Hidden Hearts

by Eva Chase

“Oh, I’m perfectly normal,” she said, a little too quickly. “Speak for yourself.”

  “No judgement intended,” I said, and groped for a question that would sound more casual. “So, how long are you in London for? Are you staying here indefinitely now, or are you going to get off to all those other places you haven’t gotten the chance to see yet?”

  “I don’t know,” Carina said. “I guess I’ll see how it goes.”

  She’d see where Alpha Project let her go next. I tipped my head, considering. Maybe that was a good angle to work from. That sense of frustration, of being penned in. And I could prompt a glimpse of my family’s past, maybe, that would shift her judgment in our favor if I played it right.

  “You know,” I said, “you didn’t mention having been to Paris. Have you missed the City of Lights so far?”

  “Never had the chance,” Carina said. Her gaze came back to me, and she eyed me curiously.

  “It’s right across the Channel,” I pointed out. “With the train now, you can make a day trip out of it.”

  “Ah, well. I guess I’ve just been too busy.”

  “Are you busy this weekend?” I asked.

  She blinked. “Well, I’m not sure. I’d have to check.”

  I leaned across the table, setting my hand over hers—gently, just to emphasize how much I meant the offer. “Why don’t we make a day trip out of it? This weekend? I’ll ask Alex to join us if he’s back, if you want. It’s really a shame to miss a place that beautiful when we’re so close. I lived there when I was a kid for a little while. I can show you the best spots.”

  I wasn’t sure what part of that caught her attention the most. If I’d read her wrong, if she hadn’t connected me to the Keanes, then it was probably the mention of the supposed Alex, who unfortunately I was going to have to delay wherever the heck he’d gone on his supposed business trip for a little while longer.

  Her brown eyes brightened. More impressions had tickled into me as I’d touched her hand, but I kept my attention focused on her, right here, right now. The whispers that touched me spoke of childhood roaming around a large yard, a big white wall closing it in. A longing directed at the vast blue sky. Hurling stones at that wall and watching them bounce off.

  “You know, you make a very appealing offer,” Carina said. She shifted back, taking her hand with her. “I’d really like to. Let me check a few things tonight after I get home, and I’ll let you know tomorrow, all right?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Take all the time you need. I pretty much set my own schedule, so I can be as flexible as you need me to be.”

  Something about the way she looked at me then set off a little flare of lust in my gut.

  My work here wasn’t quite done yet, though. When we’d cleared our plates, Carina sat back with a happy sigh. I resisted the urge to study her fork. How could I contrive to swipe it? Ah!

  The waiter came over to collect our things. I grabbed a couple of the platters and Carina’s plate as if to help him. But I tucked her fork against my wrist and then dropped my hands beneath the table where I’d left the shoulder bag I’d brought for exactly this reason. I tugged it open to get my wallet—and dropped the fork into the plastic baggy I’d left open inside.

  There. One step closer to finding out Carina’s real history. If we found solid proof that her Alpha Project “family” had lied to her about them, she’d have to rethink everything else she’d learned from them. Everything she thought she knew about the Keanes.

  And maybe, just maybe, I’d save more than just a teddy bear or a necklace this time. Maybe I’d save someone’s life.

  12

  Carina

  Frederick seemed even less happy than usual to see me.

  “A trip?” he repeated back to me. “Out of the country? With a man that closely tied to your probable target? That sounds like a horribly bad idea to me.”

  I stopped myself before I rolled my eyes at my supervisor. “You make it sound like I’d be crossing continents. It’s just Paris. It’s barely two hours away. I think I can handle the French.”

  “It’s not the French I’m concerned about,” Frederick muttered. “How does this relate to your mission here? Are you sure you’re not getting distracted?”

  I bristled inside at that implication. I’d already laid out my reasoning, and it was perfectly sound. “It’ll be my chance to observe this friend of his in person. Nick mentioned the guy’s family has lived there, that we’ll visit spots they went to. I could be able to find out all kinds of things about the Keanes, if this is him. And if it’s not, there’s nothing to be worried about anyway.”

  Why hadn’t I simply told him that Nick was the guy and there was no friend? I couldn’t completely answer that question to myself. All I knew was that the second Frederick knew what I’d found out, he’d be calling in the security force with the body armor and the tranqs, and they’d take Nick down like he was some kind of vicious criminal, not a guy who’d happened to be born to parents who had more secrets than he’d realized.

  He’d trusted me enough to open up just a little yesterday at the restaurant. In that moment when his gaze had held mine and he’d asked, It’s hard when you’ve always been a little on the outside, isn’t it? I’d understood.

  I didn’t know how, but he could see what I was. That I had a talent too. And he hadn’t stalked me to try to fight me over it. He was trying to make a connection. He wanted to trust me, to be able to talk to me.

  Who knew what else I might be able to get from him if I played along a little longer? It’d go so much smoother and with so much less pain that way than letting Frederick’s guys try to torture the important info out of him.

  I just needed Frederick to stop being such an asshole about it. I’d been in the field for four years. He should know I could handle myself. This was my mission as much as his. I ought to have some say.

