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“Just promise me you won’t shoot the actors.”
“My Glock is back in the glove compartment.” He risked a glance at the stage, wincing at an eyeful of a bouncing Hamlet dancing a Scottish jig. “Though I am tempted to retrieve it.”
“I never knew network security consulting was so dangerous it required a weapon,” she said.
Though her words were laced with her usual dry sarcasm, genuine curiosity radiated from her face, giving her amber eyes a warm glow, and the thrum of attraction settled deeper in his gut. Up until he’d pulled her against him in the alley she’d been just another beautiful woman he could ignore. After experiencing the dip at her waist and the soft curves firsthand, he was less confident. Since Mandy, and with the demands at Firewell, Inc., his relationships had been few and far between. Brief, superficial and uncomplicated worked best.
And it didn’t get any more complicated than Carly Wolfe.
Awareness burned through him, reaffirming that his vow not to touch her again was vital.
He pushed it all aside, and said, “My day is typically weapon-free. The Glock is only in my car because I visited the firing range before work.”
She shot him a look that went beyond mere curiosity. “Keeping up those skills, huh?”
Hunter’s stomach lurched and he turned to stare at the stage, grateful the increase in volume of the music gave him a reprieve from responding. His weekly trips to the firing range were unnecessary, but he couldn’t seem to let go of the last routine he’d maintained since he’d been forced to leave the FBI, leaving a massive hole in his life.
The sharp ache resurfaced and his jaw clenched. He enjoyed what he did now, but lately he’d been chafing at the monotony...
Carly must have decided he refused to respond to her indirect question. “Why did you leave the FBI?” she asked.
He turned to study her face. Though she was clearly digging for information, the genuine warmth he’d seen on the TV monitor that first day was back. What would she say if he told her part of the truth? There were bad parts he could share, and there were worse parts he could never divulge. In an effort to protect sensitive information the FBI had kept their investigation of him private. Outside of Mandy’s newspaper article about the case he’d been working on, no other information had been made available to the public.
“Off the record?” he said.
She hesitated longer than he would have liked. “Off the record.”
“I was stripped of my security clearance and put on administrative leave without pay.”
A shocked silence followed, filled with awful music, until she said, “Why?”
“I was working on a case that involved a group of hackers that specialized in acquiring credit card numbers. A branch of Russian organized crime was laundering their money.” He took a moment to steel himself for the words that followed. “I was accused of leaking information to the mob.”
The pause was painful as she stared at him, wide-eyed. “And did you?”
The words punched hard, his stomach drawing tight with anger. He’d seen the doubt in his colleagues’ expressions. The questions in their eyes. Outside of his parents and Pete Booker, no one had believed the truth—not a hundred percent, anyway. Not even after he’d been cleared. So why should she? But somehow her doubt took a larger chunk from his already ragged pride, and left him dangerously close to the edge. He leaned closer, and a flicker of desire swept through her eyes. For some reason the thought of a payback appealed. And there was no greater payback than refusing to answer a nosy woman’s question.
“What do you think?” he said.
Carly hardly knew him, and had no reason to believe in his honor. But for one terrible moment he realized he was holding his breath, hoping she would.
“I don’t know,” she said softly, the tone doing little to ease the doubt in her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me?”
* * *
The seconds that ticked by felt like minutes to Carly, and she held her breath as she waited for Hunter’s response. The news about his past had dumped a truckload of fuel on an already burning fire of curiosity, but the impassive look on Hunter’s face—so close to hers it was difficult to concentrate—revealed nothing.
And then his eyes flickered with an emotion that came and went too quickly to identify. Finally Hunter leaned back in his seat, but there was a coiled energy simmering beneath the falsely relaxed air. “I think I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”
Carly stared at Hunter, quietly sucking in a breath. Damn, the man was determined to drive her down crazy lane. “What eventually happened?”
