The Reveal (8 page)

Vaguely, he remembered making a deal with himself, something along the lines of resisting the urge to make love with Brynn again. He pushed into the cold, wishing the frigid temperatures would cool his libido.

Unfortunately, he needed more than brisk air to undo the magic Brynn had weaved into him. He’d been to war. He’d been to hell. He’d been to the line between sanity and insanity, and he’d managed to drag himself back into the real world with only a few visible scars.

But loving Brynn?

He’d never recover.

Nine

Sean carried the groceries in from the truck and spread out their haul on the nearest flat surface, which happened to be the mattress. As if nothing had happened between them, Brynn snatched a handful of grapes, popped one in her mouth and announced that she wanted to see the photographs of the men who’d attacked her in San Sebastían again.

Sean handed her the phone. He’d once thought he’d mastered the craft of compartmentalizing his professional life from his private one, but she made him look like a rank amateur.

“If you didn’t recognize them before, what makes you think you’re going to now?”

She slid through the photos, expanding the areas around the faces into close-ups. “You never know when a fresh perspective will change preconceived notions,” she said, her eyebrow arched knowingly before she went through the pictures one last time and then handed him back the device. “If I had a wireless connection, I could tap into a secure network and run facial recognition.”

“Macy has signal blockers positioned around the perimeter of the property. No one gets internet out here except for her.”

“I think I’m going to like this Macy Rush.”

“Macy Burke,” he corrected. “She’s badass, but she took Dante’s name.”

“Taking a man’s name doesn’t make a woman any more or less badass,” she said, but without conviction for debate. She was scrolling through the photos with one hand while mindlessly running her fingers over the scab that had formed on her thigh with the other.

“No, but I admit it surprised me. I’d never pegged her for a traditional kind of girl.”

“Girl?” she said, eyebrow lifted.

Rather than engaging Brynn in an argument about gender equality that had no relation to them, he searched through his bag for the antibiotic ointment they’d brought from Spain.

“You two are going to get along just fine. When we show up on her doorstep, maybe she’ll like you enough to help us. She definitely won’t do it for me.”

“How could she possibly not like you?” Brynn asked, her tone only hinting at sarcasm.

He found the tube and uncapped it. “By the time I joined the Arm, she’d already defected to T-45. Dante was fairly obsessed with winning her back. I wasn’t around when they were first together, but apparently, he’d done something really stupid and she left.”

“And you blame her for this?” Brynn asked.

“Nah, I’m pretty sure it was all Dante’s fault. But he risked a lot of lives to make it up to her. And,” he continued, not wanting to fill in details that weren’t his to tell, “Macy knows I wasn’t supportive of their reunion.”

Brynn nodded. “I can see how she might hold a grudge.”

“Of course you would.”

She opened her mouth to protest his remark, but he grabbed her leg and dragged it across his lap, causing her to yelp instead. Though healing, the scrape was pink and puckered and no doubt painful when rubbed by clothing.

If only he could keep her naked for a few more hours.

“I can do that,” she murmured, shifting into a more comfortable position.

“You could,” he replied. “But you took care of me longer than you should have. Let me do this for you. This last time.”

He should have swallowed his final phrase. Pain skittered across her eyes, but then she shut them tightly and relaxed, bundled in his jacket, her back braced against the wall.

“It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why anyone was targeting
me
. I don’t have enemies in San Sebastían.”

“Apparently, you do.”

“No,” she insisted. “I don’t. It’s against Titan protocols to operate in a town where known hostiles exist.”

“Maybe they just weren’t known until now.”

She smirked. “I’ve been running the European division of Titan since I graduated from college—not finishing school, by the way,” she said, snapping his brain back to a comment he’d made days ago but that she clearly still took umbrage over. “Spain, Italy, England, France, Germany and a significant part of the Netherlands have been my playing field for over a decade. Every six months, we evaluate and re-evaluate all our contacts, safe houses and escape routes.
El
Creador
did not originally operate from San Sebastían. When he wanted to retire, we placed him there on the condition that he continue doing work for as long as he was able. He would never risk his lifestyle by selling me out.”

