Page 55 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold (The Blonde Identity #2)

One Year Ago

Scotland

Alex

Alex lay in bed for a long time, staring at the man asleep in the chair beside her. His hair was mussed and his clothes were

wrinkled, and he couldn’t have been further from the dude in the bar at the airport Ramada. In short, Michael Kingsley had

never looked worse, but he’d also never looked better, and for a while she just nestled into the soft sheets and warm blankets

and watched a soft ray of sunshine streak across a jaw that was rough with stubble.

She must have made a sound, though, because he bolted upright, as if mad at himself that he’d fallen asleep and left her alone

and unguarded.

“Did I ever thank you for the bracelet?”

He started to lunge for her but held himself back somehow. Like he didn’t want to scare her. Like a part of him thought it

might still be a dream.

“Hi,” Alex told him.

“Hi.” His voice cracked.

There were a million things to say in that moment but only one that mattered. “You came for me.”

He put a hand on her forehead like he was feeling for a fever, but he left it there like he couldn’t stop touching her quite

yet. “Always.”

And then he kissed her—soft and then hard. It was the kiss of a man looking for his last breath.

When she tried to sit up, he said, “Easy,” then he helped her lean against the pillows. “Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere? Nowhere?” Alex was honestly guessing. She’d hurt so much and for so long that she didn’t remember what the lack

of pain actually felt like. Hurt was her default state. “How long...”

“Two days.”

That explained the wrinkles and the stubble and the way her legs felt as if they couldn’t quite hold her when she struggled

to her feet.

“I have to go,” Alex blurted. “I have to...” But she trailed off when she realized she had no idea how that sentence was

supposed to end. “Do... something?”

“Do you?” King was honestly asking. He wasn’t arguing or fighting or telling her he knew better. “What do you need to do?”

“I need...”

Her hair was crusty and stiff with dried salt water. Her skin was sticky with sweat and soot. She was wearing nothing but

a too-big T-shirt she absolutely hadn’t put on herself, and it was easy to imagine King, Boy Scout that he was, closing his

eyes to strip her out of her wet suit, doing war with himself over what was worse: looking at her body without permission

or letting her get sicker and die.

“I need... to take a shower?” Alex looked around the room. There were gray stone walls and floors covered with thick rugs,

windows framed by heavy curtains. The light fixtures were downright medieval, and yet the whole place felt warm and safe and...

his. This wasn’t some safe house. This was the safe house. But it probably wasn’t enough.

“I’m not safe. And if I’m here, then you’re not safe either.”

“Try me.”

“I kicked a hornet’s nest.”

King actually laughed. “Judging by the amount of debris in the Mediterranean, I’d say you blew one up.” Alex didn’t bother

to deny it. “Kozlov?” he guessed.

“I have to go.”

“Do you?”

Alex had to think about the answer. The flash drive was safe, and the backup was gone, and there was probably a manhunt of insane proportions going on all over Europe.

Kozlov hadn’t been in the compound when it exploded, so now he was going to be out for blood.

The Agency would have a host of other questions.

As soon as the intelligence community realized what Alex had, the whole world would be gunning for her: good guys, bad guys, and literally everyone in between.

She had to get to Langley. She had to turn herself in. She had to...

The words came back again, ringing in her ears. “Double agents were rare and they were legend. I have long wanted one of my own. He has told me the most interesting things.”

Kozlov had a mole , and Alex felt her legs give out. She dropped to the bed and King surged toward her, worry in his eyes that morphed into

something far, far different when she looked up at him. And grinned. “Actually, no. I don’t have to go... anywhere.”

She huffed out a laugh because surely that wasn’t true? She always had to be going somewhere or doing something. Alex had spent her whole life running from her sister and her parents and her

past—from a universe that looked at her and wondered if she was even worth it. Alex had been running her whole life, and now

that she was actually, literally, on the run, she had to wonder...

Where was she supposed to go? What was she supposed to do? Surely she was supposed to be doing something , but right then she was too busy watching King deflate. He was what the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade probably looked like

at five o’clock, hot air seeping out of him. Wilting before her eyes. He’d been bracing for a fight because that was who they

were. Or who they used to be.

She tried to read the last five years on his face. He should have looked like a stranger, but instead, he felt like home,

which was why Alex knew she shouldn’t stay.

“I really should go—”

“Back to bed,” he said. “I agree. Great idea.”

“No. King. It’s not safe. You’re not safe.”

“Let me worry about me. Let me worry about you. In fact, why don’t I take charge of all the worrying for the time being?”

“You got out!” She didn’t mean to yell, but it felt, somehow, like it was either that or whisper. Like those were her only two options. His hands were on hers and she’d never been more obsessed with his fingers. “You got out, and I’m not going to drag you back in.”

“I’m not in. I’m with you. I’m wherever you are.”

Her eyes closed of their own volition, like they wanted to keep her treacherous tears in. She wasn’t brave enough to let them

fall.

“They’ll come for me.” This time, it was a whisper, but King didn’t care as he leaned close and whispered back—

“Let them try.” Hands cupped her head, and he leaned down to look into her eyes. “No one’s going to look for you here because

I got out five years ago and we hate each other. Remember?”

Alex hated how her voice cracked when she asked, “Do we?”

Suddenly, the whole world hinged on the answer to that question.

“You’re safe with me. You will always be safe with me.” He pulled her close, and she couldn’t stop herself from leaning against

him. “Let me keep you safe.”

“But—”

“No one knows about this place, and even if they did...”

He didn’t say anything else. He just bent at the knees and lifted her into his arms. It wasn’t the first time he’d carried

her, but it was the first time in a long time that she’d been awake—that she’d have memories of it. She wanted to press them

in the pages of her mind and save them forever. But that just made her sound like Zoe. Then again, maybe there were worse

ways to be.

When King pulled back the curtains of the window, Alex wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The building was big and made of stone.

There was a tall tower in what looked like another wing and a stone wall that seemed to encircle—

“Is that a moat ?”

“It is.” He sounded almost smug as Alex gazed beyond the walls at the vast rolling hills and thousands of empty acres and

slowly realized—

“You bought a castle? With a drawbridge?” She couldn’t help but laugh.

“I bought a castle.” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “With a drawbridge.”

A quiet, jaded voice in the back of her mind asked How? and When ? and With what money? but the word that came out was, “Why?”

It took him a moment to admit, “An operative I used to work with told me that’s what it would take.”

“To do what?”

“To be safe from her.” Oh. “But the thing is... I don’t want to be.”

It was the bravest thing that either one of them had ever said, and Alex didn’t want to let him win. But even more than that,

she didn’t want to let it pass.

Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is just stop fighting, so Alex brought her mouth to his. It wasn’t even a kiss, just

a brushing of lips. It was just a whisper—just a promise.

And then she pulled back, a little sheepish and scared, but that didn’t stop her from saying, “I’ve wanted to do that since

Berlin.”

And then his fingers were in her hair and his lips were on the soft skin of her throat. “I’ve wanted to do this since the

island.”

She pulled his mouth to hers, and their lips parted as everything became deeper, darker. More. In every way more.

“I’ve wanted to do that since Cartagena,” she breathed as he pressed her against the wall, giving her his weight and all his

attention as he lifted her one more time—as rough and as hard as the stone at her back—before growling—

“I’ve wanted to do that since the Ramada Inn.”

And then he carried her back to bed and dropped her on the mattress, but he didn’t move for a long time. “You can put it down,

sweetheart.”

“What?” she whispered while he kissed the corner of her mouth.

“The world.” He looked at her like Isn’t it obvious? “I’m going to carry you for a while. You don’t have to do anything but hold on.”