“Excuse me!” Her two words hiss through her clenched teeth. “I wasn’t brought here to sleep with Isaac Holt. I was brought here to help with your investigation.”
Is she fucking stupid?I specifically noted in transfer documentation the ruse I was planning to run when she arrived. If she didn’t agree with my terms, she shouldn’t have accepted her placement on my team. I don’t have time to train a rookie, much less one glaring at me as if I’m shit stuck under her stiletto.
I need to knock her attitude down a few pegs. “You were brought here as eye candy.” My words are so loud, I hear them twice when they bounce off the stark white walls of HQ.
Upon hearing my roar, the room falls into silence. My team hovers close, the spectacle of watching a rookie agent get slaughtered by their superior too intriguing to ignore.
Hoping to ease the tension teeming between Isabelle and me, Brandon suggests, “We could dye her hair.”
“Not happening,” Isabelle fires back before I can get a word in.
She crosses her arms under her chest, hoisting her medium-sized breasts into the air. The anger blistering my veins grows when my eyes automatically dart down to take in the goods she’s flaunting. This is the exact reason I requested she join my team, so Isaac would for once think with his cock instead of his head, but instead of doing as requested, she has me and every male agent surrounding her acting like morons who can’t control their dicks.
I return my eyes to Isabelle, the fury in them uncontained. “Once you’re in a dress and a pair of stilettos, Isaac won’t care you’re a brunette.”
The bashfulness I saw beaming out of her earlier is nowhere in sight when she replies, “Once you have a personality transplant and a plastic groin inserted, nobody will care you’re a Ken doll.”
The crowd watching our charade breaks into boisterous laughter. I’m too bombarded with memories to care. Isabelle has a beautiful face like Regan, same tempting body and strong, determined eyes, but it is her sass that’s hitting me the hardest. I fucking loved Regan’s take-no-shit attitude. It was one of her most endearing assets. . .until she used it against me.
I get she could have done what she did because she was scared, but that wasn’t my girl. The Regan I loved was so strong, even the prospect of raising a child alone wouldn’t have frightened her. She did what she did because Isaac convinced her it was the right thing to do. He didn’t just steal my woman all those months ago, he ensured I’d never look at her in the same light again.
I disperse the fury slicking my skin with sweat by darting my narrowed gaze around the room, which returns it to the silence it held when Isabelle entered. Agents dart in all directions, scurrying to return to the tasks I assigned this morning before I add more responsibilities to their already overflowing plates.
Once I am confident I am without additional eyes, I return my slit gaze to Isabelle. “I know who your uncle was; I know his reputation, but you need to learn your place. You were only brought here as a distraction for Isaac. He never lets anyone in, and you’re supposed to be our way in.”
Her throat works hard to swallow, but I’ll give it to her, she’s got spirit. With a roll of her shoulders and the sneer of a fighter, she snarls, “I am an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I am not a prostitute.”
Her speech is strong; her poise tight, but her eyes give away her true self. She won’t be forced to play the role I’m demanding she fill for the good of the agency. Her heart, on the other hand. . .
If she hasn’t already knelt before her maker, I’m sure it won’t take much to convince her otherwise.
Eleven
Regan
I laugh so loud, I startle Axel, my adorable two-month-old nephew, who is sleeping peacefully in his crib. He’s lucky he’s mega cute with his nine-pound, three-ounce chubby cheeks and golden hair, or I may have killed his mother for calling him a name so similar to Alex’s. I get it’s a grungy, hip name that will serve him well in the future, but the similarity of his name to Alex’s gives his aunty the hives.
You’d think as the months moved on, my resentment would fade. It hasn’t. Not in the slightest. It’s been over nine months since Alex and I called it quits, yet, I still think about him multiple times a day. This can’t be healthy. There should be some switch in our brain we can turn off the instant someone hurts us, so we don’t have to live with the pain of their betrayal for months, if not years after it occurs.
I honestly don’t know if I can survive another six months of this. I’m an aunty; I have a fabulous job that assures me seven years of study is being put to good use, and my family dynamic is the tightest it’s ever been, but I’m miserable. Lost.Utterly alone.
My last comment is the most frustrating. How can I feel alone when I’m surrounded by more family and friends than I’ve ever had? When Luca passed, I sheltered myself away for years. I rarely came home, and when I did, my visits were as short as the tripwire that detonated any time Luca’s name was mentioned. I seldom went out, and it was always under vast protest, but I was happy.
Well, I thought I was.
Now. . . now I don’t know who the fuck I am.
I’m drawn from somber thoughts when Isaac’s deep timbre sounds down the line. “You still with me, Regan?”
I adjust my position so my back faces Axel while talking. I’m on babysitting duty, so I shouldn’t horrify him with the gory adult talk I plan to scar him with in his teens.
“Yeah, I was just settling Axel. He’s a bit bossy, kind of like someone else I know.”
Isaac chuckles, hearing my comment as I had intended: playfully.
“That’s why he was adamant about arriving when he did. You don’t follow the rules when you can make them.”
A smile crosses my face. “He scared the shit out of me.”
