Page 25 of Edge of Secrets (The Edge Trilogy #2)

“Why not?” I demanded. “You, waltzing out into the street, into your stalker’s arms?

You call that a solution? Those assholes picked you up off a main thoroughfare, Nell.

In downtown Manhattan, in front of multiple witnesses!

By now, they know who I am and where I live.

They’ll watch this place, too. They will nail you down eventually.

They will find a way, when your guard is down.

You can count on it. You have to change your mindset if you want to survive.

So does your little sister, incidentally. ”

She blew out a sigh, looking exhausted and lost. “Duncan, that may be true, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t have any choice but to work. I have to pay my rent, and I?—”

“Oh, you mean that place with the bugged phone, the compromised alarm, and the hostile video cameras?”

“I still have to pay for it!” she said. “Unless I find some other place to?—”

“Here,” I cut in. “Stay right here. With me.”

Her face was blank, her mouth open. “I … ah …”

“It’s the best solution,” I said. “There’s plenty of room. The security’s excellent.”

Nell threw up her hands. “Duncan, no!” she wailed. “No! I can’t! That’s very sweet, but it’s premature, and in any case, I still have to work!”

“No, you don’t. Norma will manage. She doesn’t want you to get killed, either. And it’s not premature. Not after last night. Work on game texts, if you have to work on something.” I gave her a hard, direct stare. “I don’t need help with rent or the groceries.”

“I noticed that.” Her voice was acid. “So what does this mean?”

I shrugged. “What does it sound like?”

She fixed me with a piercing gaze. “It sounds to me like I’d be kept.”

“It sounds to me like you’d be safe,” I countered.

“Safe, yes. And sexually available to you, twenty-four-seven?”

Anger uncoiled inside me, hot and red. “Would that be so terrible?”

She flicked that away with a sharp wave of her hand. “That’s not what I mean,” she said. “The sex is not the problem. On the contrary. The sex is great. It’s not that.”

“Well, thank God for that,” I said. “So what is your fucking problem, Nell? Is it that I have a lot of money? Big fucking deal. I worked for it. I have highly remunerative skills. You want to punish me for that?”

“No,” she snapped. “It’s not that.”

“Then why are you so uptight about accepting help from me? Because it is starting to mortally piss me off!”

She cleared her throat. “My mother was a prostitute,” she said.

Of all the things she could have told me, that was the last one I expected. “Huh?” I floundered. “Who? You don’t mean … the lady who got ...”

“No. Not her. That was Lucia, my adoptive mother.” Nell’s voice was colorless.

“I’m talking about my birth mother. Elena Pisani.

She wasn’t a streetwalking kind of prostitute.

She was always kept in style by rich lovers.

Nice apartments, beautiful clothes, jewels, spas, spending money.

But in the end, that part’s just window dressing. ”

A heavy silence followed her words, and I struggled for something intelligent to say. “Why are you telling me this?” I asked.

She fixed me with her blazing look, the one that intimidated and aroused me all at once.

“I remember her hammering out the details of each new mutually beneficial arrangement. As soon as she was done, off I’d go to another boarding school.

Until the guy got bored with her, or she found a richer client. ”

I searched for a way to contextualize this new and dangerous information, but it wouldn’t stick to anything. “Oh. I, uh, see.”

“Do you?” She looked away. “It looked all right on the surface, I guess. We were safe, fed, clothed, provided for. But her whole existence revolved around her patrons. Their schedules, their egos, their convenience, their tempers. She didn’t have any energy to spare for me.

She didn’t dare prioritize me. Ever. Then she died and I was absolutely alone.

It was so fucking sad, it practically destroyed me. ”

“I ... ah ...” I floundered for something to say that wasn’t stupid or offensive.

“I don’t want a man to be the center of my life. I don’t want to circle around him, dependent on him, subject to his whims, anxiously scrambling to please him. Fuck that. I’ve got plans and ambitions of my own. I will not get anywhere near that slippery slope, Duncan. Under no circumstances.”

“I never meant to imply that,” I said helplessly.

“It kind of implies itself,” she said. “I’m sorry this embarrasses you. You’re trying to be kind, and help me, and keep me safe. And I appreciate that. I really do. But I have my issues about it, and this is why. Since you were curious.”

I closed my eyes for a moment to calm myself down, let my thoughts settle, and then walked over to her. I took her hands, and held them. Then kissed them.

“You misunderstood me,” I said. “I would never, not in a million years, think that you were for sale. You, of all people.” I lifted her hands to my lips again. “What happened between us is precious, and magical. Like a unicorn. It can’t be bought.”

A flush reddened her cheeks. I was heartened by that.

“Thanks for saying that,” she said. “But I still have to go to work.”

I let out a slow, very controlled breath. It was compromise or die, and I wasn’t ready to die. “Then I’ll drive you,” I announced. “But we’d better get moving.”