“And I turned you down because it’s not enough for me,” she countered. “Am I obligated to say yes because you asked? Because that does sound like the guy I just ran away from.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Damn it. He used to be good at this. He used to be good at charming his way into a woman’s bed. Years before he’d screwed up the world so brutally, he’d been that guy women slept with and then continued to hang out with.

  She let a long moment pass. “It’s okay. How about we agree to be people who work together and nothing more.”

  “Or we could be friends.” He should take the out she was offering with gratitude. Drake would call him any day now, and he would be out of here. He wouldn’t have to see her again with her big, gorgeous eyes and those lips he thought about way too much. With her saucy mouth that made him laugh even when she wasn’t talking to him because he stopped and listened.

  “I don’t know that we’re going to be friends, Kyle. We don’t have much in common. That’s another reason it’s best you don’t come home with me.”

  “Hey, you doing okay?” a deep voice asked.

  Jamal was walking up the ramp they were on, his keys in hand.

  Kyle took a deep breath because he liked the man and didn’t want to be the next dude he had to warn off tonight. “I was thinking someone should drive Mae home and make sure she gets in okay, but it’s late and I’m not sure the trains are still running. I don’t want to get stuck.”

  “I’ll follow her.” Jamal moved in, standing next to MaeBe. He was at least a foot and a couple of inches taller than she was, taller than Kyle himself. “And you call me if you even halfway feel like something’s off. I don’t think that guy’s going to come after you. He seemed to understand what Sean and I were telling him. But if he’s going to try something it’ll be in the next couple of weeks.”

  “I’ll watch him.” It was the one thing he might be able to offer her. “It’s not like I have anything else to do with my time. I’ll follow him for a couple of days to make sure. I have a job coming up. But it doesn’t start until next week. I can do some background work on the guy.”

  Jamal’s brow rose. “I didn’t think you did background work. I kind of thought you were one of those guys who did as little desk work as possible.”

  Because none of the guys he worked with knew him beyond the fact that he was the boss’s nephew and he was standoffish.

  That was starting to get boring.

  It had been far easier to hold back when he didn’t give a crap about the people around him, when the people around him couldn’t be trusted.

  He could get soft again here. “I’ll have something on your desk in the morning. I can do intel work, too.”

  Would his brother’s laptop survive a deep dive into the Dark Web?

  He handed MaeBe her keys and backed away. “Stay safe.”

  She nodded and then walked on with Jamal.

  It was better this way. He would be more careful about staying away from her going forward.

  Kyle took a deep breath and walked back to the restaurant, hoping his exile would end soon. Before his heart defrosted and started to ache again.

  Chapter Four

  Kyle finished the last few keystrokes and saw the light on Hutch’s security alarm go from red to green and sighed in relief.

  He hadn’t lost his touch. He’d worried his skills had atrophied while he played down his talents here in Dallas, but he’d needed them tonight.

  He was being smothered in this house in a way he hadn’t when they’d been staying at Noelle LaVigne’s. At Noelle’s, it had all felt like work, like they were simply doing their jobs, but something had gone down tonight and he and Hutch had made the decision to move the client to a more secure location. Namely the house Hutch had bought from Beckett Kent when he’d moved to Colorado with Solo and their kid.

  This house. It was bland and boring and cozy, and Kyle would never, never have it. He’d already seen Noelle looking around, a gleam in her eyes as she’d obviously thought about what she could do with this place. They’d only started the op a few days before and it was already a given that Noelle and Hutch would end up together.

  It had only been a couple of weeks since Kyle and MaeBe had stood in the parking garage and he’d made a complete asshole of himself.

  And then he’d tried to sleep and he’d had the dream again.

  The one where he stood over Julia and she smiled at him and held out a hand and he joined her.

  It was a dream he’d been having since that terrible day in Singapore when he’d confronted her about working for The Consortium. He saw her lying there, blood staining her chest, and he knew he’d killed her. He could hear Drake shouting in the background and feel the heat from the fire that had started. In the dream he thought seriously about standing there and letting the fire take him. It would be easier than going forward. He wasn’t good at this life thing. He fucked up and people died. His friends died. Julia died, and no matter what she’d done he hated that he’d been the one to pull the trigger. So he would stand there and let the flames take him. It was nothing more than what he deserved.

  And then her eyes would open and the most malicious smile would spread across her pale face. Her hand would come out, and even though he was screaming inside he couldn’t stop himself from taking it.

  That was where he would normally wake up shouting and David would rush in and he would have to make up some excuse. Lately David just knocked and quietly asked if he was okay.

  Not tonight. Tonight David wasn’t here and the dream had been worse. This time when he’d taken Julia’s hand he’d felt a tug at his other hand, and he’d turned and realized MaeBe Vaughn was standing in the flames, trying to haul him out, trying to save him. And he’d realized he was going to drag her down with him.

  He’d also known a spark of hope. Somewhere in all the despair a voice had whispered to him.

  What if she was strong enough to lead him through that fire? What if MaeBe was the one who could show him the way to the other side?

