“Wh-what? You can’t do that!” she raged. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me.”
Her mouth hung open for a long moment, a million thoughts racing through her head. “Fine,” she finally ground out, every blood vessel in her body expanding in fury. “It’ll be my word against yours. And maybe you’ll come out the winner in the end. But at least I will have cast doubt on you. With my credentials, I can find a job like that.” She snapped her fingers. “But you’llnevermake it up to the big chair.”
She turned to leave, determined to march into the director’s office—or at least make an appointment with his secretary. As a lowly counterterrorism analyst, she didn’t have the clout to just barge in on the man unannounced.
“Will you?” Edens asked before she could open his office door.
She swung back. “Will I what?”
“Find a job?” His smile was vicious. “Even with your credentials, I would think finding a new position would be difficult after I contact any would-be employers and tell them you’re unstable and given to flights of fancy, always looking for ways to run the good names of your superiors through the mud.”
Once again, her mouth hung open. Her heartbeat sounded loud in her ears.
“Go back to your desk, Chelsea.” He no longer afforded her the courtesy of calling her “Agent Duvall.”
“And I went,” Chelsea told Dagan. “To my utter shame, I went. I knew he would make good on his promise. And I needed a job. Istillneed my job. Mom and I are still in so much debt, and the house…” The words had poured out of her. When the dam had finally burst, there had been no holding back. But now, self-loathing made her hesitate. “I didn’t think Edens would get you fired. I don’t know what I thought he would do, but it wasn’t that. And then that day you came back…”
Dagan spoke, and the timbre of his voice was horrible. “The day the director of the CIA accused me of becoming complacent, the day he told me that no other agent would ever trust me or work with me again. The day he said he was left with no choice but to terminate my contract.”
“Edens must have poisoned the well for you. I think he was scared that if you hung around, I would tell you the truth. And I wanted to tell you then and there,” she swore. She never knew that anguish could tie one’s stomach in knots. “Itriedto tell you. But I-I was terrified of losing my job. Terrified of what it would mean for my mother and her happiness and her dreams and memories if I did. And there was no undoing what had been done. I just thought—”
“Edens died six months ago, Chels.”
“Good riddance to bad rubbish.”
“Why didn’t you tell me then? When your job was finally safe?”
“Because you were working for BKI. You’d moved on. You’d gotten over it. You seemed happy. Avan was happy. I didn’t think bringing up all that pain from the past was worth it. And I was soashamedof having kept quiet for so long, Dagan.”
“So then why the fuck are you telling me now?”
The submarine popped and groaned around them. They were changing depth. A sense of desperation grabbed hold of her. “Because…” She shook her head, searching his face, hoping to find some flicker of understanding. But there was nothing. “Because I can’t start a relationship with you if there is this big, bad secret between us.”
For long moments, he remained quiet, unmoving. When she couldn’t take it anymore, she demanded, “Say something, Dagan.Please.”
Only his lips moved when he asked, “What do you want me to say?”
“Say you forgive me for choosing my mother’s home and memories and life’s love all those years ago. Say you’re not going to let this come between us. Say that love conquers all.” Her tone was pleading, begging. She didn’t care. When it came to this, when it came tohim, she had no pride left.
He said none of that. What he said was, “I’m sorry.”
Those two words might as well have been a death knell.
Chapter 47
Calais, France
Dagan felt like he had been punched in the chest by Tyson Fury.
He’d thought he knew heartbreak. His mother’s cancer, his father’s aneurysm, seeing Avan in the hospital looking like he was knocking on death’s door. All of it had hurt him in ways he wouldn’t have thought it possible to hurt. But this…this wasworse. Because this…shewas not the woman he thought he knew.
“We arrive,” Gautier announced from the front of the sub. “I regret I cannot get closer, but the shore, she is not so far. Twenty meters,peut-être? No more.”
“Dagan.” Chelsea reached for him. “Please, I promise I’ll—”
“Don’t,” he told her, a muscle twitching in his jaw. Another one was going to town in his right eye. “I can’t right now. Just…” He shook his head. “Just leave it alone.”
