Page 34

HUNGARY

THE SAME NIGHT

KLAUS

Natalia isn’t in bed when I walk out of the bathroom. When I go to the night table to look at my wristwatch, my phone isn’t there, and I’m certain it was when I got up. Securing the thick white bath towel around my waist, I stride into the suite’s living room.

On the balcony, her dark hair crowned with moonlight, Natalia stands, looking toward the river, her posture stiff. I pause in the open doorway.

My phone is on the outside table with the half-empty bottle of wine, a hurricane lantern with a lit candle inside, and the forgotten food.

A fork shifts on one of the plates as I collect my phone, and Natalia flinches at the sound but doesn’t turn.

When I tap the screen, the text previews from Phaedra—which Natalia has clearly seen—make my breath catch in my throat.

Schatzi: Shit has hit the fan. Protests. Arson (here’s a link). Journalist from Reuters injured or possibly killed. Thank fuck we severed ties when we did. This is a disaster.

Schatzi: UN sending a special envoy. We made the right call but still may not come out with our noses clean—Ben and Jack are so far up that president’s ass they look like Cerberus.

I set the phone down and go to the railing, leaving several feet between Natalia and me, and lean on the ledge with my hands steepled. “I know you must have questions. I’ll be as forthcoming as I can. But you must understand why I couldn’t talk to you about this.”

“Sure. You didn’t trust me—I get it.”

“Talia—”

“That’s not why I’m the most upset,” she cuts in. “It’s… what I found in your briefcase. I’m trying to figure out if it means what I think.”

I turn slowly to face her. “ In my briefcase? Well. Be my guest,” I say acidly. “What’s mine is yours, apparently.”

She turns to me with a hard look. “ Nothing that’s yours has ever been mine, Klaus. And I don’t think it ever will be. I’m exhausted, trying to climb the walls of your fortress.”

“I’ve only held back when I had no choice.”

“Oh, bullshit.”

I look at her seriously. “It’s true. I love you, Talia.”

She covers her eyes. “ Stop. You’re making it so much worse…”

I sink my face into my hands. The thin sound of post-midnight traffic drifts up from below.

“Tonight,” Natalia begins, her voice shaky. “Earlier, with the locked door… you were talking to Aristide Bridoux at PlatiNumeric, right?”

“I’m not happy you eavesdropped.” The words come out feebly—it’s a poor defense.

Her jaw is hard, the line of her mouth pitiless. “Answer me.”

“You know I was speaking with him, clearly. The things I’ve concealed…

it’s so politically volatile, I’ve had to be careful while the matter is investigated.

Intel reached Emerald over a year ago about human rights abuses in the new GP’s host country.

We went to the FIA with evidence of slave labor, torture.

A massive government cover-up ensued. We heard rumors that one journalist went missing while chasing the story.

Then recently, the reporter falling off the balcony.

No one really believes it was an accident—don’t be disingenuous and claim you do.

” I point toward my phone. “And now? Possibly another death. I cannot stress enough how dangerous this is.”

“Dangerous to Emerald’s reputation?” Natalia counters, cynical. “To the sport? To the all-important bottom line?”

I rise from the chair and cross to her, but when I try to touch her shoulders, she steps back. My hands drop uselessly. “To you , Talia. My God. And potentially to every citizen in that country.”

Silence follows, and Natalia’s head drops. My arms ache to hold her, but I don’t dare try. “What is this about my briefcase?” I ask quietly. “What did you find?”

A gray spot blooms on the sleeve of her dressing gown, and I realize it’s a tear. With a helpless sound, I move closer, but she sidesteps me. She reaches into the pocket of her dressing gown, then extends and opens it to reveal a handful of USB thumb drives.

“A whole bag of these. Exactly the same as the one I gave to you in Barcelona,” she tells me, her voice a rasp. “Something I risked my job to do.”

I shake my head, mouth opening but freezing on the shape of a denial I know is useless. Why didn’t I confess months ago, that evening in Barcelona?

“You sent me the ‘stolen engineering blueprints’ evidence, didn’t you?

” she continues with a chilling calm. “All fake. A snipe hunt, like Nefeli suspected—a stupid trick to distract me, like a mother giving her phone to her toddler so they won’t climb out of the grocery cart.

” Her fists clench. “You made a fool of me.”

There’s a musical tink! as a moth hits the chimney of the hurricane lantern on the table, clumsily trying to find its way inside, then a faintly audible hiss as it succeeds in the goal and drops, scorched, beside the candle.

“Yes, I sent it.”

Natalia stares at me, absorbing my grim confession. She focuses on the lantern with tired eyes, her shoulders lowering as if she’s deflating. Her gaze roams across the remains of our meal, then rakes over me in detail before tilting upward to focus on the moon.

A cramp of panic seizes my chest as I realize what she’s doing: saying goodbye to it all, studying the scene as if painting a picture that will have to last a lifetime.

“ Wait ,” I breathe. “I did it, but you must let me explain.”

She pushes herself into motion, veering around me and dropping the handful of USB sticks on the table before going inside.

I follow, trailing her like a stray dog with the hope of offered scraps.

She hauls out her suitcase and flops it open at the foot of the bed, immediately returning to the closet and yanking clothes off the wooden hangers.

I pull on some cotton pajama bottoms and sag to the side of the bed. “Please,” I ask gently. “I know you’re angry. And it’s justified. But will you talk with me?”

She folds a blouse in her efficient way and rolls up a skirt, placing them into the suitcase with right-angle accuracy, then marching back to the closet.

“My phone call with the woman from Amnesty International, that night in Montréal,” she throws over her shoulder.

“Did you do something to kill it? Because I’ll bet it wouldn’t have been hard.

