She set her utensils down again and lifted her gaze to his. “I think I do. I go through much of the same every time you go out in public. This morning I stood at that window and thought of you. I didn’t even know how long you’d been gone.”

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“I’m not asking for explanations, Alex.” Her appetite gone, she pushed the tray away. “I’m trying to make you see what I was feeling. I looked out at the sea, and I knew you were somewhere, tending to Cordina. Somewhere I couldn’t be, somewhere I couldn’t help you. And I had to get dressed and go out and go on, when in the back of my mind was the fear that today would be the day I’d lose you.”

“Eve, I’m so surrounded by guards that sometimes I think they’ll smother me. The security on all of us has been doubled since the bomb in Paris.”

“Is that supposed to comfort me? Would it comfort you?” He said nothing, but came and removed the tray from her lap. “You want me to run away, Alex. Will you run away with me?”

“You know I can’t. This is my country.”

“And this is my job. Please don’t ask me to go.” She held out a hand, watched him hesitate, then come back to take it. “If you want to be angry with me, wait until tomorrow. All through this hideous day I’ve wanted you to hold me. Please stay with me tonight, Alex.”

“You need rest.” But he gathered her close.

“I’ll rest after,” she murmured, and drew him down with her.

Chapter 10

Her office looked as though it had been bombed. Somehow, even living through it, being told about it, reading the story in the paper, Eve hadn’t been prepared for the stark reality of it.

She’d kept her word and had stayed away for twenty-four hours—mainly because she’d been given no choice. Now she stood at the doorway, or what was left of the doorway, and looked at what had been her office.

The debris hadn’t been hauled away, by order of the police. They had sifted and searched through the ashes and rubble throughout the night of the bombing, the day she’d been kept away, and the night she’d lain restless and anxious to get back to work. If there had been a sense of order to their investigation, Eve couldn’t see it.