“Jack, I know how it looks—”
“No,” he cut in. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to come back into my life, drag me out of an auction like I’m some kind of prize, and then act like we’re just picking up where we left off, because we aren’t.”
“I’m not asking for that.” Her voice sounded strained.
“Then whatareyou asking for?”
There it was. The real question he wanted an answer to. Or one of them, at least.
Madelaine took a deep breath. She stepped into the light. And Jack saw it fully then—that weight she was carrying. The fear. The urgency. The guilt?
“I need your help,” she said.
He stared at her. This time, his laugh was softer. Colder. “Of course you do.”
“Jack—” Her soft, pleading voice had never failed to hit him right in the soul. That was exactly the way she said his name right before she told him she loved him. But that was years ago. Things had changed. Drastically changed.
“No,” he said, holding up a hand. “You don’t get to say my name like that. Not anymore.”
Her eyes glistened, but her expression firmed like she was trying to bear up under his difficult attitude. His totallyjustifiableanger.
“Please,” she said. That word hit harder than anything else. “Please, just hear me out.”
Jack clenched his jaw. “Fine. You’ve got exactly twenty-four hours,” he said finally. “That’s what you paid for, right?”
Madelaine nodded slowly, warily.
“Good,” he said. “Then you better start talking because at twenty-four hours and one second,I’llbe the one who leaves without a backward glance.”
Jack turned away from her, but didn’t leave the house. He was willing to hear her out, but it was too difficult to look at her and not see the woman she used to be. Before…
Before she’d broken him.
Chapter Three
Madelaine straightened her posture, reminding herself of who she was and what she was doing here. She’d worked very hard to get here.Deal with it. Don’t be soft. Think of what you had to do.Of why.
It was the standard pep talk she gave herself to promote focus instead of the anarchy that tried to run roughshod over her mind whenever things got tough.
Of course Jack was angry. He had every right to be.
She needed his help to begin her dire chore, such as it was. The very first task on the list likely couldnotbe achieved without him. And she needed him for much longer than the twenty-four hours she’d paid for.
There were several things she was going to have to talk him into doing or risk derailing this whole endeavor from the get-go. He had to agree to her first problematic request and then a string of others if she hoped to succeed.
If he didn’t just walk out and leave her in the next few seconds, that is.
She had to try.
She would give it her best shot because the stakes were so very high. Failure was not onlynotan option, it wasn’t even in the top five list of difficult obligations she faced.
Madelaine took a deep breath. She had told her superior, Quell-don—who’d trained her for this mission under theauspices of the secret Paladin Cabal—what she would likely have to reveal to get the help she needed.
Quell-don, whomusthave known the difficulties she would face, had not been pleased. He’d demanded she not give over any information to the uninitiated unless not doing so would compromise her mission. She had agreed, knowing that Quell-don and the Paladin Cabal expected her to say absolutely nothing at all.
She thought it was foolish to share no information and expect those around her to comply with her every need, spoken or not. Especially the man she’d abandoned, even though it had not been her choice to do so. The consequences were unthinkable. So, forward she went, best as she could.
“Do you want me to tell you why I left five years ago? Or should I just get straight to the difficult favor I need from you?”
