A View to a Thrill (Masters and Mercenaries Book 7) (37 page)

Ian moved toward Simon, slapping him on the shoulder. “He’s got a damn creative mind, my friend. Let’s talk. Jesse, move your ass. It’s your turn to watch the chicks. Watch out. Apparently now they spontaneously hug you.”

Simon disappeared again and Jesse sidled through the slim door, allowing Ian to take his place.

“Hey, don’t try to escape, Chels. I’m kind of sleepy so I’m going to take a nap if it’s all right with you. Let me know if you need a hug or something. Apparently you do that now.” Jesse sank into Ian’s old seat.

Charlotte took her hand. “It’s going to be all right. If there’s one thing I know about, it’s how to get a man to forgive you for a massive mistake. You just have to follow a very simple plan.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy.” He’d looked through her like she wasn’t there.

“Are you willing to try?”

Chelsea took a deep breath. She’d given up trying long ago, and it had been a mistake. “Yes.”

She leaned forward and did what she should have done months before. She listened to her sister.

* * * *

Simon looked out over the Atlantic. Nothing but water as far as the eye could see. London was somewhere north in the distance, but he wouldn’t be going home anytime soon. He would want to avoid the inevitable lecture from his family. Despite the fact that Ian had gotten him out from under the cloud surrounding the deaths in his building, his parents would likely have heard of it. Just because he wasn’t guilty didn’t mean he would escape their judgment.

They’d spent the night before on the plane. It had been comfortable enough, but he’d dreamed that Chelsea had escaped, running back to Texas and Ten. He’d been surprised to wake and see her curled up with a blanket next to her sister.

They hadn’t said more than two or three words to each other.

“You know she thought she was saving you,” Ian murmured from his seat next to Simon. He was leaning back, his body relaxed, his eyes covered in a pair of mirrored aviators.

Perhaps his parents’ wasn’t the only judgment he couldn’t escape.

“I don’t care.” It was ridiculous. She’d truly believed Ten could manage things Ian and Derek couldn’t? Ten had very little pull in the States. Now if they were in a foreign country, Ten would be their guy. If Simon didn’t throttle the fucker the next time he laid eyes on him.

“Good.” Ian crossed his arms over his chest and yawned a little. “Just wanted to be able to say I did my part, man.”

“Consider it done.” The last thing he wanted to do was a postmortem on his non-relationship with Ian’s sister-in-law.

Another moment passed in blissful silence.

“Ten’s a good recruiter, you know,” Ian said. “For all I’m unhappy with the fucker at the moment, I have to say, I’d probably do the same thing in his shoes. Hell, I got recruited by Ten. Yeah, he knows exactly what to say.”

Ian rarely talked about his days with the Agency. “What did he use on you?”

Simon had always known he would join the RAF at some point. Every Weston did. And he’d been so desperate to be seen as a Weston, though he wasn’t sure why. By that time his relationship with his parents was distant. Pleasant enough, but he could always feel his father’s disappointment in him. Yet, he’d chosen a profession where he couldn’t tell his father what he did.

Chelsea wasn’t the only one who was damaged.

“He played on my god complex,” Ian replied. “I’m not sure if you know this about me, but I sometimes have issues with needing to be in control.”

It took everything he had not to roll his eyes. “Yes, I’d heard that about you.”

A little smirk curled Ian’s lips up. “I get better as the years go by. But back then I definitely had some issues with being out of control. I thought the Army would help. Drill sergeants in the Army break a man down. I mean a good DS will use every form of mental conditioning you can think of to break you to the US Army’s will.”

“Yes, we have something similar.” Just because they had different accents didn’t make the British military any more civilized. It was the job of every military in the world to break down and rebuild its soldiers, to break their old loyalties and forge new ones.

“And the whole time I was getting my face shoved in the dirt, all I could think about was rising through the ranks so no one could pull that shit on me again. I kept a list of everyone who fucked with me.” He chuckled a little. “When they eased up a couple of weeks into Basic, everyone else would beam with pride when the DSs would praise them, but I knew it was one more way to control me. They couldn’t work me with praise or pain. Only Ten ever figured me out.”

