Authors: Beverly Barton
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"He acts like he didn't know," Lester said, then turned to Marian. "Didn't you tell him? We were told that you were instructed to inform Ingram that Gideon Faulkner had been captured and that if In-gram didn't follow orders, his brother would pay with his life."
"How could you have lied to me?" Jake demanded, thinking of nothing but the sense of betrayal he felt knowing Marian hadn't been honest with him. He'd been a fool to think she was different—from Tara and all the other women he'd known. Mariah had her own personal agenda and what he wanted or needed was secondary to her assignment.
"You damn bitch, you used me. You were going to—"
Before Jake realized her intention, Mariah crossed the room in a flash and crashed her fist into the side of his face, sending him reeling. For a couple of seconds, he saw stars. Literally. The lady certainly had a powerful punch.
Seven
After doing what she'd needed to do in order to silence Jake immediately, Mariah issued an order. "Take him back upstairs and cuff him to the bed. But gag him first. Once we've had breakfast, I'll start a new hypnosis session with him. And this time, I'm sure Mr. Ingram will cooperate fully."
Burgess grabbed Jake's arm, jerked him up from where he'd landed on his knees, and herded him toward the door.
After saying a silent prayer of thanks that Jake hadn't continued his tirade, Mariah turned her attention to Lester.
"Go with them and—"
"No need," Burgess replied. "I can handle Ingram without any help."
Damn! Not only did she have to deal with Jake's reaction to finding out that Gideon had been captured by the Coalition and she hadn't shared that information with him, but now her plan to drug the coffee wasn't going to work, not with Lester remaining in the kitchen. So be it. She'd prepare the damn pancakes and undoctored coffee for Burgess and Lester, since she'd promised to fix breakfast for them this morning. But as soon as she'd wolfed down a few bites, she'd go upstairs and try her best to do some damage control. She had to find a way to make Jake understand why she hadn't been totally honest with him.
And just how do you propose to do that, Marian? she asked herself. You've lied to him, albeit by omission. He's not going to trust you. There's a good chance that no matter what you tell him, he's not going to believe you. Dammit, she had to find some way to make him believe that she was on his side. One hundred percent. And there was only one way to do that—stand by him no matter what, and that included going with him to save Gideon!
How quickly this mission had changed for her, how quickly she'd gone from being an FBI agent doing her job to being a woman standing by her man. Idiot, she scolded herself, no matter what you do, Jake may never forgive you.
With robotic movements, she prepared breakfast, then served the meal when Burgess returned to the kitchen.
Thankfully Lester had done nothing more than ogle her. Heaven help her, but if the man had come on to her again this morning, she might have reacted violently.
As she finished the third bite of syrup-drenched pancakes, Mariah glanced at the two Coalition flunkies who were thoroughly enjoying the fruits of her labors. She swallowed, then said, "I'm going to try to put Jake Ingram under a deep hypnotic trance and that procedure requires absolute concentration on my part and complete quiet. I don't want either of you bothering me while I'm working. Do you understand?" She glared at Lester first, then at Burgess.
"We understand," Burgess said. "But we'll be right here, ready to assist you if you give us the word."
Mariah nodded, offered him a weak smile, then picked up her plate and headed for the kitchen garbage can. After dumping the contents of her plate, she placed the earthenware dish in the sink. Totally ignoring everything and everyone, her mind focused on how best to deal with Jake, she headed upstairs.
Please, God, don't let me screw this up. Too much depends on my making Jake understand.
When she reached the bedroom door, she paused outside. Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she grabbed the
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doorknob. What the hell was wrong with her? She wasn't the nervous, weak-in-the-knees type. Jake had most certainly done a number on her. And she didn't like it. Didn't like not being totally in control of her emotions. Didn't like letting her heart make her decisions instead of logic.
