Aequitas by Hope Anika (best classic books of all time .txt) 📕

Honor stood bathed in the fading sunlight, her hair a fiery halo, her skin kissed by gold.

The ache she created gutted Cian.

He didn’t understand it; he never had. But he wasn’t a man who needed understanding. The world was too complex, and life had a way of giving one what they needed, even if they didn’t recognize the gift when it was presented.

“Come and eat with me,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder, her eyes dark. Beyond her, the gulf shimmered beneath the setting sun, glittering like diamonds.

In his home. Finally.

It didn’t bother him, that she’d retreated to the room he’d given her as soon as they’d arrived. The conversation they’d had on the plane had shaken her, but he wasn’t sorry.

Best that they were on the same page.

He wasn’t going to force her into anything; he wanted her to come to him freely. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t do his best to tempt her.

“We need a plan,” he added, because it was true. “Petrov is an unknown. We need to be prepared.”

She nodded and turned to walk toward him. Still in her faded, butt-loving jeans and t-shirt. Her feet were bare. She looked comfortable. At home. And it was far too easy to picture her here always.

She halted before him. Her chin lifted.

“Thank you,” she said coolly, her gaze meeting his.

His brows rose. “For what?”

“For helping me.”

“I’ll always help you,” he told her seriously.

Color bloomed in her cheeks. “That’s foolish. You don’t know me.”

But she was wrong; he knew more than she comprehended. He’d told her once they were the same, and it was true. Perhaps he needed to spell that out, so she understood.

“Come,” he said, and laid his palm in the small of her back. A small touch, but one she didn’t fight, and one he needed. To have her so close and deny himself…

It was harder than he’d expected—especially after how he’d touched her at the airport. His palms continued to tingle with the sensory memory of her in hand. Firm, round, as lush as that tempting mouth.

He wanted to touch her again, and in far more intimate fashion.

They went down the sweeping curve of stairs, and he steered her out onto the wide stone patio, where plates were set at a glass-topped, wrought iron table. The scent of fresh bread and simmering potatoes mingled with the smell of the sea. On the water, lights winked; in the distance, far across the gulf, the trees were a dark smudge of green.

She accepted the chair he offered, and he poured them both a glass of the white wine Akachi had left chilling in a stainless steel bucket.

“It’s beautiful here,” she said after a moment. “I didn’t realize.”

Few did. That was one of the reasons he made his home here. That and it reminded him enough of the country he’d spent a fair chunk of his childhood exploring—enough, but not too much. And Tallinn was a bustling city with a vibrant economy. Few realized it was the headquarters for the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defense Center of Excellence and one of the top digital cities in the world. Tallinn’s harbor was the busiest in all the Baltic States.

“When I was a child, my mother would bring me here,” he replied. “She had an aunt in Toompea.”

Honor’s gaze followed him as he sat down. “Your mother?”

“Aye.” Cian sat back and took a sip of his wine. “Would you like to know about her?”

Honor shrugged. “If you want to share.”

Translation: yes.

“She was an impulsive woman, my mam. She married my da after only knowing him a day, a decision she came to bitterly regret. He was not…a good man.” Cian shook his head, remembering the hard headed—and hard fisted—man who’d made his childhood a living hell. “They met in a pub. She was there visiting the university; he was there getting sloshed. Love at first sight, she called it. More like lust at last call. But she claimed they were happy, for a while. Until she realized my father was involved in…very bad things.”

Honor’s mouth opened, then closed.

“What?” Cian asked.

“Your father…” She shook her head. “It’s none of my business.”

“I’m making it your business,” he said.

A look of consternation, her cheeks pink. “Was he IRA?”

The question was too precise, and Cian realized she’d done some extensive digging. Of course she had. He shouldn’t be surprised; she was an expert at information extraction. That she would’ve dug as deeply as she could have went without question.

“Aye,” he said. “A bomb maker. Until he blew himself up.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I wasn’t.” Cian shrugged. “My da, he was a ripe, bloody bastard. Too fond of drink and breaking bones. He killed people for the Movement—women and children—and he boasted about it. He was fucking proud. I was glad to bury him.”

Cian knew he sounded bitter; he could hear it, see it in Honor’s careful expression. But there was no changing how he felt about the man who’d bred him, and he didn’t care to try.

“My mam,” he continued, “was a different matter. Flighty, irresponsible, too careless, but a fine woman, and a loving mother. She did her best.” Even if every decision she’d ever made had been the wrong one. “I loved her. When she died, I wanted to die, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Honor said again, and he knew she didn’t realize it, but her voice softened. “Cancer, wasn’t it?”

Yes, she’d definitely done some digging.

“No,” he said and watched her blink. “That’s what they said, but it was a lie. She was murdered.”

Honor sat up. She gripped her wineglass. “Murdered?”

“Aye.” Cian smiled, dark, hollow. “She’d met a man, one I didn’t know about until it was too late. Until she was dead from the drugs he fed her.”

“Why the deception?”

“He was a powerful man who covered his tracks well. I knew who he was, but I couldn’t touch him. I was just a kid, and an orphan to boot.”

She watched him, and Cian knew she understood. Her mother had died young in a horse riding accident. Her father was all she’d had, and he’d been taken from her brutally. But unlike his own da, her father, for all of his faults, had—by all accounts—loved his daughters fiercely.

“What happened then?” she asked softly.

“I left. Russia was cruel. No one cared that I was homeless and hungry, no one but the predators. I stole to survive, and when I had enough, I took the train here, to Tallinn. I thought I could live with my aunt in Toompea, but she was dead, and as far as I knew, I had no other family. My da didn’t talk about his people, so I never knew them. I was alone, truly alone. So I did the only thing I could—I set to stealing enough to get to Ireland.”

“And did you?”

Cian remembered that cold, terrifying trip, filled with strangers and dangers he hadn’t even known existed. A crucible, that’s what that journey had been, and he’d come out of it harder, angrier and far more dangerous himself. “Aye, eventually.”

“And then?”