Trained for Seduction (32 page)

So he was pissed about the clearing, too. That didn’t surprise her. But he had no right to be pissed. It was his mission. He’d planned it. He told Jake she had to come.

She sighed and felt like the walls in the hole he’d dug for her were closing in. Just shove dirt on her and she’d have an instant grave. Maybe that would be best, for all of them. If she no longer existed.

“You told me to be convincing, to do my job. I was fucking hot because I made Jake wear your cologne and I was pretending Jake was you. And yes, I’m sorry I said your name and now the whole team knows, and yes, I almost blew the whole thing. But when Jake shoved his hands down my pants and said I was wet, that was because it was you I was wet for, not him. I’m not sorry for that.”

His jaw clenched, and she could almost hear his teeth grind in frustration. “And what were you pretending when you offered yourself—us—to him?”

“Part of me was joking at that point. And in the hospital when I said I owed him, I was thinking about baking another pie, not sleeping with him. But after what I went through, a part of me isn’t joking anymore.

“You are losing it, Chase. You are out of control. And if you turned to that before, you’ll turn again. I am doing everything I can to fight for you. And if that means I have to sleep with you and Jake, I’ll do it.”‘

“I’m in control.”

“That’s not what Jake says or Ryan or even Charlotte. Or anyone else I’ve talked to who say you’ve been a jerk at work, too, because of me.”

The punishment at work was to run if you fucked up. Chase had made four people run to the house last week alone because it was about ten miles from the base. Kate had to give them a ride back, and she hated that she was the problem behind their suffering.

“Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

“Someone has to because, like I said, you are out of control.”

“I have enough people telling me how to do my job. You think being me is so easy. Pretty, dark, and dangerous, good at everything. Well, all I want out of life is luck for once. I have shit for luck, and it all started when I met you.”

“You should have let me die,” she whispered, no longer able to fight him. “Why did you bother saving me? You should have let me die as Emma.” She dropped her gaze from his and turned away.

“Don’t talk like that.”

She spun on her heel. “Why not, Chase? Isn’t that the truth? I don’t know what to do to make you happy anymore. I went on that mission. I did what you asked. I made it so Jake could come home, just like you commanded. I have done everything you asked of me, and it’s never enough.

“I even entertained the idea of a threesome with Jake to make you happy. When I sat in that cell with him, and we talked about you, he made me realize that I had to become what you needed if I wanted to keep you. You said it yourself that last night we were together and you bound me. If I didn’t go there, you would leave me.

“So I went, you blew my mind with the intensity of the orgasms, and I would go again. Gladly, if it meant you’d stop being so angry. So how bad is my luck? I’m willing to give you everything, and you still don’t want me? There are a lot of men out there who would thank their lucky stars they met me.”

“Maybe you should go find one, then.” His upper lip twisted.

“I found one.” She didn’t want to find anyone else. She wanted to find him again. Stupidity had her set the cards on the table and show them, all but one.

“For as much as an asshole as you are right now, you are an incredible man, and I am very lucky to have met you. I know what you did for me, after the plane crashed. The nurses told me a gorgeous man sat with me every night, and I never believed them. Not until I smelled your cologne in the room when I woke up, and I remembered. And I believed.

“You even let me choose my name. I remember you asking, ‘If you can’t be Emma, who do you wish to be?’ I always wanted to be Kate. And now I am.”

He grunted but looked less angry. “You were my collateral damage. I took care of you, just like Jake took care of Charlotte.”

Yes, he did. But she had to believe she meant more. She didn’t want him to twist the knife in her heart. “Jake told me what you did to make sure I came home, that you asked him to go. You didn’t have to do that.”

Now he softened a bit more. “Jake tells you a lot.”

“Sometimes.” She wished Jake were here, now, to help her with this, to tell her she was amazing. She was failing miserably.

“Do you love him?” The question was soft and sad, not angry.

“Who? Jake?” She blinked. “Where is this coming from?”

“You offered him a threesome. You told him you loved him, in the hospital, and right before you went into the debriefing. You both said it. The day after your debriefing, you spent the entire day with him, and I can just guess what you did. So do you? If you have fallen for him instead of me, it will make this a lot easier.”

