Carcel pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes squeezed shut. The silence in the library was absolute, broken only by the faint sound of Ines's breathing.
What, he thought, his mind a whirl of disbelief, am I supposed to do with this young lady?
He had come in here with one, dark theory. That she was a victim. That some bastard had hurt her, and she was writing this... this filth... to process the trauma. He had been ready to find that man and tear him apart.
But this... this was infinitely more complicated. She was not a victim. She was an innocent. A hopelessly, dangerously, recklessly innocent woman who had the imagination of a seasoned courtesan and the common sense of a lemming.
His mind flashed back, over a decade. He remembered her. Ines.
