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The agent she’d once been had been so damaged when she thought he’d died, she’d barely recovered. She had forgotten her training in the past years and she’d forgotten how to use her instincts.
That wouldn’t happen again. She had a life outside John, just as she should have had a life outside of Trent Daylen.
She wasn’t losing this part of herself again. He owned her heart; he wasn’t going to own her life.
“Bailey.” He caught her arm as she opened the door. “Are you okay?”
She turned back to him and felt her stomach sink. What was that expression on his face? No, it couldn’t be love. She had fooled herself into believing that once before. The heavy, intent look in his eyes might be caring—she had no doubt he cared—but it wasn’t love. Love didn’t walk away for revenge. It didn’t desert the heart it had stolen and it didn’t return for a job. It returned because it had no other choice. Because life was empty without that heart that beat life inside it. She was very much afraid her life would be even emptier when he left her. Again.
CHAPTER 7
THINGS CHANGE. EMOTIONS harbored so long inside a woman’s heart can’t always be denied. The need, the hunger, the feeling of a connection, a bond—there was no way to turn away from it. No way to ignore it.
Bailey awoke the next morning with that knowledge burning inside her, driving her from an empty bed to the shower, where she fought back the tears that would have poured from her eyes.
She awoke alone. After the most incredible night of her life, she was alone when her eyes opened. Just as she had always been alone.
Gathering clothes together, she forced herself into the shower, forced back the anger and the pain as she got ready for the day.
John hadn’t made any promises and as much as she wanted to find ways to believe he was another man, as many traits as she could attribute to him, still more overshadowed them.
He was John Vincent, and John Vincent might not love her. He probably didn’t love her. She was an asset, just as she had always been. She had been an asset to her father, she was an asset to those she had grown up with and she was now an asset to an agency that she didn’t even understand.
Dressing seemed to take forever. It sapped the strength she knew she needed to face the man whose arms she had fallen asleep within just as it sapped the hope that had begun building within her. Not so much that he was Trent as that this emotion she felt inside would be returned.
Shaking it away wasn’t easy. Forcing back the weakness was almost impossible. It wasn’t permanent, she told herself. It was simply the afteraffects of a night in the arms of a very skilled lover and her own wayward emotions.
They had gotten her into trouble before; they had always led her onto the path of destruction. She was simply a magnet for heartbreak, it seemed.
A mocking smile tugged at her lips as she finished her makeup and flipped the brush through her hair one last time before surveying herself in the mirror.
She looked okay. She didn’t look as though her heart was breaking and she didn’t look as though another dream was slowly unraveling around her.
Vengeance.
She breathed in deeply, forcing that thought through her system, into her brain, into her heart. She might not have a chance at love, but she did have a chance at vengeance. For Anna and Mathilda, for her parents. Especially for her parents. She had a chance to make their murderer pay.
And for now, for a moment in time, she would have John. Not that it would ever be enough, but when it was over at least she wouldn’t have the regret that she hadn’t tried, that she hadn’t fought for what her heart had tried to claim.
She’d let months go by before she had ever hinted to Trent that she desired him. It was time she had no intentions of wasting with John.
He was a secretive bastard. He was dominant, he edged at being controlling, but they were all traits she had as well. They would clash while they were together, but the memories . . . She smiled at the thought. She would have the memories when it was over.
If they survived the mission they were on. And that brought up another point she hadn’t wanted to face. When all this was over, she was set to possess some very powerful enemies. The men in this little group liked to think that they policed themselves. That they kept themselves under control. They wouldn’t appreciate her stepping in. And there was always the chance that more than one of them was involved. She wasn’t overlooking that angle.
She hoped she wasn’t overlooking anything. She’d been tracking Warbucks and Orion for years. After she’d eliminated those who couldn’t possibly be involved, it had left her with four men who had the power, the resources, and the connections to accomplish the thefts and sales that had gone through.
Pushing her feet into a pair of well-worn hiking boots, she tied them quickly before heading downstairs for the coffee she knew the housekeeper would have prepared. Daylight filled the room, a cold dim light that sent a chill racing through her body despite the warmth of the house.
It would snow soon, she thought as she glanced out the huge front windows in the foyer. She could see the clouds lying over the mountains and bearing down on them. The forecast for the next week mentioned blizzard conditions nearing.
They had less than three weeks to accomplish the identification of Warbucks. The sale was coming soon. A broker would be chosen; within days negotiations would begin and a price would be set.
She had to ensure that John received the contract.
It amazed her how totally business-like these transactions now went.
Once upon a time things weren’t nearly so civilized and in a lot of ways it had been much easier then to track and to apprehend the traitors involved in such sales. Now they were shielded by brokers, middlemen, and a professional atmosphere including background checks, moles in law enforcement agencies, and negotiations for pending sales.