“What if the local muscle was just answering an international call?” Sean suggested.

“Meaning?”

“The minute you came to my rescue, you put yourself in some serious crosshairs. If Dante had really hired you, he would have protected your identity with his life. But we know now that he wasn’t the mastermind. Maybe whoever really hired you didn’t appreciate you helping me escape and put a bounty on your head.”

“That still doesn’t explain how anyone knew where we were,” she argued.

“Maybe we were followed. Maybe it was dumb luck or an educated guess based on your previous behaviors. Bottom line is that once we make contact with Macy, no one will find us. Not unless she wants them to.”

Sean had finished applying the ointment, but he wiped his hand on his shirt and continued running his fingers up and down the uninjured part of her skin, unable to stop himself from touching her. She hadn’t yet put her panties back on. Little by little, his fingers inched closer and closer to her sweet center.

And damn her, she didn’t resist.

“If someone was anticipating my moves, I need to warn my people,” she said. “They could be in danger.”

“Or they could be the source of information.”

Brynn did not argue. Unlike the CIA, Titan likely didn’t have loyalty oaths or threats of treason to keep people from spilling their guts for the right price.

“You’ve had people betray you before,” he guessed.

Her glare was hard and cold. “Not many, but yes. It’s the price of doing business. Some of my European team resented my spending more time and resources in the North American market.”

He forced himself to focus on her knee, running his fingers in a circle around the cap. “Let me guess. It all started with Marisela?”

Brynn grinned. “She does make an impression, doesn’t she?”

He shrugged. “The fact that you and she get along made an impression on me.”

“A good one?”

He tried to keep his touch light, but the more they explored the topic of his admiration, the more of her he wanted to touch. “What do you think?”

She pressed the small of her back against the wall. “I think Marisela could be at risk. If they tracked me, they could have tracked her.”

She sounded worried, but not about her colleague. Her gaze remained latched on his hand. He drew lazy figure eights on the side of her knee, undeterred by her less-than-subtle shift out of his reach.

“She’s in the States and working an unrelated case, right?” he asked. “I doubt they’ll bother with her. And even if they did, I’d put my money on Marisela. Wouldn’t you?”

Despite the incremental resistance he felt against his touch, Sean ran his hand down to her toes, running his fingers over the glossy toenails, painted nude but with tiny glints of sparkle that captured the light from the fire.

“Titan has an international reputation,” he said. “I can’t imagine they’d poke a sleeping beast. As long as your team doesn’t know where you are, they’re not only out of danger, but they’re out of the way.”

“You don’t know where Jayda is. That doesn’t make you less a target.”

Sean released her leg, almost before he realized it. He hated when Brynn talked about Jayda—hated when she forced him to think about her, even though, rationally, he knew his former lover was the cornerstone of their predicament.

But she was dead. Dead and buried. Evidence to the contrary was circumstantial at best—and Sean’s proof was solid. It wasn’t that he trusted Dante’s information—he trusted no one that implicitly—but he did trust his gut.

Even before Dante had come to New Orleans with the news, Sean had known she was gone. Maybe he was a fool or maybe he’d hung out with too many voodoo practitioners during his misspent youth, but when her light had gone out, the balance in his world had changed.

For the first time in years, he’d felt…safe.

“She’s dead.”

“You keep saying that, but in light of what’s happened, how can you still be so sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Why? Did you see her body?”

“No,” he confessed. “I didn’t need to.”

“Did you see an autopsy report? Review DNA evidence? Read the official CIA report on the loss of a major asset?”

He grabbed her by the upper arms. He shook her, not out of anger but because he was shaking himself. “You need to drop this. Jayda is gone. I know this, not because of reports that can be manufactured or because I trust Dante not to lie.”

“Then you know because you had some sort of psychic connection that broke when she stopped breathing air?”

He released her. No matter how hard he tried, he could not make her understand something he didn’t himself.

“Something like that,” he muttered.

“Did you love her?”