  Now, he sighed. “I suppose I can run it by Mikkel and see what he says.” As if I were a kid and he was going to check with the other parent over a playdate.

  Of course, when had they ever let me take the initiative? I’d been so caught up in just getting to leave the compound and experience the outside world, and then in helping the search for my parents’ killers, that I’d never really noticed. I’d been happy to follow orders. They were going to let me have more of a life than that at some point, weren’t they?

  “I really think—” I started, and Frederick held up his hand.

  “I know what you think,” he said. “I’ll let you know what we decide.”

  We being him and Langdon and not me at all.

  I bit my tongue, but my hands had clenched as I walked out of the office. My thoughts stewed in my head the whole trip down to the lobby.

  I could show them. I’d just go ahead and take that initiative whether they liked it or not. They wouldn’t be complaining when I showed up with more info on the Keanes than anyone else had managed to get in thirty years.

  Outside the building, I pulled out my phone. It was the middle of the day, but Nick had said he worked at home. He was more likely to be there now than if it’d been later.

  Hey, I said. I want to do that Paris trip with you. But I need something first.

  It only took him a moment to respond. You’ve got it. Just name your price. He added a winking emoji.

  The corners of my lips twitched upward despite myself. Despite the trap I knew I was laying. Can I come see you, at your apartment? Call it a quirk, but I don’t like to travel internationally with someone until I’ve gotten a look at their home space. I don’t think you can really know someone until you’ve done that.

  There was a longer pause this time. What I’m hearing is you’re inviting yourself over.

  That’s the gist of it. You can always say no.

  But then it’s no to Paris?

  You do remember we only met each other a week ago, right?

  I think it’s more like a week and a half.

  Now you’re just dodging the subject. I
don’t care if it’s messy. Unless it’s messy with the blood of your many victims or something.

  I could almost hear his laugh at that. No blood, no victims. Okay. Are you busy right now? I can take a break from work and fix you some lunch.

  My lips curled into a full smile. That sounds perfect.

  He sent an address—in Finsbury Park. Not near the neighborhood where he’d left the teddy bear at all. I debated calling him on the lie, but that would only get this visit off on the wrong foot, wouldn’t it? I already knew why he’d lied. I wanted him open, not defensive.

  I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the building the cab pulled up in front of fit Nick perfectly. A four-story walk-up in worn brick, a tad shabby but with charming old-fashioned styling around the windows and front door. The smell of fresh baking carried down the street from a bakery with a patio out front.

  Nick’s apartment was on the top floor. He answered the buzz in two seconds flat and had his door open when I reached the top of the stairs.

  “Hey,” he said, and I felt that intensity in his gaze again. The look that had hooked me the very first night when we’d met. A tingle ran over my skin. I’d come here as if it were an assignment I was completely detached from, but I was kidding myself if I thought I wasn’t going to be at all affected by getting this close and personal with Nick Keane.

  He stepped back to let me in. He was dressed down even more than I’d seen him before, a faded tee that hugged his muscular torso oh-so well and jeans that looked well-traveled. I inhaled as I stepped into the open loft space, and his scent, warm with a citrus tang, filled my lungs. As if his home really were a part of him.

  The place was sparsely furnished—a narrow sofa and wooden coffee table at one end, a two-person table on wrought-iron legs near the oak kitchen island. His laptop sat on the table, so I guessed he used it as a desk. A sliding barn door closed off the nook that I assumed was the bedroom. I caught my mind before I could speculate about what might lie beyond that, what his bed might look like.

  “This is it,” Nick said, spreading his hands. “You know all my secrets.”

  A pang shot through my chest at how true that might be. My eyes caught on a splash of green beyond the glass door past the living room section. “You’ve got a balcony.”

  “That was one of my most important criteria when picking a place,” he said, ambling with me as I went over to check it out. “I’ve got to have some place to set up the garden.”

  I might have thought “garden” was an exaggeration if I hadn’t already been taking in the array of pots and plants laid out in tiers all across the balcony. Ferns and lilies and even a little lime tree. “Good for popping a slice in my beer,” Nick said when he noticed me ogling it.

  “This must take a lot of work,” I said with honest awe. There had to be at least twenty different plants, and they all looked perfectly cared for, no dried leaves or broken stems. They took up almost all of the space except for a couple of spindly chairs and a spindlier table with a top about the size of a dinner plate.

  Nick shrugged. “I added to it bit by bit. As long as you give them a little care every day, there aren’t many days when they need more than that.” He paused. “You know I told you I like going to the club because I can get lost in that sense of all those people, all those lives? Sometimes I need the opposite. All these growing things, all that life—but they’ve got no history, no complicated needs. They don’t need anything except water and sunshine.”

  A touch of melancholy had entered his voice. My throat tightened a little. I’d complicated his life an awful lot, hadn’t I?

  I’d never really thought, either, about what it might be like, picking up vibes and history from every single thing you held. It was hard for me to slip into the past without trying unless I was really emotional. Did Nick have to push himself to pick things up, or was his struggle tuning them out? Was he just bombarded with sensations that weren’t really his all the time?

  I wasn’t supposed to be worrying about him. That wasn’t why I’d come here.