Because Ten was smarter, sneakier than the rest. He would have to be to do his job. He would have to be good at reading people, at knowing how to get them to do his bidding. “He played on your protective instincts?”

“In a way. He bought me a beer after my unit had worked with him on an op. He was smart enough not to flatter me. He just sat there and told me stories about some of the work he’d done and how good it felt to be free of the constraints of command. He talked about the men who make sure this country is free no matter what they have to do. They made the calls in the field.”

Yes, he could see how that would appeal to Ian. He would be doing good, but on his own terms.

Ian sat up and stared out over the ocean. “When he talked about his work, man, I knew what I wanted to do. It was more than just making the calls in the field. It was about the responsibility. I would be responsible for the safety of my country, actively out there making sure the people I gave a shit about were safe. That was all a man like me could ever want, right? I was naïve. I bought into it. Don’t get me wrong. Ten is necessary. I was naïve to think that was all I would ever want. I was stupid to think that I could watch over them and be uninvolved, but at the time it sounded so good. I could tell myself I loved them but I didn’t have to have all those messy emotions and shit. It actually still sounds kind of good.”

He had to stop Ian now. He wasn’t going to sit here while Ian tried to paint him into a corner. “If you’re trying to make some sort of comparison between yourself and me, you’re completely wrong. I’ve spent my entire bloody life trying to make ties, doing anything I could to make the people around me accept me. I was one of those idiots who wanted the respect of my superiors. Desperately so. I just kept fucking it up. So don’t compare us, Tag.”

“I wasn’t comparing you to me. You’re probably one of the smartest men I’ve ever met, Simon. I knew it even during the UOF op. Why do you think I scooped you up? And don’t think I didn’t fight for you. I sat down with Damon after you resigned. I talked him into accepting your resignation when he didn’t want to. His intention was to tell you you weren’t allowed to resign and put you back in the field.”

Simon shook his head, trying to digest that piece of information. He’d resigned his position with MI6 over a mistake he’d made. He’d allowed himself to be led into false information and tried to use it to break Ian’s team. He’d been on the wrong side of that fight. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Because I wanted you working for me. Because I do the same thing Ten does. I recruit the best men for the job, and I want them to be loyal to each other and to me above all else. I’ve handpicked every single one of you. Even Jesse. If I can get Jesse’s fucking head on straight again, he’ll be an amazing asset. Every one of us has fucked up in the past and we all deserved a second or third or fourth chance to be everything we can possibly be. The Army did teach me that. I’m just a better me out here in the world, and I’m definitely better as a man than an operative.” He stood up and stretched as much as the cockpit would allow. “And I wasn’t comparing you to me. I’m far more like Chelsea. Chelsea is the one who thinks she has nothing to offer anyone past her work. She’s the one who could be easily manipulated by a devil’s bargain offering her a way to protect the ones she loved. For all her big brain, she reacts to things without thinking. If it involves an emotion, she goes on instinct and her instincts are shitty.”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” He was through. Perhaps one day he could forgive her, but she had zero interest in changing. She would never trust him, and he couldn’t live waiting for the next time she “protected” him.

“Good. Talking is stupid. We’ll drink when you’re not in charge of flying a tin can through the air. That’s what men do. I always knew you would fit in here, Weston.” He sat back down and propped his feet up. “Besides, I bet Chelsea will be happy working for Ten in the end. I just get nervous with all Charlie’s talk about babies. That woman is after my sperm. I tried to tell her that any child of ours would likely come out of the womb guns a blazing. There won’t be a brain in that boy’s head. I guess I was kind of hoping he would have a smart cousin to balance him out.”

Sneaky bastard. “Just because you’re going to allow your sperm to be stolen doesn’t mean I’m offering up mine.”

But he’d thought about it. He’d thought about having children with her. They’d be smart. So smart. They’d have a ton of family around them, including their brutally obnoxious and stubborn uncle.

Who’d fought for him. He’d always thought Ian felt a bit sorry for him. In truth, he’d never really understood why Ian had made the offer. He’d leapt at it though. It had been a lifeline. He couldn’t go back to legal work. Not after he’d had a taste of undercover work. It was in his blood. He’d been convinced he wasn’t good for anything else, couldn’t want anything else.

