Page 114 of Fixed Asset

“Good copy. Out.”

My earpiece crackled before it went silent. I took it out of my ear and shoved it into my pocket.

“You good?” Jack asked.

I tipped my head back and caught Jack’s gaze.

I didn’t need to assess my feelings or my surroundings, or the last twenty-four hours, or even the last week to know my answer.

I didn’t care where I was or what I was doing as long as I had Jack at my side.

“Never better.”

Jack hooked me around the back of the neck, dipped his head, and took my mouth in a searing kiss.

It tasted a lot like triumph. But it felt like the once-crumbled foundation of my life had just been rebuilt. Strong. Steady. Solid.

With Jack, I had it all.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Calista Ventura

Three weeks later

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

“It’s time for you to call Saint and his team.”

Even though Tom couldn’t see me, since he was three thousand miles away and we were speaking on the phone, I still rolled my eyes at his use of Pete’s real name. For some reason—and I hadn’t asked—Tom didn’t like calling Pete ‘Pete.’

“I already told you, Mason Hughes is going to be a problem. I don’t want him involved.”

That was the lie I’d told Tom on the plane out of Mexico, when I’d adamantly turned down his suggestion to ask Mason and his team to help me. The lie wasn’t that Mason was going to be a problem because he was going to dig through my past, my present, and he’d find out who I really was and who I really worked for.

The true problem was I found him attractive—in the I-wanted-to-jump-his-bones kind of way. And the more he irritated me, the more I wanted to bang him. Which in my estimation was the definition of insanity. Or maybe it was unhealthy. Though I wasn’t sure I even knew what healthy was. After Liliya was taken, my life had spiraled into a tangled mess of dysfunction and grief.

“There’s nothing for him to find.”

“Be that as it may, Tom, I don’t want—”

“I’m not asking, Calli,” Tom interrupted me. “Your choices are call Saint or I’m pulling you.”

The asshole would pull me out of some foolish sense of obligation to my father.

“I think you’ve paid your debt to my father tenfold. You don’t need to keep riding in to the rescue every time you think danger’s close.” I’d shocked the man into silence. I took a second to savor the moment. “And just as a reminder, I didn’t need help back in Mexico. I’d gotten myself out of that situation just fine and got us the authorization to go after Ahmad Sindi.”

Still nothing.

“Tom, did I lose you?”

“How long have you known?”

“Since my father confessed all on his deathbed with a warning and instructions what to do if I was ever approached by the Irish.”

Tom had nothing to say to that.

“How’s Diane?”