She eased open the door and gasped at the sight of Jake gagged, shackled to the bed and sporting a bruise on his right temple from where she'd hit him. But blood was also oozing from his swollen lip and there was a bright red spot on his jaw. Burgess must have taken it upon himself to rough Jake up a bit after he'd brought him upstairs. Damn the man!
Every feminine instinct within her urged her to run to Jake, to comfort and care for him. So why was she so surprised by her reaction? After all, those womanly instincts had already chosen Jake Ingram as her mate. Her man.
But she managed to control that nurturing urge as she entered the room. Jake looked at her, his eyes a turbulent, stormy blue and filled with pure rage. Mariah sighed. He wasn't going to make asking for his forgiveness easy.
***
Jake had never been this angry with a woman. Rage was a new emotion. He'd been bored, entertained, fascinated, hurt, disappointed, repulsed, delighted and even aggravated. But never angry enough to explode. It wasn't that no woman he'd been sexually involved with had never lied to him, but never a woman he'd trusted. And he had trusted Mariah. He had accepted her for who and what she claimed to be. And he'd mistakenly thought they had forged a bond—both physically and emotionally. Obviously he'd been wrong. He was nothing more to her than an assignment.
Had her orders been to keep Jake Ingram not only safe, but pacified? Had she been told to do whatever necessary to make him cooperative? If so, then the FBI's methods weren't much better than the Coalition's.
Okay, so he wasn't thinking straight. He was allowing anger to overrule his usual logical thinking processes. He was reacting like a spurned lover. But learning that Mariah had lied to him about something as important as Gideon's life was as devastating as if he'd found her screwing around with another man. Both were betrayals. And the one thing Jake prized over everything else was loyalty. Complete loyalty. He expected it in his employees, in his family, in his friends and in his woman. He had been bitterly disappointed by Tara, whose loyalty and commitment hadn't endured the revelation about his unique birthright.
"Jake, we need to talk." Marian paused in the middle of the room, as if waiting for his permission to come closer.
He glared at her. He wanted to shout, "Stay the hell away from me. You lied to me. You betrayed me. You're willing to let my brother die if that's what it takes to accomplish your mission!" But he said nothing. And couldn't if he tried, not with the gag in his mouth.
Mariah took several tentative steps toward him, then stopped by the side of his bed. It was a good thing his wrists were cuffed, otherwise he'd grab her and shake her until her teeth rattled. When she reached out and untied the handkerchief Burgess had used to gag him, a dozen different accusations came to mind. He'd thought he would bellow his condemnation of her the minute he could speak, but he didn't. Looking at her, seeing the stricken expression on her face, he realized two things. One: How he felt and what he thought truly mattered to her. Two: If she didn't mean so damn much to him, he wouldn't be this outraged over her betrayal.
"Jake, please, listen to me," Marian said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Gideon. I was wrong. I should have told you. But..." She crossed her arms over her chest and rubbed her hands up and down from elbows to shoulders in a nervous gesture. "My orders were to keep you safe, at any cost. I knew if I told you Gideon had been captured, you wouldn't escape with me, wouldn't go where you'd be safe— not until you found a way to free your brother."
"So you lied to me," he said. "You betrayed me. You would have taken me into custody and kept me under lock and key in order to protect me from the Coalition. It didn't matter to you that my brother's life is on the line." He narrowed his gaze and looked her light in the eye. "Do you have any idea how it makes me feel to know that my brother's life doesn't mean a damn thing to you?"
"That's not true." She held out her hands beseechingly, but made no attempt to touch him. "Gideon does matter to me, but not... not as much as you do. Your safety comes first with me."
"Don't you mean my safety comes first with the bureau?"
"Yes, keeping you out of Coalition hands is more important to the U.S. government than protecting Gideon. To them, you're the more valuable of the two. But wanting to keep you safe has become a personal issue with me. Can't you understand how important it is to me to protect you, to save you?"
"Why?" he asked, his gaze pensive, his voice hard.
"Why? Because I care about you."
"If you really cared, you wouldn't have lied to me."
