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Side-stepping, her aim was to go around him, but he stole her arm to hold her there.
“Every man wants you,” he said, his grip loosening. “Harry’s warning was… he has a strange way of showing he cares.”
Curiosity got the better of her. “Does he know?” she asked. “That we were… together?”
Daire shook his head. “He’s no idiot, but he hasn’t asked for confirmation. Don’t think he will.”
“What would he do? If he found out we had sex?”
“I don’t know… Shore leave wasn’t something we got in Olympus. The women from my past are exclusively mission related.”
Olympus dictated everything, including his sex life. Tess didn’t want to feel sorry for him. Yet there were times it was impossible to ignore how Olympus had screwed him. When she’d read the words in Harry’s letters about PK being manufactured, the ramifications hadn’t sunk in. Not until she faced the evidence.
“Harry told you who to be with.”
“Mission directives usually came from Z,” Daire said. “Sometimes we’d be granted field autonomy… Harry would make those calls.”
His comment about her being the first he’d ever chosen for himself began to make sense. “Must feel good that you pulled off your first planned and executed solo mission. Shows you don’t need them. You’re capable on your own.”
“Capable of screwing up. Yeah,” he said. “Do you want me to get you a test?”
Pregnancy, right, Tess wasn’t sure where her head was. “No,” she said, trying a smile, though it wasn’t close to genuine. “I have the implant, we’ll be fine. Don’t know how you’d explain that one to Harry.”
“I’ll step up if it’s needed,” he said. “You have no obligation to keep secrets for me.”
“Harry and I aren’t exactly close. He has less rights to know about my sex life than he does yours. You want to tell him, tell him.”
“He knows I lied to get close to you,” Daire said. “Like I said, he’s no idiot.”
Which meant Harry probably at least suspected something had happened between them.
“Why wouldn’t he say anything?” she asked.
Maybe it was don’t-ask-don’t-tell. Harry was smart enough not to ask a question he didn’t want the answer too. Certainly not so soon after patching things up with his errant protégé. When your kid ran away from home, you were just grateful to have them back. Blasting them for every naughty act would only lead to pushing them away again.
Daire gave a cryptic answer. “It’s like he said, hierarchy stands.”
It wasn’t immediately clear what that meant. Then she remembered how quickly Daire had answered her question about what he wouldn’t do under Harry’s orders.
“So when you’re out tonight…” she started, “if he tells you to sleep with someone, you’ll do it?”
The answer was none of her business. Why did she even ask the question? Waiting, scrutinizing every nuance of his expression, she anticipated an answer. His eyes left hers. The aversion wasn’t like before, he wasn’t avoiding her, he was searching for something… Something inside himself.
“He won’t. We only want Three’s attention.”
“But if he asks you, you’ll do it,” she said. If Harry suspected they had a connection, he could hope to break that link by sending his apprentice to bed with another woman. “You said it can’t happen, that it won’t… You meant us.” She’d known that at the time. “It’s nothing to do with respect for Harry or your missions, you said that because you knew he’d never order you to be with me. Nothing will ever happen between us until you’re given a directive. But that directive will never come.”
It shouldn’t matter. But, for some reason, the pressure of anger pulsed through her. Maybe it was the lack of choice. That someone else would think to make decisions for her, for anyone. Harry didn’t have that right over her. Olympus didn’t either. They shouldn’t have it over Daire either.
“It doesn’t matter,” Daire said. “You wouldn’t want anything to happen between us… would you?”
The simplicity of that query vented some of her anger. He was right. She shouldn’t be thinking about who made decisions like that. Even if it was allowed, if Daire was given permission, she’d never let it happen. They couldn’t be intimate ever again. Wouldn’t be.
“No,” she said and turned away. “Of course I wouldn’t.”
He stopped her getting any further by catching her little finger with his. Her chin sank slowly until she could see that point of contact. Daire was a stranger. But his touch…
“If there was a way to fix this, I… I would do it.”
