

His smile reached his eyes as he said, “Into some areas that you might prefer, yes. Although we’re still selective about the jobs we’ll do. I prefer FBI and police work, but we do the occasional job for the state department or the DEA.”

“Lucas,” Sylvie paused, not sure what to say, not sure what to think. She’d been scathing about the way Lucas was using his talents ten years earlier, but was he implying that he’d changed for her?

“Yes,” he answered her.

‘
Stop doing that!’
She was confused and having him two steps ahead of her made it worse.

He shrugged and looked away, his smile fading, and she took a step forward.
‘I’m sorry,’
she thought. She forgot how hard it was for Lucas sometimes. He accepted his gift so calmly that it was easy not to realize how it isolated him.
‘I know you can’t help it.’

He looked back at her and then stepped closer, bringing his hand up to touch her cheek.
‘You have a beautiful mind, Sylvie. Clear and bright and direct. I love hearing it.’

“Stop that,” she murmured the words this time, feeling the traitorous heat stirring within her, loving the spark lit by Lucas’s finger brushing against her skin, but fighting the distraction. “You’re confusing me. I want to understand. Ten years ago, in Milan, you didn’t want anything more. You didn’t want things to change. You didn’t want me to meet Dillon, you didn’t want us to be a family. And now you—”

“Wait, what?” Lucas dropped his hand, his voice strong, rejecting her words. “That is so wrong. How could you think that?”

“You—you said so!” she protested. “Or thought it?” It was so long ago. She frowned, struggling to remember the details, the exact words that he’d said, but he was shaking his head.

“No,” he said. “No. Definitely not. I might have thought that I didn’t want anything to change, but that would have been about being in that hotel room with you.” He stroked his hands up her arms, letting them come to rest on her shoulders, his eyes dark as they looked into hers. “I would have stayed there forever if we could have. But when we left, I wanted you with me.”

Sylvie felt breathless, as if suddenly there wasn’t enough air in the room. There was nothing in her feel of him that said he was lying, nothing. And yet . . .

“You said that Dillon was better off with your parents,” she repeated stubbornly.

“Not wanting to disrupt Dillon’s life didn’t mean not wanting to be with you.” Lucas was searching her face. The flow of thoughts and feelings between them echoed with regret. “Damn it,” he muttered. “Did we really lose a decade to a misunderstanding?”

‘Not just a decade,’
Sylvie answered, tears springing to her eyes. All of her chance of knowing Dillon had been lost, too.

He pulled her close to him, wrapping his arms around her, and she tucked her head into the curve of his shoulder and let her grief flow. His chin resting on her head, he stroked her back as she sobbed.

‘I’m sorry, love, so sorry.’
The words were a murmur, aloud or in her head, she could barely be sure.

Minutes later, cried out and feeling like an idiot, Sylvie pulled away. “I’m getting snot on your tux,” she muttered, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
‘Probably mascara and smeared make-up, too.’

“I’ll survive.” Automatically, Lucas glanced down at his shirtfront.
‘And the hotel laundry will manage.’
The thought was dry.

“Lucas,” she started, pressing her fingers to her eyes. She felt overwhelmed. She didn’t know what to say, where to begin.

“It’s still new to you,” he answered her. “I remember.” She felt him thinking about the days, the weeks, the months after Dillon had died. The desolation, the guilt, the self-doubt, the anger, the pain he’d felt. “But at Thanksgiving, he texted us jokes about turkeys while we were checking on the bird. What does a turkey’s cell phone sound like? Wing, wing.”

Sylvie blinked at him. “That is really dumb.”

He lifted one shoulder, a smile tugging at his mouth. “But it was from Dillon.”

“I’ve missed my chance for that, too,” Sylvie said bleakly.

“Maybe for right now. But not forever,” he told her gently. “He’ll be back or we’ll join him. You’ll hear from him again. I promise.”