  His hands were still shaking even as he reset the alarm and slipped outside. It would be easy to get back in now that he’d hacked the password. The great news was no one would think he could do that. It wouldn’t occur to anyone that the latest bodyguard himbo could hack a system at all.

  He reached for his phone and dialed the number he would have called earlier had the night not gone to hell.

  The call picked up immediately, letting him know the guy on the other end of the line had been waiting for him. “Is everything all right?”

  Drake. He’d called earlier, but this wasn’t the kind of call he would answer until he was completely alone. Hutch was a smart guy. Despite his aw-shucks personality, he was always watching, always taking in everything around him.

  Kyle was almost sure Hutch was watching him. “Hey, I’m sorry. This job is going sideways, and it kind of hit the fan tonight.”

  “Are you okay? Anyone hurt?” Despite the fact that Drake was on the outside, Kyle knew he cared about the people at McKay-Taggart. He’d worked with them many times before.

  “No, but something’s going on here and I don’t like it. I don’t like that MaeBe’s involved. I want her off this case. At some point it’s going to go bad. I think Jessica Layne is involved with The Consortium in some way.” His every instinct was going off, but he worried his instincts were influenced by his growing feelings for MaeBe Vaughn. It didn’t matter that he’d told himself to stay away—basically warned her away—he kept finding himself drawn to her. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt, but no one would listen to him.

  “Most big tech companies are, whether they know it or not,” Drake replied. “I’ve looked into Genedyne and while I think the CEO is into some sketchy shit, I don’t think she’s a formal part of the group. She’s far too erratic and in the public eye for them to take her seriously.”

  “So you’ve been looking into it?” He’d known Drake would keep investigating the group his sister had worked for, but it was interesting that he’d done some research on the same company McKay-Taggart’s op was about.

  Drake was quiet for a moment.

  “What’s happening, Drake?”

  He could practically see the look on his friend’s face. It would have gone blank, and his head would shake slightly. “It’s nothing. I had an op go wrong in Kraków, and I lost an asset. That’s all.”

  Drake was normally a vault. The man did not talk about his feelings, but every now and then he broke down, and Kyle had figured out he was the only one Drake would talk to. “Do you think it was The Consortium?”

  “I don’t know, but I think I might have met a double agent,” Drake explained. “I…I don’t want to talk about what an idiot I was.”

  So Drake had met a woman and she’d turned out to be bad. He could relate. And the “I don’t want to talk about it” was code for “I’m going to look stupid but I need help figuring this out.” They’d only been friends for a couple of years, but they’d gotten close fast. When a man only had a few people he could be honest with, those friendships became tight. “You know the smartest man in the world can get derailed by his dick.”

  A deep chuckle came over the line. “Or the dumbest.”

  Such an ass. “Well, we all know that.”

  He was silent for a moment, and Kyle flattened his back against the side of the house as a car went by.

  “I can’t stop thinking about her,” Drake said quietly. “I’m trying to forget it ever happened and forgive myself for being an idiot, but I seem to be an idiot a lot now. First Julia and then this.”

  He knew the hollow tone Drake was using. He’d used it himself for a long time. “Is she dead?”

  Drake sighed over the line. “It doesn’t matter, and you should forget we talked about this. It doesn’t involve you and it shouldn’t. I wanted to call because I haven’t had a chance to follow up with those leads you sent me but I’m going to.”

  He’d been trying to piece together how long Julia had worked for The Consortium and what her possible other ties at the Agency were. He’d sent Drake those leads weeks before and now it suddenly didn’t seem as important.

  He felt for Drake. He knew how hard it was to shove his pain aside and get the job done. He wasn’t sure how to advise his friend. When he’d found out Julia was a traitor, it had ended with her death. Julia had done everything she’d done for money. It could be different if this woman truly believed. If she’d been working against Drake because she wanted to help her people, there was some room for discussion. Julia had cared about no one but herself.

  If he found MaeBe with a treasure trove of information she shouldn’t have, he would ask her why she had it, what she intended to do with it. He wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that she was the enemy. It was weird to trust someone again.

  “Don’t worry about it. I shouldn’t have asked you to follow up.” It was pretty much all he could do for his friend right now. Drake wouldn’t want to be pushed into talking about what had happened.

  “I’m going to get it done. I think there are questions we need to answer,” Drake replied. “I’ve put it off because I don’t like thinking about Julia. Hell, I don’t know what I do like thinking about anymore. I feel ripped up from the inside. I look normal, things feel normal, but inside I’m a fucking mess and I can’t let anyone see it.”

  “Or you’ll find yourself on sabbatical like me,” Kyle pointed out.

  “That wasn’t punishment. You know you needed this time.”

  A sigh went through him. He’d been thinking a lot about this lately. The last few weeks had been a revelation. Becoming friends with Hutch was making him rethink a lot of things, and MaeBe was, of course, at the center of everything. “I think I might need more time.”

  “Good, because I don’t think they’re going to…” Another moment of quiet. “Are you telling me you don’t want to come back?”

  “Maybe.”

  Drake’s chuckle now sounded entirely amused. “Oh, I definitely think this is about MaeBe Vaughn.”