Kate’s mind whirled around his accusations. The debriefing was two weeks ago, and everything had seemed to go downhill after that. She could understand him being pissed about Jake saying he loved her, but it was the second cousin rule, not the way she loved Chase.

What scared her most was his accusation that she’d spent the day with Jake the day after the debriefing.

Chase had given her too much time to think after her injury, leaving her all alone, and she had needed some closure on the Emma side of her life. She’d been deep undercover, breaking every rule they’d put in place concerning her new identity. Chase the rule maker, the rule follower, would be pissed as hell if he knew.

She tucked her hair behind her ear. “What are you talking about? I have never slept with Jake or anyone else but you. Just you.”

“Do you love him?” he repeated, louder, a little more anxious.

“Yes, but not like I love you. You love him, too, so don’t be pissy about it.”

“Fuck.” He closed his eyes and seemed to count to ten. “See? This is why I think I have shitty luck. I have waited over a year to hear you love me, and it’s in conjunction with loving him.”

A year. He’d waited a year… “You told me I couldn’t love you. I would have said those words long before today if you allowed it. But you didn’t. That’s not shitty luck. That’s poor judgment or bad planning on your part. Not luck.”

“But you love him.”

Anger fed off his holier-than-thou tone. “Yes, and like I said, so do you, so you should get it. He’s my best friend. I didn’t have friends when I was Emma, so meeting Jake was like Christmas morning for me, every day. You were Mr. Popular in high school. I was a virgin for you because I spent every day in the lab or with tutors. I didn’t have the opportunity to meet a boy, never mind have sex.”

“Do you want him, then?”

Good question. Did she? “Not like I want you. You are like sexual crack for me, especially these last few weeks when you wouldn’t touch me. I crave you. And yes, Jake was the last person to make me come, but I don’t want him to take care of this horrible need I have.”

His jaw set, just like Jake’s. The two were closer than even they realized.

She blew out an exasperated breath. “What I did with Jake doesn’t change how I feel about him sexually. He’s an attractive man, and it’s exciting that he’s wanted me.

“But you need to remember that I could have had Jake first, long before I even knew who you were. I didn’t, because stupid Emma fell in love with a certain businessman who took her to third base the night before her twenty-fifth birthday.”

Chase’s stance changed, the tension oozing from his shoulders.

“Jake is a special, wonderful man. He saved my life, for you. And yes, I think I owe him something—you owe him, too. And if having a threesome with you and Jake kills two birds with one stone, then so be it.”

He studied her and she knew his mind was whirling a mile a minute, even if it didn’t show in his eyes. “If you didn’t fuck him the day after the debriefing, then where did you go?”

She had to tread very carefully. “How do you know I went anywhere?”

“I tracked your phone to the house, but when I came home to talk to you, you were gone. Your phone was on the counter. You had no calls, just the texts I’d seen from Jake and Charlotte. So you used your second phone to call someone and do something all day. And when I questioned you that night, you froze, like you were guilty.”

“A deer in the headlights,” she whispered.

She had thought she was over feeling that way with him when he stared at her like that. She didn’t question the fact that he’d snooped at her phone. She knew he had on several occasions, and she had nothing to hide. The second phone he must have seen when she dropped her purse that night when he questioned her. Guilty as charged, except not how he thought.

“A guilty deer in the headlights,” he amended. “When I went and tracked Jake’s phone, he was at the club. I did some digging, and he’d been there all day. He told me once that when he found that special girl, he was booking a room and fucking her for eight hours straight. You were gone, so…”

“Maybe he has a girlfriend now.” But Jake didn’t do girlfriends. She wasn’t with him, but she couldn’t admit to Chase where she’d gone, either. Chase had enough ammo against her. “I swear to you, I’ve never slept with him. Never. And any thought of sleeping with him has only been in conjunction with you.”

“Then where were you?”

Leave it, Chase. Please. “It was personal. Maybe I’d have to tell you if this were work because I broke a whole bunch of rules and the boss part of you would be pissed as hell. But you—I’m nothing to you. I’m not your girlfriend, I’m not your lover. I don’t exist or belong.”