“Turkey jokes, huh?” She breathed out a puff of laughter. Her face felt sticky and her eyes were hot. She was a mess, outside and inside. She’d been trying so hard not to think, to just live in the moment. But moments never lasted forever.

‘Why didn’t you look for me back then?’

‘
Ha.’
His thought felt rueful.
‘Zane loved his trip to Italy. But he couldn’t find you. He thought you’d headed north.’

‘
Germany,’
she confirmed for him.
‘I met up with my mom and stepdad there. And then Ty convinced me to join his security business.’

“And you changed your name, didn’t you?” Lucas asked. “I didn’t expect that. I was still looking for you as Beth.”

She nodded in confirmation, remembering what it had been like, how she’d felt leaving Milan—the anger, the hurt. If only she’d known. “Being telepathic ought to be more useful.”

“My dad told me to stop looking, that I’d find you someday, but I never gave up. Do you know how many hundreds of women are named Beth Rodriguez?” Lucas’s voice was light, but Sylvie could hear the pain that underlay it.

She tilted her head and looked at him, considering. “I hate to say it, but it wouldn’t have worked back then anyway.”

Lucas’s denial was instant, but she put a hand up and covered his mouth before he could protest aloud.

“I was an unemployed high-school drop-out who felt like she’d wasted a decade of her life. You were a rich, Ivy League graduate with the world at your feet. I would have been jealous of your parents and a stranger to Dillon. Plus, I was angry at the world. We might have stayed together for a while, but we wouldn’t have lasted.”

“I would have lasted,” he answered her.

“I wouldn’t have.” She waited, but he caught her meaning as quickly as always.

“Does that mean you might now?”

“I think it means I’d like to try,” she said, as she stood on tiptoes to take his mouth with hers.

*****

Unsurprisingly, they were late to the party.

Sylvie shivered in the cold, waiting as Lucas spoke softly to the driver of the car that had brought them to AlecCorp headquarters, and then slipped her arm into his as he straightened and the car pulled away.

He smiled down at her, putting his hand over hers as they walked toward the low steps that led into the building. Automatically, Sylvie assessed the space. Three, no, at least four stories, with what looked like an open balcony on the front of the fourth floor. Multiple doors in the front wall meant too many entrances to easily defend, while pillars every ten feet or so could be useful hiding places or annoying visibility issues. On the left, the sidewalk sloped and the portico became a patio, a dead end unless you were willing to jump the railing to the street below.

“I don’t think anyone will be trying to kill you tonight,” Lucas whispered in her ear, stirring the soft hairs and sending a shiver down her spine.

She smiled at him, squeezing his arm in response, as they entered the building.
‘Habit.’

A little thrill of excitement pulsed through her. With faint music playing in the distance and scents of fir and cinnamon in the air, the evening felt glittery and magical. Oh, sure, it was a really just a boring corporate party for a company she didn’t much like and they were only here to see if Lucas could discover a link to the drug cartels. But she was wearing a beautiful dress with a gorgeous man next to her and she wasn’t on-duty. And after the emotional wringer she’d been through earlier, it would be fun to relax and enjoy the night.

If they ever got in, that was. Sylvie craned her neck, trying to see what was ahead of them and why they were stuck behind a short line of equally well-dressed people. Ah, security. The ribbons and fir decorating the metal detectors were a nice touch, but the hold-up was typical for Washington events.

Beyond the short line, the lobby was sparsely populated. Off to the left, a temporary coat check had been set up. A few people stood there, outerwear draped over their arms, as they waited to turn their coats in to the woman who was carefully hanging each on an open rack. In the center of the room, a man sat behind a reception desk. Straight ahead, wide open doors led to the music, while to the right, a few people headed into the elevators.

As Sylvie reached the front of the line, she considered her choices. Then she dropped her black clutch on the moving belt and stepped through the archway of the security system.

Beep, beep, beep
.

