Chapter 2

“I love you,” Ben said, and put both hands on his face and leaned down and kissed him, deep and thorough and unquestionably firm.

They wandered through crowds and shops. They ducked paparazzi—not many, but a few, sharks who’d somehow learned about a duke’s flamboyantly gay and hopefully scandalous son arriving. Simon had had become less newsworthy since settling down and getting married and becoming boring, as he’d put it dryly to Ben; but then again the media kept hoping he’d perform some sort of repeat of nights spent running around nightclubs in mesh shirts and eyeliner, or openly dating two handsome models at once, or any of those true past stories. Simon said this with a fleeting duck away of those blue eyes, an apology in advance before they’d left Virginia; Ben had kissed him in their kitchen and told him it’d be fine. He knew those stories; Simon had told him. He knew about that past, that performance, that determination that, if Simon couldn’t be the son his father wanted, he’d be the exact opposite.

In the present, he put menacing shoulders to work. He knew most of the human vultures assumed he was Simon’s bodyguard; every once in a while his name emerged in a paper or a photo caption as Simon’s husband, and then everyone remembered that the quiet generally brown—hair, eyes, skin—and nondescript man at Simon’s side was in fact married to him. Ben would’ve been annoyed about this, but it wasn’t as if anyone knew anything about him. Ben Smith wasn’t the name associated with his career, either.

He was learning to live with the exposure. He had to; he wouldn’t give up Simon. Not ever.

They found an exit. They found London, or at least Heathrow, sprawling out around them: home, in a sense, though not really, in another sense. Simon had grown up in the glittering heights of upper-class spires, polo matches and Oxbridge expectations, boarding schools and brandy after dinner; Ben had spent a few missions meeting contacts, trading information, and a few times seducing a fellow player in the game, in the back alleys and lofty penthouses of the city.

He’d told Simon about those, in turn, early on. No secrets. Nothing held back.

Simon had thought this over, then shrugged. “I know what you used to do. I always knew. I expect it’s…well, expected. And you’re retired now, so I’m hardly worried.” He’d bitten that lip, though: not glancing away, meaning every word, but wavering ever so slightly over the saying of them.

Ben, who knew how deep some of those old wounds—about worthlessness and rejection and the belief that Simon himself simply wasn’t good enough—had once upon a time cut, had promptly cuddled his other half with every bit of strength in his old battered spy’s body. Had kissed those lips, and had sworn up and down and sideways that yes, he was indeed retired, and Simon was enough, everything he wanted, everything that’d keep his life bright and challenging and wonderful for every single year to come.

He meant it. Simon believed it, he knew, or ninety-nine percent did. Working on it, and pretty confident in it, after years and a wedding and the house with the literal white picket fence, at home in Virginia. Home meant Simon’s book-hoard and a merry teakettle and seashells on the fireplace mantel. Home meant them, and Ben having someone to hold onto, and Simon’s collar and some good leather restraints, made to order for Simon’s elegant fine-boned wrists and ankles.

He held Simon’s hand. They looked around for their ride.

Ben said, “He did say he’d meet us, right?”

“Steve has a very particular sense of time, by which I mean no sense at all. But everyone forgives him, because he always means well. It’d be like getting annoyed at sunshine.”

“How did anyone even find anything to…” Ben edited that phrase before it escaped, learned caution overtaking the sentence. No sharing information aloud, in public. “To cause trouble for him?”

Simon gave him an entertained hand-squeeze. “Thank you for that. And the answer is…he doesn’t always make the best decisions. You knowhe doesn’t. Hence us being here.”

“He loves you,” Ben said, “and you deserve to see him more often, he is your only brother, even if he is causing problems,” and leaned down for a kiss, at which precise moment an upper-class English sports-playing voice yowled, “Simon! Ben! Hullo! Oh, sorry, don’t mind me, go on with the kissing!” and Ben shut both eyes for a second and sighed.

Simon was laughing, and let go of Ben’s hand in order to be engulfed in a hug. The towncar’s driver waited patiently in the background. Stephen Lionel Ecclesford Ashley, in full-on older-brother mode, thumped his sibling on the back, released Simon, and waved at Ben. “You’re here!”

“We’re definitely here,” Ben agreed. They undeniably were.