  He was watching me with those thoughtful eyes. “Seen everything you need to?”

  Did he realize why I’d really come? How much did he know about my talent?

  “Are you trying to get rid of me?” I asked teasingly.

  He smiled. “No, not at all. Stay as long as you like.”

  “Since you’re so eager to play host, you want to get me a drink? And I thought you said something about lunch.”

  “I can put together some sandwiches. But it seems like your drink should come first.” He motioned me back toward the kitchen. “What would you like?”

  Something that would distract him for a few minutes so I could make my first foray into this place’s past. “You know,” I said, “I’ve been craving a good mojito, if you know how to make one and you have the ingredients. I think I saw a mint plant out there?”

  “I’m up to that challenge,” Nick said, with a wider, sly grin that made me feel a little flushed.

  He grabbed a few mint leaves and set to work crushing them. I dropped into the chair by his makeshift desk.

  Any moment in the past here was likely to have Nick in it. But I needed his parents’ presence too, one way or another.

  I focused on my memories of his voice when he’d talked about his mom and dad, the little dips of emotion. The way he’d choked up a bit talking about his mom’s cancer scare. My mind came unmoored from the present and slipped back to another time.

  Nick was sitting at his computer, typing away. He looked occupied but a little bored. No, that didn’t seem right. I pushed a little farther.

  She needs to know. I have to find a way to show her the truth. She could be on our side if she knew.

  Nick was sitting at the desk again, but this time he was on his phone. My heart stuttered at the words. He had my Facebook profile up on his laptop screen. I didn’t know who he was talking to, but clearly he was talking about me.

  Whatever the person on the other end said, his expression tensed. I know. But I can’t leave her with them like that. I have to try.

  Leave me with who? What truth was he talking about?

  I scooted the chair closer. Right up beside that past version of him that couldn’t see me, close enough that I’d be able to hear the faint voice on the other end.

  A man’s voice, older. His dad?

  I know. That’s the path you’ve always taken, Nick. It’s a tricky line, but I’m proud of how well you’ve pulled off that balancing act. I wish I could be giving a little more good back to the world the way you do.

  You did, Nick said. You got yourself and Mom out. You protected us. How many times were there when you could have made life easier for us by using your talent to take from other people? But you never did.

  I can’t say I was never tempted. But I couldn’t have lived with myself if I’d given in. It’s been hard enough living with what I had to do to escape. The voice on the other end halted, roughened by an emotion I could hear even listening in like this. I don’t know if Langdon ever expected me to hear about it, but I can almost imagine him coming up with that lie with maniacal glee. That’s how he used to taunt me, you know? Calling me a murderer for the house fire.

  Langdon? My Langdon? I guessed I shouldn’t be surprised the Keanes would know him by name. But the way the man was talking so rawly about the lie of him being a murderer…

  With my head spinning, I lost a little of the exchange. Then Nick was saying, Let’s leave the past in the past now. How are things in Dubrovnik? Still just as hot?

  “Carina?”

  My chin snapped up, my stomach turning at the sudden flip back to the present. I was reeling so hard from what I’d just witnessed that it took me a few seconds to focus on the current Nick on the other side of the kitchen island and the glass he’d slid toward me.

  He studied me. “Everything all right?”

  No. Nothing was all right at all. I had no idea how to make sense of the sliver of the past
I’d watched.

  His dad could have been lying to him. Making up stories about Langdon. But the way he’d talked, the rawness I’d heard in him… it hadn’t sounded like a lie.

  “Yeah,” I managed. “Yeah, I’m good.” I nodded to the mojito. “And that’s impressive.”

  He chuckled. “You’d better taste it before you say things like that.”

  I wasn’t sure adding alcohol to the mix was a good idea right now after all. I got up and grasped the sweating glass, but I didn’t raise it to my lips. Nick eased closer. “Hey,” he said. “If something is bothering you, you don’t have to pretend. You can talk to me about it. Edit out the parts that are too private if you need to.” He gave me a slanted smile.

  He meant it, didn’t he? I looked down at the glass and then back at him. Despite the whirlwind in my head, a fresh wave of certainty surged through my chest.

  Whether his dad had been honest or was just a really good actor, it didn’t matter. The man in front of me had been trying to protect me, to do right by me. Was that why he’d been here from the start?

  “I’m coming to Paris,” I said. I didn’t give a fuck whether Frederick liked it. I had to see where this took me. What truths might be waiting there.

  “Hmm. I’m glad, but I didn’t mean for the invitation to make you look so serious.”

  Nick’s tone was playful, but there was a question in it too. One of my own spilled out of me.

  “Nick, why did you let me come here?”

  That question was a little balder than maybe was safe, but it didn’t quite say too much either. His gaze held mine. Those damned deep blue eyes that just sucked me in.

  “Because you asked to come,” he said lightly. “Because I’d really like to go to Paris with you. And because I figure if you want someone to trust you, you’ve got to offer them that trust too.”

  I swallowed hard, unable to tear my gaze away. “So, that’s all this is about? Trust?”

  His laugh came out a little rough. “Well, there’s that. And there’s the fact that I’ve been wanting to do this since the first time you smiled at me.”