No surprise. Sylvie inhaled, feeling the comfortable weight of her gun held tight in the leather pocket across her belly. The Glock 36 was mostly made of a high-strength nylon-based polymer but it had enough metal in it for metal detectors to notice. Of course, she ought to just tell the guards she was carrying and show them her personal protection specialist license, firearms endorsement and concealed carry permit. At an AlecCorp party, half the guests had probably done the same. Still, getting past AlecCorp security without revealing her weapon would be much more satisfying.

A guard, dressed for the occasion in a dark suit and carrying a handheld wand, stepped forward, saying, “Excuse me, ma’am, could you step aside, please?”

“Of course.” Sylvie kept her voice pleasant as she moved to the side of the machine, already planning what she’d say when the wand went off. Underwire bra? Metal studs in the leather? This wasn’t the TSA, so she could refuse a pat-down.

Beep, beep, beep
.

Sylvie glanced over her shoulder. Lucas, following her through the metal detector, looked mildly surprised and shrugged at her as the guard waved him over.

Beep, beep, beep
.
Beep, beep, beep
.
Beep, beep, beep
.

“I think your machine might be malfunctioning,” Sylvie said to the guard who’d stopped moving, wand held upright, as he frowned at the empty detector. No one was standing in it but the beeping continued.

The woman who’d been behind Lucas in line crossed her arms over her low-cut red evening dress, tapping her fingers impatiently. “It’s cold over here,” she called to the guard. “Could you speed it up?”

“It keeps doing that.” The guard looked around, seeming helpless. The man behind the reception desk was standing up, Sylvie noted, and another in a black suit moved toward them from the elevators.

Beep, beep, beep.

The annoying sound continued. Lucas put a hand on Sylvie’s shoulder and said to the guard. “You seem to have a problem. Could you finish up with me before taking care of that?” he asked, nodding toward the detector.

“Of course, sir.” The guard responded with an automatic deference that had Sylvie’s eyes narrowing. But as Lucas stepped forward, arms slightly raised, the guard waved the wand over him with reasonable care, ignoring the noise behind him. He then said perfunctorily, “Thank you, sir. Food’s upstairs on the fourth floor, dancing through the doors, enjoy your evening,” before turning his attention to the other two men and adding, “I don’t know what’s wrong with it. It keeps going off. That’s the third time.”

Sylvie couldn’t decide whether to feel insulted or pleased. She’d gotten her weapon past AlecCorp security, but only because the guard had dismissed her as a threat when he realized she was with Lucas.

“If he read the newspaper, he would have known better,” Lucas said to her as they moved farther into the lobby. She glanced at him. He was grinning at her, amused by her emotions, and she mock-scowled at him before laughing herself.

“What first?” Lucas asked.

“You have to ask?” Sylvie answered as she paused by the elevator.
‘After nine and we missed dinner—I’ll help you eavesdrop on some bigwigs, but you need to feed me first.’

Behind them, another alarm started going off, and Sylvie glanced over her shoulder. The guard at the metal detector was gesticulating, frustration obvious, while the other two were looking away, one back toward the reception desk, the other toward the coat check.

“Fire alarm?” Sylvie asked. It didn’t have the right kind of blare, though. It sounded more like the ringing of a security system when an emergency exit was opened.

“No,” Lucas answered, frowning, as the elevator door slid open in front of them. “No, I don’t think so.” The words were slow, and his eyes were intent on the metal detector. Sylvie caught the flicker of a thought behind them.

“What?” she asked sharply, turning to look back at him as she stepped into the waiting elevator.

He followed her into the elevator without answering aloud.
‘Check your phone,’
he thought.
‘Just in case.’

‘
You think it might be Dillon?’
Sylvie opened her purse without waiting for a response, eager to see if she had a message, and checked her phone.
‘Nothing.’

Lucas was looking at his phone as well, and shook his head.
‘Me neither.’
He tucked the phone back into his pocket.

“What are you thinking?” Sylvie asked the question, then felt silly. She ought to be able to tell. But she couldn’t. Lucas was thinking more in impressions, fleeting memories and images, than in words. And the images flew by too quickly for her to catch them.