Page 126 of The Unlikely Spare

“Eoin, you need to tell me what’s going on.”

He meets my eyes. “I will explain, but not here. We need to get moving. They’ll be hunting us.”

“Who’s hunting us?”

“The terrorists. And the New Zealand police soon as well, along with your protection team and any other Scotland Yard operatives on the ground in New Zealand.”

I’m struggling to comprehend his words. Why are both the terrorists and the authorities hunting us now?

Something is decidedly amiss, that’s clear enough from what I heard from Eoin’s part of the conversation.

“I’ll tell you about it, but first, we need to get moving.” His eyes search my face with an intensity that feels like a touch. “Can you trust me?”

Trust me.

Trust me.

Trust me.

The words echo in my head.

Because that’s what Daniel had said to me right before I found out he’d accepted my mother’s bribe. “Trust me, Nicky,” he’d whispered against my lips in my Oxford rooms, his hands cradling my face with such convincing tenderness. “My feelings for you are real.”

Three days later, Mother herself, her voice clinically detached, detailed exactly how much my heart had been worth to him. Fifty thousand pounds, the same amount one might spend on a moderately nice car. I’d have hoped a prince’s heart would at least merit luxury vehicle pricing, but apparently, I rated somewhere between a BMW and a particularly ambitious Ford. Devastating to one’s ego, really.

Daniel. My mother. My sister Amelia.

All people I thought I’d known who had then betrayed my faith in them. My life really has been a masterclass in deceit.

Eoin is unnaturally still as I search his face now, every muscle locked in place as if movement might somehow influence my answer.

Do I trust him with my life?

Yes.

I believe Officer Eoin O’Connell will keep me safe with every breath in his body. I saw it in his eyes in Darwin, at Hobbiton. Whatever else he’s lied about, that fierce protectiveness is real.

Do I trust him with my heart?

Well, that’s another matter.

But right now, what matters is the keeping me alive part.

I can keep him close enough to protect me, but not close enough to destroy me.

“Yes, I trust you to keep me alive,” I say.

Eoin’s breath catches, the sound sharp in the space between us. Those eyes that have watched me with professional detachment, with exasperation, with hunger, are now looking at me with something I can only describe as hope mixed with hurt.

He heard what I didn’t say as clearly as what I did.

When he finally speaks, his voice carries the rough edge of sandpaper over raw wood. “Then we need to go. Now.”

I nod.

Eoin’s hand finds the small of my back, guiding me as we move through the crowd. The contact is professional, protective, but my body responds like he’s set off fireworks beneath my skin.

I step slightly forward, creating distance without making it obvious. Just enough space that his hand falls away. Something shutters in his expression.