  That woman was going to drive him crazy. “I like her. A lot. But I totally fucked things up. I told her I would go to bed with her but I couldn’t ever feel for her the way she deserved.”

  “You did what?”

  Yeah, he was certain everyone would have that reaction. “Well, it seemed like reality at the time. I don’t know. I kind of thought she would either want the same thing or think she could save me, and then maybe she would save me. Turns out she believed me fully—as she should have because I wasn’t lying at the time—and has a lot of self-esteem. She doesn’t want anything to do with my toxic self. Except I pushed myself on her. She was supposed to be working tech on this job, and I dragged her into the thick of it. I told the target MaeBe was my girlfriend. I didn’t intend to, but that woman was looking at me like I was a piece of meat, like…”

  “Like Julia did,” Drake prompted. “Like you were a possession, something that was due to her. I remember. Jessica Layne came on to you and you reached out to the woman you can’t stop thinking about. How did she react?”

  He would never forget what MaeBe had done. She hadn’t even hesitated. “She put an arm around me and acted like a damn shield, and she’s so fucking soft I can’t stand the thought of her getting hurt, but I also can’t stay away. I’m going through Dom kindergarten for her. I was going to tell my uncle I wasn’t interested but MaeBe’s in the lifestyle.”

  “I thought your membership was going to be at The Club,” Drake pointed out.

  His brother was already a member of the club owned by Julian Lodge because their…he wanted to throw up a little…mom played at Sanctum. “Mom and Sean play on Thursdays or Sundays. Never on Friday or Saturday. They’re needed at the restaurant those nights. I’ll have privileges at both. I don’t know if I should go through with it. I’m still the same guy. I’m still not good for her.”

  “See, you saying you’re not good for her like that means you’ll never be good for her,” Drake mused. “What you should be saying is you’re not ready for her. You’re more cautious now, and you need time to feel comfortable. I think she would give it to you if you asked for it.”

  “You think I need time?” He would like to believe this hollow feeling inside him wouldn’t last forever.

  “I think you’re already coming out of it. If you’re considering not coming back because you like your new job and like being close to your family, then you’re halfway there, man. You’re thinking about staying on a permanent basis, aren’t you?”

  This was why he felt so smothered. He didn’t want to stay. He wanted the freedom of walking out into the world with no thought to anything but revenge.

  The problem was he liked being around his brother. He liked hanging out at Top and farting around with the other bodyguards at the office. He liked playing video games with Luke and watching his sister date two guys at the same time right in front of Sean’s nose and Sean didn’t get it. Sean truly thought they were friends. It was fun to be part of a big, noisy, nosy family.

  He liked being close to MaeBe, enjoyed the pretend relationship they had on this op. He liked the thought that he might get to a place where he could give her more than sex.

  “I think I need more time.” It was all he could say right now.

  “Then you should take it.”

  The line went quiet again. “You didn’t call me to ask if I’m coming home.”

  “I think you are home, Kyle.” Drake’s tone had gone deep, a sure sign he was either serious or getting emotional. “I think this time you’re going to take will prove to you that DC was never home, and me and Julia were never your family. We were a blip on the radar of your life.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “I hope it is for your sake,” Drake replied. “I hope you wake up a year from now and barely remember what happened. You know you can trust MaeBe. I’ve done a deep dive on her.”

  “You investigated Mae?” He knew he shouldn’t be surprised, but he didn’t like the thought of anyone looking into MaeBe.

  “I had to when I realized how close you were getting.”

  “We’re not. That’s the problem.” But the words sounded like a lie. He felt close to her.

  “Well, how close you’re getting to one day actually asking her out,” Drake said with a chuckle. “I thought I should make sure she’s okay, though I was fairly certain given the fact that Big Tag vetted her. She’s had a couple of brushes with bad guys, but she’s never had a real problem. She’s a white hat hacker. Anything she’s done has been to try to help the greater good. I think you’re safe with her.”

  “I thought I was safe with Julia.”

  A long sigh came over the line as though even hearing her name made Drake infinitely tired. “No, you didn’t. That was part of her appeal. You know you never would have actually married her. You were already pulling away from her.”

  “Because I suspected something was wrong. I knew she was lying to me.”

  “Did you ever think I was lying to you?”

  He considered his words. “Of course I thought about it, but then you came to me with the truth and I’ve trusted you ever since. You’re right. I was thinking of breaking it off with her. I knew it wasn’t going to work long term at the end. What happened between me and Julia was a hurricane. It was fast and adrenaline filled, and I was left wrecked by it. Mae thinks she’s some kind of replacement for her.”

  “You talked to her about Julia?”

  He couldn’t talk to her about Julia. Not truly. So much of that time was classified, but he’d told her some truths. “Not in specifics, but yeah.”

  “Then you’re further along than I thought, and I’m happy for you. But you have some decisions to make, brother.”

  About the money. The stupid money that had shown up in his account. “I want you to take it.”

  “I don’t need it. I don’t want it. I know it bugs you, but she wanted you to have it. I traced it back to an account I’m sure was hers.”

 

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