You got your hands on my phone number in like five minutes when we ran into each other in Melbourne last year.

Such a big shot. Everyone falls all over themselves to do your bidding.

No one else’s will matters, I guess, when Klaus Franke decides what’s best, right? ”

The ache in my chest is horrible. I force myself to speak through the maelstrom of awareness that I may have irreparably fucked up.

“I… I wanted… to protect you,” I stammer, opening my hands, then dropping them to my lap.

“After we made love during your visit to Santorini, you spoke so passionately about your lifelong desire to write and publish earthshaking work—something that would earn awards and change lives. I knew if you dug deeper into the rumors of what was occurring with the new grand prix location, you wouldn’t let go. Danger be damned.”

She sits back on her heels with a furious look.

“And you’d be right , Klaus. I’m a journalist, and it’s my job.

” With a disgusted scoff, she turns away again.

“You could’ve helped me . Just think what a very different conversation we’d be having right now if instead of being a patronizing asshole, you’d seen me as a partner. ”

The truth of what she’s said sinks through me and shimmers away, like a key dropped into deep waters, unrecoverable.

“My heart was in the right place,” I assert. “I couldn’t risk you! Please try to understand. Some mistakes…” My heart wrings in my chest. “Some you cannot come back from if you make a poor call.”

“It’s not your choice what I risk, Klaus!”

“I panicked and was buying myself time—please understand,” I all but beg.

“You’d asked, that same weekend, about the rumors of Emerald stealing engineering designs from Allonby, so I thought, ‘If she gets a tip about that, she’ll chase it.

’ There was no validity to the suspicions, so it seemed safe.

A dead end, but one that would take time to pursue. ”

“Well, thanks for being a hero and saving me from my assumed complete lack of self-preservation,” she mutters, pushing past me in the bathroom doorway. She stomps to the suitcase and dumps the contents of her arms into it with a clatter.

“In retrospect it looks condescending—I know.”

“Ya think?” she drawls, thick with sarcasm.

“I tried to tell you, that evening in Barcelona… I was in the process of confessing everything. But you stopped me, again and again.”

She glares up at me. “What kind of a delusional asshole says ‘My lies are your fault, because you didn’t let me take them back later’?”

I rake my hands into my hair with frustration. “That’s not what I mean.”

She zips her suitcase shut and it sticks halfway. Sitting on it, she completes the job, then regards me critically.

“I’m gonna tell you something, Klaus. For most of my life, my greatest fear has been abandonment, because of my parents leaving.

But their sin was actually the lying . It turned out they didn’t abandon me voluntarily!

And I wouldn’t have spent eighty percent of my life thinking they had if they’d been honest.” She stands and pulls the suitcase upright.

“Instead, they ‘protected’ me. They may not have chosen the abandonment, but what they did choose was the goddamned lie.”

My horrible mistake is spread between us like a tar pit I can’t possibly cross. I’m afraid to say what’s in my head—it’s far too naked—but if ever there were a time for complete honesty, it’s now.

“I wish I’d been brave enough not to mislead you.

All I could see was the danger to you, and the fallout of my past failures.

” I go to the bed and sit, staring at my hands, knotted together as I lean on my knees.

“I wasn’t able to save Sofia, because… I hung back and didn’t insist on her seeing a doctor, for years when they might have caught her illness.

I thought I was sparing her feelings—I didn’t want her to think that having children was critically important to me.

With this situation, with you… yes , I knew I was making a choice for you.

I acknowledged the arrogance of that, but I fucking did it anyway, because I can’t lose you . ”

I meet her eyes. A flicker of hope rises in me that what I’m saying makes some sense.

“I can’t help what my life has made me,” I tell her with intensity. “When I’ve erred, you’ll certainly always get an apology. But I make no apologies for who I am .”

One corner of her mouth lifts wryly. “Men always say that like it’s a virtue.”

Returning to the closet, she scoots her feet into sandals.

“You know what really stands out to me?” she goes on.

“How much effort it took you to make up the phony evidence. Writing fake emails, blocking out the ‘names,’ hunting down a few useless blueprints to attach. Must’ve taken hours to get it just right.

Which makes me think…” She cocks her head with a stinging smile.

“ What else would you expend that kind of energy on to deceive me down the road?” She extends the handle of her suitcase with a snap before dragging it out of the bedroom.

I leap up to follow. “Talia. Wait , please.” I dash to stand between her and the suite’s entryway. “Don’t go—not like this. I’ll sleep on the sofa if you don’t want to share the bed. You can leave in the morning if you’re still upset.”

Her laugh is harsh. “ If I’m still upset? Yeah, okay. You’re right—you know how women are! Silly weaker vessels. I should take a Valium like some fifties housewife and lie down until my ‘fit of hysteria’ passes.” She sidesteps around me.

“Where will you go? The hotel is full.”

“I’ll text Phaedra and take a car to the paddock and stay in her motor home.

” She yanks the door open and, as I see the yellow daisy sticker on her suitcase, which she uses to tell it apart from others at the airport, the memory hits me full force: The first time I noticed that sticker was twenty months ago in Abu Dhabi, the night we met.

Weakly, I repeat my plea. “My impulse to protect you was pure. The thought of losing you—”

“This is how you lost me. This. ” She looks back, framed in the doorway. “I’d hoped you were different.”

I reach for her. “Tell me what I can do. I’m deeply sorry. I know words are inadequate, so tell me what to do . I’m listening.”

She scrunches her lips to one side in an expression of pained regret and backs through the doorway.

“Read ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ from The Canterbury Tales .

Geoffrey Chaucer. But you won’t be doing it for me.

Do it for yourself, and whoever you date next.

” She turns and starts down the hall. “You could use some educating.”