“I can’t betray the Saxons and the Circle,” he murmured into the top of my head. “But I can’t—I won’t—betray you, either. I promise.”
Hearing him say it felt like standing on the edge of a threshold we’d been dancing around since we met.
“Are those two things mutually exclusive?” I whispered.
“I hope not,” he said. “I don’t think so.”
I didn’t want to want him. I didn’t want to wish I could run my fingers through his hair again, to touch a new cut on his cheek. I didn’t want to forgive him, but I did want to, so badly.
“You didn’t leave me,” I said. I ran a fingertip around a button on his shirt, not meeting his eyes. “You didn’t leave me and save yourself on Mr. Emerson’s balcony. You didn’t turn me in to make things easier. You didn’t leave me alone tonight, even though you knew I’d be mad at you.” I swallowed back a lump in my throat.
His fingers paused in stroking my hair. “Of course I didn’t.”
However misguided it was, Jack had done what he’d done to protect me. How was it possible that in a tug-of-war for his loyalty between the Saxons—his only family for years—and me, I was winning?
I finally disentangled myself from his arms. My hands lingered under his tuxedo jacket, palms grazing down his sides, his starched white shirt crinkling under my fingertips.
He drew in a sharp breath that sent a flutter through me. His gaze skimmed the curves of my silver Prada dress. It really was the color of his eyes. Moonlight and storms.
I pulled my hands away and sat cross-legged, my dress spread out around me on the balcony. I wiped my cheeks with the heels of my hands, and the quickening breeze dried them the rest of the way. The storm really seemed to be moving in now. Jack slipped out of his tuxedo jacket and draped it around my shoulders before he sat down, too.
“Did you tell my—Saxon about anything else? Mr. Emerson or the clues or anything?”
“I told him about Fitz being gone, but that’s all for now. He’s agreed to get someone in intelligence asking around right away. We can get him looking for your mom, too, if you’re still not able to reach her.”
A weight lifted off my chest. In the distance, the Eiffel Tower’s hourly golden light show twinkled again against the clouds.
“Am I like him?” The words came out before I realized I was thinking them.
Jack kicked a pebble with the toe of his boot. “If anything, it’s like two sides of the same coin,” he said. “You both have this sparkle in your eyes. But his is . . . I don’t know. Darker? Yours is light.”
I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “Cheesy lines aren’t going to make me forget I was mad at you.”
“I’m not trying—”
“It’s okay,” I said.
I wondered if Jack meant it when he said kissing had made things worse. Or whether he had meant it, but what he’d said and done tonight meant he didn’t care. Or whether he was here to be a good friend and that was all. I wondered if he was thinking about my hands on him as much as I was thinking about his hands on me.
Jack cleared his throat. “My second day in Lakehaven,” he said. “It was a Monday.”
Lightning lit the whole sky to daylight. I looked up at him expectantly, but he kept his eyes on the skyline.
“That was when I stopped watching you just because it was my job,” he said.
I dug my nails into my palms. I guess I had my answer.
“The Saxons don’t always pick me to go on recon missions like this, but they needed someone who would fit in at a school. I had this picture of you, and I thought it might be hard to find you, but the whole school was walking in one direction, and there you were, walking the other way, all by yourself, to sit outside and read. You fascinated me.”
I stared at him. “Because I didn’t have friends to sit with at lunch?”
His mouth crooked up. “Everyone with the Circle . . . they do what they’re told. I do what I’m told. I know it probably sounds mad to you, but I’d never thought of doing anything else. And there you were, doing what you wanted.”
I pulled my knees to my chest and tucked the dress around me, repositioning everything that had happened at school in my head in light of what he was saying.
Jack pulled the tie from around his neck and rolled it into a tight spiral. “I was supposed to find out whether you were a family member after all, then bring you in immediately, but I didn’t. I liked it, going to classes, getting to know you. I knew it would stop the second we got back to the Saxons, back to real life, but it was worth it for the short amount of time I was there.” He ran a hand through his hair. “It was completely irresponsible of me, but I was already planning to ask you to the prom, even before Stellan showed up.”
I couldn’t stop the smile that came over my face.
“And then through all of this, you’ve made me question everything I knew. You’ve been putting yourself in danger at every turn, not because you were told, but for somebody you loved, because you believed it was right.” He paused, flicking the end of the tie with his thumb. “You know how the tattoos are an oath to be loyal to the family?”
I nodded. “To the death,” I said. How could I forget?
Jack gave a small nod and touched his forearm. “I’ve never even considered breaking that oath before. Ever. But I did, for you. To keep you safe. Everything—from letting you go at prom, to tonight, at the ball—it’s all been for you. As much as I tried to tell myself it was for the Saxons, it wasn’t true. As much as I said I was going to Istanbul just for Fitz, it wasn’t true. Every second I wasn’t with you, I was thinking about you. Worrying about you. It wasn’t for them.” He cut his eyes to me, lowered his voice. “It was all for you.”
All of a sudden, even with the breeze, it felt too hot out here. I pressed my palms to the cool tiles.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” I whispered. The whole world had faded away to nothing but the two of us, and the storm, and everything I thought I knew, smashing into pieces again. “I’m sure it was obvious how I felt. How I feel.”
My face got even hotter, and I was glad it was dark.
A ghost of a smile crossed his face. “No, I . . . I mean, after I kissed you, and you let me, I thought, maybe . . . I wasn’t sure.”