Page 173 of Lethal Torture

“Always.” I cup her chin, my thumb stroking across her lower lip. “That’s what love is, Zin,” I say softly. “At least, that’s what it is to me.”

A shadowy veil, the last of her mask, falls away from her eyes like mist clearing from a windowpane. She steps forward, into the waiting circle of my arms. “Do you remember the morning after we first met in the Quartier?” For once her eyes don’t slide away from mine, and even beneath the theatrical makeup, I can see the slow color mounting on her face.

“I remember.” I gather her close, inhaling her heady scent. “I barely fucking slept that night.”

“Me either.” She touches my face tentatively. “I went out running before dawn. And then I saw you, out on the river.”

“That really was you?” I stare down at her, remembering. “Watching me?”

She looks at me quizzically. “You saw me?”

“No.” I shake my head. “It was like I... felt you.”

Her eyes deepen, her hands sliding up behind my neck.

“I knew I should tell Mak to find someone else.” She sways closer to me, her eyes holding mine. “And then I saw you rowing. There was something so controlled about you out there, something intense and savage.” Her color builds, but she keeps talking. “Then your oar caught, and you hunched over it, staring at the water. I called Mak a moment later to confirm I wanted you to take the job.”

“I was thinking of you,” I say slowly. “I couldn’t think of anything else. I knew I shouldn’t take the job.” I smile wryly at her. “And I fucking knew I was going to take it anyway. I lost focus, and my oar caught.”

She nods, her mouth curved in the secret smile I love. “I’ve thought of that moment a thousand times,” she says. “Not because of the way you looked when you rowed. It was the way you looked when you stopped. Something in your face that I recognized. Understood, somehow, though I didn’t know why. I’m not sure I knew until right now.”

She touches my face. “It was loneliness, Luke,” she says quietly. “I just didn’t understand it until you said what love means to you.” She traces my mouth, the line of my jaw. “Because that’s what love means to me, too, Luke. That’s what having someone’s back means to me. It means never feeling lonely like that again.”

I stare down at her, suddenly completely lost for words.

“I love you, Luke.” She says it with a shy simplicity that breaks my heart. “You’re the only man in this world I ever want to have my back. Just so long as you know that I have yours, too.” She puts one small hand over my heart. “Here,” she says quietly. “Where it counts.”

I cover her hand with my own. “That’s been yours for a long time, Zin.” Her fingers curl inside mine, and my heart twists with them. “And now it’s yours forever.”

Epilogue

ZINAIDA

“Uncle Luke!”Ollie, Luke’s ten-year-old nephew, launches himself from the side of his father’s boat. “Watch me!” Turning a neat somersault, he lands in the crystal West Australian sea in an enormous splash that drenches me from head to toe and adds a decent dash of salt water to my spicy margarita.

“Me!” Max, Ollie’s eight-year-old brother, leaps up onto the side of the boat. “Watch me, Uncle Luke!” Throwing himself off the boat sideways, he hits the water with a hard crash that makes us all wince.

“Ouch.” Tommo, the boys’ father, grins as the two heads emerge, spluttering, from the water. “That one had to hurt.”

“Here you go, mate.” Luke hauls first Ollie, then Max from the water. Chuckling at the red mark down the right side of the latter boy, he tousles his hair. “Might want to try actually diving next time, Maxie.”

“Nah.” Max gives the red mark an assessing look. “I’ve had worse.”

“Well, next time,” Liana says, casting them both a remonstrative look, “jump off the front, not the side. You put half the Indian Ocean in Auntie Zin’s glass.”

Two sets of bright green eyes turn to me. “Sorry, Auntie Zin,” they both chorus, not looking it at all.

“It’s fine,” I say as Luke slides down onto the seat next to me.

Liana takes my glass and holds it out with her own to her sons. “But since you ruined it, boys, you can go and make us both a refill.”

Their eyes light up like Christmas trees. “I’ll do it,” Ollie says, grabbing my glass.

“No!” Max makes a lunge for Liana’s. “Me!”

They disappear down the hatch into the galley, still squabbling, until several moments later, the sound of an ice shaker comes, accompanied by stealthy giggles.

“I’m sure some judgmental Karen will curse my bad parenting for allowing you to teach my underage sons to make a perfect spicy marg.” Liana smiles at me from beneath a large floppy hat. “But to be honest, I wish I’d thought of it years ago. Not only a time-saver, but you have them eating out of your hand to learn the entire Pigalle cocktail menu.” She gives me a mischievous smile. “They’ve been googling it, just so you know. They’re apparently both obsessed with one called”—she taps quickly on her phone, then holds it up, frowning, to read—“the Green Whisper.”