hackles rose. “A woman like me?” she repeated slowly. “And just what is that supposed to mean?”
He waved his arm in that eloquent way that only Latin men could without seeming effeminate. “Professional, pragmatic. A risk taker.”
She dangled her wineglass between her fingers and considered the novel concept of telling him the flat, unbeautiful truth. She was too tired, too wired, too jet-lagged to sidestep the question.
“I’ve been celibate for years,” she said. “I had every intention of staying that way for the rest of my life. And as such, I didn’t see the point in loading my body up with useless artificial hormones.”
He looked discreetly shocked. “Really? You? What a waste. It is criminal, the very idea. Why, for the love of God?”
She was about to tell him to piss off and mind his own goddamn business. The words stopped somewhere along the pipeline and petered out into a long silence. “Did you know Kurt Novak?” she asked.
His mouth tightened in disgust. “Unfortunately, yes,” he said. “He was vile.”
“Yes, he was. And Georg?”
“No better,” he said. “Kurt’s slobbering lap dog.”
“Exactly. I should never have gotten mixed up with them, but I did. I was trying to get revenge for someone Kurt had killed. It blew up in my face.”
“I see,” he murmured.”
She was unable to meet his eyes. “Those two clinched it for me. I was done with men. I thought they were both dead that day that Kurt got killed. I wish I’d checked Georg more closely. I would have been happy to do the honors myself after what he…well. Whatever.”
“I’m sorry.” Val’s voice was careful and neutral. “It is terrible.”
She stared down at the blank white tablecloth and forced herself to endure silence. If he had oozed practiced sympathy, she’d have thrown it back in his face, but his plain, matter-of-fact comprehension was bearable. She breathed and bore it. For a minute or so. Then the intense, significant silence started driving her mad.
Time to break it and introduce an extreme change of subject.
“My turn to ask the invasive questions,” she said crisply. “So tell me, Val. How did you get to be the way you are? I’m dying of curiosity.”
He slanted her an amused look. “And how am I?”
“Slick, urbane, charming, well spoken,” she said. “The languages, the crazy mind control. Your background doesn’t explain any of that. You don’t fit the profile of a punch drunk mafiya thug at all.”
He twirled tagliolini around his fork, his eyes averted. “I was given intensive training from PSS,” he said finally. “They invested a fortune in me. But the important things…that was all Imre’s doing.”
She was the one this time to use the silence to refill his glass and prod him to continue. “Your friend? The one who…” She stopped, unwilling to invoke the monster and let him take over the conversation.
“Yes,” Val said. “The one that I want to save. He welcomed me into his home. Che Cristo, he must have had nerves of steel. An illiterate, violent, thieving, louse-ridden, twelve-year-old rent boy. He fed me, played me music, let me sleep in his apartment. I would never risk it myself.”
“He must be an unusual person,” she said.
“Yes.” A faraway smile flashed over his face. “He taught me to use my mind. And about the world outside. He taught me that I might have some value, other than just a…” He stopped, shook his head sharply. “Something besides picking pockets, selling cigarettes, dealing drugs. Or sucking cocks in the backseat of a car under a bridge.”
Tam was startled. That was the first glimpse of bitterness about the past that he had ever let her see, but that one glimpse hinted at a hidden ocean of it. “So he was the reason that you didn’t go under.”
“Yes.” He stared intently into the bulb of his wineglass as if it were a crystal ball. “He was my refuge. He was…” His face contracted. He looked away from her, Adam’s apple bobbing.
Tam dropped her gaze to give him privacy. She gazed at the wobbling candle flame and waited for him to break the silence himself.
“I was fortunate to have Imre.” His voice sounded halting and forced, as if he was convincing himself. “But for all his efforts, I drag it behind me, like a ten-ton anchor. If he dies, because of me…”
And me, Tam thought, but she shoved the thought away. She could not carry Imre on her shoulders, too. She had enough burdens.
“I know what you mean about the anchor,” she said.
Val’s hand had been inches from hers on the snowy tablecloth, but it had drifted closer. The tip of his finger made contact with hers, the faintest touch possible, yet a shock ran through her. Without any conscious volition on her part, one finger after another made contact with his corresponding ones, lifting until they were palm to palm.
The delicate connection shimmered and glowed. Neither of them acknowledged it with word or glance. It was a tiny miracle that would hide its face in embarrassment if looked at too closely.
“And you?” His eyes met hers, full of somber challenge. “I could ask the same question of you, knowing what I know about your past. About Zetrinja. What made you the way you are?”
She laughed and echoed his own words back to him. “What am I? Besides being a monster pain in the ass, you mean?”
He ignored her teasing. “Brilliant, creative, rich, successful. And powerful. You didn’t go under, either.”
Not yet, she thought bleakly, thinking of Novak, Georg, Stengl. She shoved the thoughts away and gave his question the consideration it deserved after his own naked honesty.
“I got my strength from what I had before,” she said. “My family. Not perfect but…wonderful. I knew I had value because they had thought so, even if they were all gone. So I clung to that. And I survived.”
They weren’t looking at each other at all, now. It was too much. But his fingers slid down between hers and closed, clasping hers. A rush of heat. Exquisite, understated intimacy.
“You are fortunate,” he said.
She realized that it was true. Amazingly. Everything was relative. She’d once had something precious. Something he had never known.
“As for the rest of it…” She shook her head. “It was random. I didn’t care about the scams I ran, the banks I robbed, the men I slept with. I didn’t care about getting rich. It just happened. It was like a video game. Robot Bitch, looking for a thrill. So I’m bored? Fine. Depose a dictator or steal twenty million euro, just for laughs. It gets old, though. I got really bored. I just…didn’t care.”
“What do you care about?” he asked.
She thought about it. “Rachel,” she said. “My friends. My freedom. My privacy. And my work. I care very much about my