"I've already apologized. I know I should have been honest with you."
"From here on out, it will be difficult for me to believe you," he told her. "Once trust has been broken, it's never easy to rebuild."
"Tell me what I have to do in order for you to trust me again."
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"And if I tell you, no matter what it is, you'll agree?"
Mariah inhaled deeply, then exhaled. "Yes."
He heard the reluctance in her voice and knew it hadn't been easy for her to acquiesce. "First, I want you to find out where they're holding Gideon. Then I want you to contact your superiors at the bureau and see what they're doing to find my brother."
"Agreed," she replied quickly.
"That's not all."
She nodded.
"We are not going to escape. Not yet. Not until we know where Gideon is." Jake glanced at the closed door. "We'll fake another hypnosis session and this time you'll report to your Coalition contact that you've made progress breaking down my defenses, that my knowing they have Gideon has made me more cooperative. We have to buy time until either you or the Feds can discover Gideon's location."
Marian didn't respond immediately. He could tell she was digesting everything, running it through her logical mind.
She could take his offer or leave it— he didn't care. He would never allow her to take him to a safe haven and leave behind his brother and the proof needed to stop the Coalition and their diabolical plans once and for all. He didn't have a death wish—in fact the exact opposite was true—but in the grand scheme of things, his life was insignificant. And on a more personal level, he believed his brother had more to live for than he did. After all, Gideon had a woman who loved him. Jake had none.
"My superiors at the bureau are not going to agree to your demands," Mariah said. "So the best way to deal with them is to make them believe we haven't had the opportunity to escape. Not yet."
Jake's eyes widened in speculation, understanding what lying to her superiors might mean to Mariah's career, if the truth ever came out. "You're willing to risk your career to do things my way?"
"If that's what it takes to make you .trust me again." She met his gaze head-on, without hesitation, unintimidated, equally as strong and determined as he.
"You do have a way to make contact with the bureau, don't you?" Jake asked.
"Digital phone, in my car," she replied. "I can tell Burgess and Lester that I'm calling my Coalition contact and want some privacy. There's no reason for them not to believe me, if I'm convincing enough. After all neither of them is the sharpest knife in the drawer."
"Find a way to make both calls—one to your Coalition contact and the other to your FBI contact— as soon as possible. I want to know what you can find out about Gideon from each source. If we're going to save my brother, we need to be armed with as much information as possible."
Mariah nodded. "I'm going to uncuff you, but I want you to pretend to be asleep while I'm gone. I'll tell Burgess and Lester that I've given you a couple of injections and it will take about thirty minutes for the drugs to become totally effective. When I come back upstairs, we'll fake a hypnosis session."
"Make sure those two stay downstairs. We don't want them eavesdropping, do we?"
"I'll put on some music and we'll leave the door open. The music will make it less likely for our voices to carry downstairs and by leaving the door open, we can see them if they get close enough to the door to overhear our conversation."
Mariah unlocked Jake's handcuffs and for a brief moment they stared at each other. On some basic, male/female level, Jake wanted to trust her, needed to trust her. She'd gotten under his skin in a way no other woman ever had.
Sexual desire was a powerful motivator. But he should be thinking with his brain and not another part of his anatomy.
"Go," he told her. "Now."
"Jake...?"
"Not now. Maybe later." He knew she was asking him to discuss forgiving her and trusting her again. But the problem was he didn't know for sure if he could forgive her or trust her, so he couldn't give her a simple yes or no answer. Things between them were far too complicated to see their relationship in black or white, only in shades of gray.
"Lie back and pretend to be asleep," she told him. Her hand hovered near his bloody mouth. "I'm sorry Burgess got rough with you. I should clean your mouth and—"
"No big deal. The blood has dried. Leave it for now. If Burgess notices you've been doctoring me, he won't understand why."
"You're right." She gave him a lingering glance, then turned and headed for the door. "I'll find out what I can."
"Yeah, you do that."
***