Could Chelsea really have thought she was helping him? It didn’t matter in the end. He couldn’t trust her. She couldn’t change. She’d proven it. Either she’d told him the truth and she really wanted to work for Ten and leave him behind or she’d lied to him. He could stand for neither scenario.

She’d known where the package was and withheld it from him. Likely, she’d intended to go to Italy with her new boss.

“By the way,” Ian began, “that was one hell of a choke-out. I’ve wanted to do that to her since I met her.”

He needed to get away for a moment. He stood up. “Can you handle the autopilot while I get a cup of tea?”

He needed far more than caffeine, but he wouldn’t get that until they touched down.

“I might not like being in a small metal can over a sea of sharks, but I can handle the autopilot. Actually, I’ve always wanted to land one of these suckers. Maybe…”

“Not as long as I’m breathing, boss.” He turned and walked out of the cockpit. The kitchen was toward the back. He had to step through the cabin. He had to admit that his uncle knew how to travel. An executive jet with twelve comfortable seats. He’d been surrounded by wealth all his life, but the Malone fortune far eclipsed the Weston’s. It hadn’t always been that way.

Jesse was snoozing in his seat. Charlotte was curled up reading and Chelsea was staring out the window. She’d changed into a breezy skirt and a top that showed off her breasts.

Now that he couldn’t touch her again she decided to dress to show off. Well, naturally. Their relationship never had good timing. He walked past her without another glance. She wouldn’t matter after a while. She would be like all the rest of them, in his past. He would move on and…what?

Get married? Perhaps but he worried he wouldn’t feel for another woman the way he did Chelsea. Keep working? Certainly, but wouldn’t he wonder where she was and what she was doing?

He moved into the small kitchen area and looked through the cabinets to find the tea bags. They were woefully inadequate, but would have to do until he could hit the ground and find the nearest bar.

He needed to get her out of his head. Time. Space. That was the only thing that would do it. Eventually she would be a distant memory, something he only thought about from time to time.

“Simon?”

His cock wasn’t going to forget her at all if she kept showing up. “I’m just getting a cup of tea. I’ll be out of your way in a moment.”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

He turned to her. He could make this quick. “Did you or did you not mean what you said at the ranch?”

She never apologized, simply blazed her way through even when she was wrong.

“No. Not a word of it. I’m so sorry I hurt you but I thought it was for the best because you were going to be brought up on charges for killing those men.”

She was playing him again. She had to be. “It doesn’t matter. I really don’t care.”

“If I believed that I would want to die.” Her eyes didn’t quite find his. “I would like to know what my requirements are, Master.”

His cock jumped in his pants but his stomach took a deep dive. “Our contract doesn’t matter anymore.”

Her eyes finally came up, a hint of a challenge in those dark orbs. “Doesn’t it? I didn’t negate it.”

She was not going to do this to him. “You did when you told me you were leaving.”

“Did I? I would like to see it. I think I need to read that clause.”

Fuck all. He hadn’t written it so he had an out because he hadn’t dreamed he would need one. He’d given her a very specific out, but he was in for the duration of their time together. “Chelsea, you can’t expect that there is a contract after what you did.”

“I just said some words. I didn’t use my safe word. I didn’t say we were done. I would like to see the terms of my contract so I can know what my rights and responsibilities are. If you don’t have a hard copy, I can read it on Charlotte’s phone. Don’t tell me you didn’t write it on your laptop because I know you did and you saved it. You have backups. Just give me the server name and I’ll get it myself.”

She was right, of course. He had saved it. He was a creature of routine and he’d hit
save
, so it was on his backup. He’d modified one he’d written for the subs at Sanctum. One of the first things Ian had asked him to do was rewrite the contracts. He’d written them for The Garden so he knew what he was doing. He’d fucked up because he’d known what he was doing and then he’d written the contract to suit his stupid romantic sensibilities. He’d been an idiot. He contemplated lying to her. Telling her anything that would get her off his back.