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Colum still looked stunned, but then he blinked, focusing on them.“What’s the next step?”

Xavier arched a brow.“You need an annulment.”

ChapterNineteen

Franco: Wait, can we go back to your brother and your wife for a second?

Colum: Please stop referring to Nikolett like that

Franco: AM I WRONG?

Colum: …

Colum: What about them?

Franco: Have they fucked?And if not, would you be willing to tell me when they do?Devon wants to start a betting pool.

She shouldn’t be enjoying herself.

Nikolett laughed at something her new companion said and picked up her Vietnamese coffee, except the coffee itself was long gone.

Across from her, Gus’s attention switched from her face to her empty cup as she set it down.“Want another coffee?”he asked.“My treat.”

“No, thank you.”Ordering another coffee would mean forcing her head of security to order multiple coffees, then take a sip of each one to test for poison.She’d been selfish enough already, insisting on leaving her fortified house—which had started to feel like a prison—to come have a cup of coffee.

It was more than her house that started to feel like a prison.It was her entire life.

She wouldn’t have put her security team through the trouble of arranging this little outing if she hadn’t been teetering on the edge of losing it.Not long ago, she’d found herself sitting on the floor of her bedroom, security system lockdown mode activated, which turned her room into an impenetrable steel box, and for a minute, she’d contemplated just giving up.

Stop fighting.Stop trying.

Maybe if she did, her broken heart wouldn’t hurt so much.

Nikolett was jerked out of her introspection when her stomach rumbled, loud enough she knew Gus heard it.

He frowned in concern.“Are you sure I can’t buy you lunch?”

“You’re very generous, but no.”

Gus’s frown deepened and he leaned forward, forearms braced on the edges of the small table.The place was packed—it was lunchtime in downtown Budapest, and this Vietnamese coffeehouse had not just excellent coffee but great food.It was more packed than it might otherwise have been, because half the people inside the coffee shop were her security team.The mix of harcosok—her territory’s knights, who maintained law and order among the society—and security officers, her black-ops fixers.

None of them were thrilled from a security standpoint that she was out in public, but she’d seen a few relieved glances they shared among themselves.The past year had been hectic, but the past six months had been rough as they battled against the increased frequency of assassination attempts that had left her broken and bloody.In the last week or two, everything seemed to have escalated.The latest crisis was the bear trap that resulted in the broken leg she currently had stretched out under the table.

It was starting to throb, which meant they had to leave soon.

But she didn’t want to go.

“Tell me more about being a…what did you say?”She smiled at her new friend Gus, who seemed to loom over the small table, given his size.

“I’m a UX engineer specialist.”He adjusted his glasses, somehow making them more crooked, and it was adorable.

This great mountain of a man was awkward and sweet.Not smiling one second, brooding the next, and tossing her up against the wall a second after that.

No.No, she wasn’t going there.

“And that is?”

“I’m a software engineer, but I mostly work on the user experience.That’s what UX means.It makes sense in English.”He switched to that language.“U for user, and X for experience.Even though it starts with an E.”