Sean’s chest tightened. For a split second, he felt as if he were tied to the metal chair again, this time with a vice clamping around him from his midsection to his ribs. He searched Brynn’s face for any sign of hurt, as if his loving Jayda in the past would somehow diminish what he felt toward her, but saw nothing but curiosity.

She was collecting information. Nothing personal. Nothing private.

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“How do you not know?”

“Have you ever loved anyone?”

“No,” she replied.

“You answered fast.”

“It wasn’t a difficult question.”

“It is for most people.”

“Only for people who haven’t taken the time to examine their lives in fine detail.”

Now he heard her pain. Loud and clear.

“I loved my mother,” she continued, her voice softening as if her admission was somehow scandalous. “She died when I was young. After her, though, I didn’t love anyone.”

“What about your father?”

Brynn laughed humorlessly. “I was enamored of him. For a time, I worshipped him. But in the end, I hated him.”

Sean nodded. He’d hated his father his entire life.

“What about your brother?”

“Ian?” This time, she did stop to think before she answered. “Yeah, I love him. But that’s new. We’re twins, but I grew up barely knowing him, first thanks to separate boarding schools and then because of my father’s head games. I learned not to trust him. Now, I’m relearning. That’s why we went away together for the holidays…we had a lot of baggage to unload.”

“But you’ve let it go.”

“We’ve started.”

“You’ll get there,” he reassured her, but he wasn’t sure where that belief came from, except that if there was one thing he’d learned about Brynn, it was that she could make anything happen if she wanted it badly enough.

“So you loved your mom, and you’re learning to love your brother,” he said, “but you want me to believe that you never once fell for one of your lovers?”

“No.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Why would I lie?”

“You wouldn’t,” he reasoned. “Not unless you needed to, which you don’t. It’s just that you’re clearly no stranger to the art of seduction. Your keen appreciation for pleasures of the flesh did not begin with me.”

His teasing tone hit its target. Brynn grinned, and the smile heated him more than the fire crackling in the hearth.

“There were a few men that I might have fallen for if I’d stuck around long enough. But when you’re trying to live up to your father’s legacy and keep hundreds of analysts, agents and specialists employed, you don’t have time to indulge your personal whims.” She shrugged. “Seems like a tactical error now. A couple of broken hearts might have hardened me up. Prepared me.”

“For?”

“You.”

Unable to stop himself, Sean reached out and caressed her cheek. “It wouldn’t have helped. I’ve lost and lost,
cher
, and that’s not going to make leaving you tomorrow any easier. In fact, I’m pretty certain it’s going to make it worse.”

Brynn said nothing. She snagged the dried tartan blanket and draped it over them before snuggling into his warmth. He nearly suggested they sleep in shifts or do one last recon before they slept, but instead, he drew her a few inches closer and closed his eyes, concentrating on nothing but timing his breathing to hers. For the first time in forever, Sean forgot all about responsibility and duty and protocol and simply enjoyed the feel of a woman falling asleep in his arms.

Ten

The crack of gunfire sent Brynn and Sean diving for cover. Sean had suggested they approach Macy’s house at dawn, on foot, in hopes that her security people would recognize him and let them pass to the front gate.

Clearly, he’d miscalculated.

“What exactly did you do to piss her off?” Brynn asked, spitting dried leaves out of her mouth.

Sean drew his weapon. “You’re asking me now?”

Gunfire crackled again, but this time, Brynn registered that the noise was in the distance. A firefight was going on, but it wasn’t aimed in their direction.

Sean rolled out of the brush. Brynn scooted behind him, pressing her back to his in case someone came up from their rear. He tapped her shoulder, forcing her to follow the line he’d drawn with his gun to point at the remnants of a once-hidden security camera hanging in mangled plastic and metal from the branch of a tree.

“Macy’s under attack,” he concluded.

Brynn’s heart dropped into her stomach. “Because of us?”

Sean didn’t reply. As a former operative herself, Macy was likely a perpetual target, as evidenced by the security measures she’d employed to keep her location secret—measures that she and Sean might have undermined by heading to her private French villa.