Emmy arrived twenty minutes later, and by then I was sitting on the sofa, knees drawn up in front of me as I cradled Hisashi on my lap. The first thing she did was walk to the bathroom and peer in at the body before heading back into the living room and embracing Sofia in a long hug.

"Nice job, Snow."

Snow? Was that a nickname?

"Saves us a bit of trouble, anyway."

I interrupted their little...well, obviously it was a reunion. "Would one of you tell me what the hell is going on? Nobody else will speak to me."

Apart from Linc, but when I'd tried to slap him again, he'd backed away to the safety of the kitchen.

Emmy sat next to me. I felt like slapping her as well, but I knew I'd never get away with it.

"It's simple. You didn't want bodyguards, but there was no way we'd let you or Hisashi go unprotected. You got Linc, and Hisashi got Fia."

And by "we" she meant her and her husband. I looked up as he walked into the room, although there was no need. The moment he darkened the threshold, it felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the apartment. He nodded in my direction then went through to the kitchen.

I closed my eyes and leaned back. The two people closest to me in Boston, those I'd thought I could trust—they'd betrayed me.

"So they both lied."

"Technically, Linc didn't lie. He just left stuff out. Fia, yeah, she lied like the pro she is."

I thought back to when I'd hired her. Her perfect CV, the background check done by Bradley.

"Is she even a nanny at all?"

"No, but she held a baby once and read a couple of books." Emmy held up a hand to stop the tirade I was about to unleash. "Don't worry. She had a team of people helping her at all times when you weren't here, and even when you were around, she wore an earpiece in case she got stuck. How do you think she got through the interview?"

"A team of people?" My stomach felt hollow.

Emmy counted off on her fingers. "A childcare expert, a paediatrician, a chef, a cleaner." She looked up at Sofia, standing silently beside her. "Did I miss anyone?"

"There was an intern I used for errands." She took a seat beside Emmy. "Just be thankful you didn't have to eat my cooking. It'd kill you."

Emmy grimaced. "I still remember the time you insisted on barbecuing that armadillo in Argentina. I'd rather have eaten the firewood."

A freaking armadillo?

"Look, Sofia's lack of cooking skills is the last thing I care about. How could you take over my life like this?"

"To keep you safe. If she hadn't been here, you'd probably be in the morgue by now. Jansen was unhinged. He covered his tracks well, but the Dutch police found the body of his previous practice partner in a lake last week. What's left of her was only identified yesterday afternoon."

I tried to maintain my cool as dizziness washed over me. "He killed her?"

"Apparently she'd told the staff he was pushing her too hard, and it seems as if he gave her a final shove. Until a fisherman found the body, everyone reckoned she'd moved home to Korea to take care of her sick mother."

Breathe, just breathe. "I can't believe it."

"Neither did the dean at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. Apparently, he thought Jansen was just a little highly strung. The dead girl and a few others registered complaints about his attitude, but Jansen's daddy made a healthy donation to the school's building restoration project and the details got left off Jansen's transcript."

I shuddered at my narrow escape, but that still didn't excuse Emmy's behaviour entirely.

"I'm grateful you kept me safe, but why did you do it in such an underhand way?"

"You said you didn't like the suits following you around all the time. Besides, Fia's worth ten of them. And you liked Linc, admit it."

"What were they doing? Feeding each other information?"

Sofia spoke up. "I report to Emmy. Linc was a junior member of the team, and he didn't know I was here until last week when you decided to pop around with him unexpectedly. We had a chat the next morning, and I explained the benefits of keeping his mouth shut."

"You threatened him?"

"I prefer 'persuaded.'"

I let out a thin breath. Dammit. She really was just Emmy 2.0.

"So now what? I don't suppose you'll let me live my life the way I want to, will you?"

Emmy's husband made a reappearance, his massive frame materialising beside me. "Sorry, but you're family. We take care of family." He smiled, making my heart break all over again as I remembered the way Hisashi's father used to give me the same look. "Whether they like it or not."

If I'd found all this out yesterday, I'd have taken my son and run to the ends of the earth, but with Jansen's body still lying in the nursery, I had to admit they'd got a point.

"But this is such a mess."

"We'll tidy it up. Fia did the sensible thing and shot the bastard in the face, so it's easy enough to claim self-defence. We'll have a cleaning crew go through and deal with the blood, and I believe Bradley's already making arrangements for a new carpet."

He only ever considered the practicalities. Not the destruction of my sanctuary and my sanity.

"I meant about the whole protection situation."

He looked at Emmy and raised an eyebrow.

"I could do with Fia back," she said. "She's still got the Ice Cream Project to work on, and this was only ever a temporary solution."

"Fine." He turned back to me. "We'll find you a new nanny, a proper one this time. And we'll bring the bodyguards back but try to make them a bit more subtle."

I groaned. "Around the clock?"

"Yes. Three in the day, two outside at night. Or Linc in here. Your choice."

Movement outside the kitchen door caught my eye as Linc walked into the room. Without the beard, I caught sight of a strong, angular jaw that made my heart do funny things.