His eyes glittered dangerously in a body carved from stone. “You want me to pull the boss card? Is that what you want?”

“What would that solve, Chase? You’d still hate me.” She stared out at the shooting range, remembering how he had expanded her shooting skills. He’d been the boss then and she hadn’t even known it.

She sighed. “The funny thing is, if you were just my boss, this would have been over a long time ago. You would have called me into your office, bitched me out, then you would have made me run, just like everyone else.

“And as much as I have hated you as a boss, I think right now I would prefer him to the judgmental bastard you’ve become. The boss made it quite clear he would destroy any shred of innocence I had left.

“You—you look at me like I’m a whore because of what work made me do with your best friend. And then you kill me quietly, with your silence.”

He blanched, as if she’d slapped him. “You think I’m judgmental?”

“Yes. I do.”

The armor slipped and she caught a glimpse of the depth of his suffering. It tore at her heart because she didn’t want that. She just wanted to love him.

“Chase, this doesn’t have to ruin us. You don’t understand how I love you. My love for you is all-consuming, complete, and it kept me alive and running when I should have fallen and died. What I feel for Jake is nothing compared to what I feel for you. He’s a second cousin I’d fuck if you’d let me, but you…I gave you my soul. I told you I was yours. All yours.”

She had his attention. He stared and swallowed, and she knew she had to press on, to lay down the last card that showed exactly how much she loved him. “I would die for Jake. I almost did. But I would die for you first. That’s how much I love you.”

And he said nothing, his emotions so tightly in check as he still stared.

And the knife twisted in her heart. She pushed away from the bench and took out her phone.

“What are you doing?”

“Texting Jake to come get me. I’m going out with him for a bit. He’s my best friend, and I haven’t seen him since the debriefing. I need to start looking for a house, I think, and he said he would go with me.

“Unless you open up, unless you start giving me something other than this mask you wear, we’re done. I can’t live like this, with your silence and anger, thinking I’m nothing better than a whore. I did that with my father, and you know how that ended.”

“I don’t think that. You’re not a whore.”

“I wouldn’t know what you think. You haven’t talked to me at all. Not as my boss, not as my lover.” She sighed. “I can’t tell you what to do as my boyfriend. You made it clear I’d never be your girlfriend. You didn’t want one.”

She assessed him, knowing this would be taken way out of line. She would deserve to be punished for this, but she had to tell him.

“But as my boss, you dropped the ball. I needed you. I needed to talk to you, I needed to know if what I did was right, and I needed you to be there for me when I faced your uncle at the debriefing. But you dropped the ball, and Jake had to step in.

“So. How lucky am I? I’m really lucky because when the man I love chokes, his best friend is there for me.”

“How long will you be gone?” he asked, his voice hoarse.

“A few hours. You can think during that time, and make a decision. If you want me to come back, for good, it will be as a girlfriend. I can’t be nothing. And that’s what I am. I’m nothing to anyone, except Jake. I am the second cousin he’d like to fuck. How sad is that?”

She bit back the tears, hating the cold face staring back at her. Damn him. Damn him straight to hell, where he resided anyway.

“If you decide you want me, then I expect you to make love to me, properly. And if you don’t want a threesome, fine. But you need to say you’re sorry to Jake, for being an asshole.”

“And if I don’t want to?” He was so sexy, even as sullen and cold as he was. She hated her attraction to him. Hopefully that would die along with her love when he turned her away.

“Then it’s over. I’ll transfer somewhere else, if the powers-that-be will let me. You know I can run and hide, and I could do that, too. I’m prepared.

“Honestly, I don’t see us working. Jake said you loved me, in that cell. And I don’t believe it. Maybe you loved me as Emma, but there is no way you love Kate. Because if you loved me…”

She wiped a tear from her face, not caring if he saw them. “I would die for you, and I feel like I already have. When I almost died, I went to that place where you said you’d be, where you would wait if something bad happened. I feel like I woke up from the hospital, and that’s where I still am. In that place. Waiting. Only it hurts.”