“Renmen mwen,” he said in a language she did not know.
It sounded like French, but not what she’d learned. “Your French is different than what I know.”
“That’s because it’s Creole, like Haitian French.”
“Oh.” She’d learn it.
“Mon amour.” That she did know. My love.
Pleasure sizzled through her. She had a new name, and that name was love.
Later, they walked hand in hand along the Miami Beach shoreline with waves cresting and washing up to meet and wash away their tracks.
She took a deep breath, knowing if she was going to take the leap and open herself to another person, it would have to be now, despite the promise to herself to never discuss it again. “Remember when we had lunch at Jake’s? You asked about my past?”
He nodded.
“Well, I lived in a small village called N’nkakuwe. It was a great home, full of love, life, and prosperity. We had a good man, a chieftain, who was kind and fair, giving. Always giving.”
“Sounds like a cool guy.”
“He was,” Nena agreed. “He was also my father, Michael Asym.”
Cort slowed, his head twisting slowly toward her. “Wait. Hold up? You mean you’re a princess? Like a daughter-of-a-chief kind of princess?”
She shrugged. “Titles don’t matter much to me. We were simple villagers.”
He cast her a dubious expression that read, Yeah, okay. Then he said, “Yeah, okay.”
She couldn’t explain the urge she had to tell Cort about what had happened in N’nkakuwe. It was like if she didn’t speak it now, show him the most vulnerable part of herself, then she never would. And she couldn’t continue to not give most of herself with Cort. She couldn’t move past the hurt if she didn’t let him know the hell from which she came.
She told him what Paul and his men had done to her village and people, what they’d done to her.
His steps halted. “What?” he asked, staring at her incredulously. His eyes searched hers, pleading for her to say it wasn’t real. She wished she could. But one look into her eyes let him know every word she spoke was horribly real. His grip on her hand tightened.
“I know shit like this goes on, but to know it’s happened to you . . .” He couldn’t continue, overcome with anger. “I could really fuck somebody up right now, Nena.”
“That’s sweet of you,” she replied in a tone she hoped was not patronizing. She appreciated his concern, but she needed no one’s protection. She’d learned to protect herself years ago.
She went on to describe life at the Compound and the abuse she and the others had suffered there. She spoke of the Hot Box, remembering the heat of it. Her recounting of her time with Robach came out haltingly, ending with the opportunity to run six months later. She left out the American woman. And the state in which she’d left Monsieur.
“I was living on the streets of Paris. Only for a week or so—the days got a bit hazy.” She’d relived this story over and over in her mind, had told it only a couple of times out loud, so to hear it from her lips now was unnerving.
“Must have been horrible.”
She looked at him, full of determination. She didn’t want him pitying her. She wanted him to see her as the survivor she was. “Anything was better than where I had been.”
He nodded his head, kept bobbing it up and down. Placing his hands on his hips when they stopped briefly. He looked out into the dark waves lapping at the shore. His jaw moved. He had so many questions, so much to say. She knew this. But she only wanted him to listen. And he knew that.
“I found Mum, or rather she found me. The Knights took me in, adopted me. And here I am. A Knight.” She threw out her hands and jiggled them like jazz hands.
But that was only half her story, wasn’t it? Nena might be lovestruck, but she wasn’t struck dumb. The training, the dispatching, the Tribe, she couldn’t tell Cort about.
Nena looked up. Cort’s head had dropped as if in prayer. She first thought he was displeased. She was used goods, wasn’t she? Soiled. Ruined. He was shaking his head slowly. Maybe she shouldn’t have told him all of this, but she had to. There was already too much he didn’t know.
She prepared herself to lock away all those amazing first-time feelings, because she understood more than anyone that her baggage was tremendous, more than anyone else should have to deal with. She couldn’t ask Cort to be patient with her as she got used to intimacy beyond the kiss they’d shared. The kiss had been terrific, but sex? There was no way she was ready yet. No matter how much her body had come alive tonight.