He smiled, a tentative quirk of his lips that told me he was as unsure about this as I was. I had a decision to make. Should I let him back into my life again?

I slid forward and moved to hand Hisashi to Sofia, an automatic gesture, but I stopped myself at the last minute when he burst into tears.

"Sorry—I had to poke him earlier to make him cry. I don't think he likes me anymore."

I glared at her as Emmy's husband held his arms out instead, and Hisashi reached for him. The man may be heartless most of the time, but there was no doubt he loved my son. Hisashi snuggled into his arms as I took a step towards Linc.

"We need to talk."

"I know, sweetheart. I know."

A pair of Blackwood employees stood chatting by the sink, but when we walked into the kitchen, they melted away.

I climbed onto a stool, my legs no longer willing to hold me up. Linc reached out a hand but I shook my head, and he pulled another seat up next to me. We stared at each other, neither of us sure where to start.

A mess. A huge, big, ugly mess.

After a painful silence, Linc spoke. "I'm sorry. Sorry for everything I didn't tell you and for pretending to be something I wasn't. But I'm not sorry for loving you. I never will be."

"How can we move on from here? Every day, I find something else that people have lied to me about. When will it end?"

"I get the impression Emmy's been doing some soul-searching about that. If you ask her questions now, she'll probably tell the truth. I reckon you caught her by surprise with the move to Boston, then your refusal to have guards, and she was left scrambling to come up with a solution at short notice."

"You and Sofia? Anyone else?"

"Nobody undercover that I know of."

"Why you?"

He leaned his elbows on the counter and sighed. "After Afghanistan, my life went to shit. My wife left me when the panic attacks started, and the army was all I'd ever known. Then I found nobody wanted to hire a washed-up former soldier. I'd worked with Emmy on a mission or two in the Middle East, and she was the one who gave me a chance when nobody else would. When she asked me if I'd do what was supposed to be a straightforward undercover job for a few months, I was happy to help out. Plus it meant I got to spend some time in my hometown."

"Have you done that kind of job often?"

"Normally I work for Nick Goldman, looking after VIPs. You know Nick?"

I nodded.

"Never met a celebrity I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Most of them are a pain in the ass."

He wanted to spend the rest of his life with me? His delivery was matter-of-fact, but his words hit deep.

"And Sofia? She said you didn't know she was here?"

"Not until you mentioned her name a couple of weeks ago. Got me thinking. Figured I wouldn't put something like that past Emmy, and then when we met, I recognised her."

"She scared me half to death earlier when she shot Jansen. I still can't stop shaking."

He reached out and took my hand, and this time I didn't stop him.

"Sofia Darke scares the crap out of me, too."

"Darke? She told me her name was Drake."

"She's Darke by name and Darke by nature."

"In what way?"

"I don't know any specifics, but I've heard enough about her to realise she's not a woman whose toes you want to tread on."

"Why her? Why did Emmy send her out of all people?"

"They go way back, but who knows what the relationship is there? I heard Sofia ran into some problems on a job recently and needed to take a break from the sharp end. Emmy probably asked her for a favour as well."

"Emmy mentioned something about an ice cream project just now. Do you know what that is? I thought Sofia didn't even like ice cream."

"Above my pay grade." His face was open, his eyes fixed on mine. I knew he spoke the truth now, but one thing still bothered me.

"How did Emmy get here so fast? She never told me she was in Boston."

"We started digging into Jansen more deeply earlier in the week when things escalated." He hung his head. "I miscalculated. Until then, I thought he was more of an irritation, not a serious threat."

"It's not your fault."

"I should have realised." His eyes closed, and I saw he wrongly blamed himself. "Anyway, I wasn't in the loop for all of it, but I heard Emmy flew in to help Sofia deal with him."

"What do you mean 'deal with him?'" I thought back to Sofia's blank expression after she shot him, and her nonchalant "problem solved." "Actually, forget it. I don't want to know."

My mouth was dry, and I got up to fetch a glass of water. Okay, the move wasn't so much out of thirst but rather a desire to put off the next part of the conversation. I fussed around adding ice cubes and a slice of lemon until Linc cleared his throat behind me.

Okay, no more stalling. "I guess we need to talk about the future."

"Is that a good sign? I mean, do you want us to have one?"

"Everything's such a mess in my head. I only know that each time I think of living my life without you in it, the world turns grey."

Although we'd had our problems, the way Linc treated me—with compassion and respect—outweighed much of the bad. And I couldn't forget the way he cared for my son. That had to count for something.

He took my hand again, this time holding it against his chest. "Same. It's as if somebody turned out the lights."

"But I can't forget everything that's happened."

"I'd never expect you to."

"Could we try to start again? So I can get to know the real you?"

"Anything."

"But if you lie to me one more time, that's it. I can't take any more days like this." My heart wouldn't last through another betrayal. Once, being alone had scared me, but it was preferable to stumbling through life with a wounded soul.

He looked me straight in the eye. "Akari, I promise I'll never lie to you again."

Did I believe him? Yes. Yes, I did. I reached for his other hand.

"Then let's see what we can make of this."