Hawkins wondered if she meant to dare him to take what she’d offered. If she meant to tease him. The expectant look on her face told him that she actually wanted an answer. She wasn’t just taunting him—and he was a twisted bastard to think that she was.
“I’m not here to entertain you, Princess,” he said more sharply than he meant.
She was contrite. “I’m sorry to pry. I won’t do it again, but don’t shut me out. I’ve never had anyone who talks to me like you do. Like I’m a real person rather than a dress-up doll.” Damara put her hand on his forearm. “Please?”
It took everything in him to walk the line between jerking away from her as if he’d been burned or crushing her against him and drowning in her sweetness.
It was the please that was his undoing. He supposed that he’d be able to say it was Damara herself that was his undoing. He knew if she didn’t get away from him, all his noble intentions would be shot to shit.
All it would take was a glance, a touch, and he’d do anything she asked—even ruin her. It wasn’t that he thought a woman was ruined after she lost her virginity, but she’d be ruined if she lost it to him.
“You’re not a doll, but you are a princess.”
“That doesn’t make me any better or any worse than anyone else. All it means is that I was born into a certain family.”
“Don’t be so quick to shed the protection that affords you, Highness.”
“Don’t call me that. Just Damara.”
But he had to call her “Highness,” because it reminded him of all the reasons—no matter her words—why she wasn’t for him. He flexed his fingers around the controls, wanting to reach out for her, but he knew better.
When he got ahold of Renner, he was going to punch him in the dick. Maybe until he couldn’t raise his arms. That would only be half of what this felt like for him. There were any number of operatives who would’ve been a better choice for this gig.
Part of him was ready to hand the man his resignation the next time he saw him, but then where would he be? A killing machine with no purpose. What would he do? Where would he go? And what would happen to him once he had no outlet for the darkness inside of him?
No, Byron had no other options. This was where he belonged; this was what he was for. He had to believe that.
She sat quietly for a long time. It could have been hours, or it could’ve been minutes. Time lost its meaning when he was around her. He hated that. It made him ineffectual.
“Will you talk to me now?” she finally asked.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything. Where are you from?” She looked down at her hands. “I wasn’t going to pry. Right. Seems I can’t help myself.”
He cocked his head to the side. It wouldn’t hurt to tell her where he was from. That was nothing. It was in his jacket. He could share those things. They weren’t intimate; they weren’t where his demons had hidden themselves.
“We lived in Virginia Beach when I was a kid and we had a boat. My dad would take us out at night and we chased what he called the Moonlight Road. He always said Blackbeard’s treasure was at the end.”
“That’s how you know your way around the sea. I bet you could tell me all about the stars, too.” She smiled. “Don’t the stars inspire wonder and curiosity?” Her eyes were bright, and there was a kind of excitement on her face.
Hawkins hadn’t thought about it in a long time. Not since he was a kid chasing moonlight ribbons across the water. They were maps and signposts for navigation, burning masses so far away that the light they were looking at was from something long dead and dark. They weren’t hopeful or inspiring. They were pale remnants of what had once been.
“Not so much anymore, Princess. I see constellations and stories made up to make sense of a world a primitive people didn’t understand. Andromeda, Perseus—myths that, like starlight, aren’t real.”
She laughed. “What do you mean it’s not real? I can see them. The shapes they take, the stories behind them.”
“Wishing on stars is like pinning your hope on the past and expecting it to change.”
“I didn’t say anything about wishing, although it’s a nice thought. I used to wish all the time that I was just a girl instead of a princess. I know how far wishing gets you. That doesn’t mean that they’re not awe inspiring.”
For the first time, it hit Byron that she had her own pain. He supposed that was a stupid thing to think. Of course she had her own pain, her own demons. Everyone did.
The wonder on her face was suddenly snuffed, like turning off a light. “Where do you live now?”
“Everywhere, really. I don’t have a home base. I haven’t since my parents shipped me off to a military boarding school my junior year in high school.”
“But surely you’re from somewhere? Virginia Beach, then?”
“No, we lived there until I was seven. Then we moved to Glory, Kansas. What about you, Princess? Did you spend your whole life on an island?” He turned the conversation back to her, shutting down all the memories, all the emotion that flooded over him whenever he thought of Glory.
She smiled and looked down at her hands. “I did. I’m the Jewel of Castallegna. I’m never supposed to leave the island. Going to Tunis was the farthest I’ve ever been from my home.”
“Do you miss it?”
“Like missing part of myself.”
They were dangerously close to touching things he’d buried deep and dark. Like wanting to belong, knowing that there was place that was always his—always part of him.
“Do you miss Kansas?” She interrupted his thoughts.
“Not hardly. The last view I had of that place was from the back of a police car.” He hadn’t been back since then and never would, if he had his way. He hated the faux piety of small-town life, the shiny picture they painted on the town’s facade to outsiders who didn’t understand there were no opportunities for anything better and there was definitely no forgiveness for your sins. Everyone in a small town lived in a glass house, but they all threw rocks.
“You were really a little hoodlum, weren’t you?” She laughed, the sound light and happy. If she was anyone else, he’d have thought she was laughing at him. But he could see that she found delight in his delinquency. “All the better for me, I suppose. You wouldn’t have the skills to do your job without it, I imagine.”
Again they veered too close to things he’d rather not disturb. Hawkins didn’t know what it was about her that dredged every unholy thing to the surface, but she was like a magnet.
A wise man would decide that it was time to face those things, but Hawkins had never been accused of being a wise man.
She seemed to sense his discomfort. “I’ve never been to Barcelona. What’s it like?”
He shrugged. One port was much the same to him as any other. He tried to think of the city with the unabashed awe that the princess would feel. From her questions when they were first at sea to now, she seemed to find joy in the smallest details, fascination with the most banal of things.
“It’s a major economic center. My cover takes me there often.” He flashed her a grin, thinking of how much she would enjoy a particular hotel. “I know exactly where we can lie low until we can get a flight. I stay at the ABaC sometimes when I’m in town. I have a safety deposit box in the hotel and the staff are discreet.”
She grinned. “See? My questions were helpful. I’m not just a nuisance.”
He