“As luck would have it,” Mad Dog said, flicking a look at Leo, then at Olivia, his expression turning contemplative, “we were already ninety percent done with her when the original buyer backed out a little over a month ago. Which is why I could tell Morales it’d only take us a week and a half to build her when he called asking how fast I could get a salvage ship done. And then it took us four more days to add the bells and whistlesthisone”—he shot a finger gun at Olivia—“insisted on. She was there every step of the way. Making sure we got it just right. Even down to the font we used on her name.”
Leo glanced out at the ship, at the stark red lettering just visible from that distance. It readDeep Six. And it was perfect. The perfect name for the salvage company the six of them had finally gotten around to incorporating. Any other time he would have appreciated that fact. But right now he had something else on his mind.
“Sothat’swhere you’ve been all this time?” he demanded, feeling his blood pressure rise. “Atlantic City?”
“Annnnddd that’s our cue,” Bran said to Mad Dog and Harper, motioning for them to head up the beach. “How about you two come up to the house with me? Let’s get something fun to drink. Uh…”—he stopped herding them and shook his head woefully at Harper—“sorry. Mad Dog and I will get something fun to drink andyou, Mrs. Wainwright, will get something decidedlyunfun to drink.”
Leo watched them go, silently seething. She’d been in Atlantic City the whole time, and she hadn’t taken two minutes to let him know that she—
“I got your emails,” she said, breaking into his heated thoughts.
“Right.” He jerked his chin. “And you didn’t respond because?” He made a rolling motion with his hand.
“Because I d-don’t…” She shook her head and swallowed. “I don’t understand. After everything that’s happened, how could you possibly want to keep seeing me?” And he’d been right about the first reason she’d been so willing to walk away from him. He figured he was right about the second reason too. “I mean, I get that the sex was—”
“Stop right there,” he warned her, fisting his hands lest he reach out and shake her. Shake somesenseinto her. “This doesn’t have a cotton-pickin’ thing to do with the sex, and you know it.”
She searched his face, her expression so damned sad and unsure it nearly had him grabbing his chest and falling to his knees. “Then whatdoesit have to do with, Leo?”
And having never been a coward, he gave her the straight, unvarnished truth. “It has to do with me lovin’ you and wantin’ to spend the rest of my life with your crazy,stubbornass.”
As soon as he got the words out, something awful happened. Her lower lip trembled. Her adorable chin quivered. Her blue eyes gothuge. And then she collapsed in the sand, sitting cross-legged as if her knees had given out on her, wrenching sobs shaking her chest.
He knew then what it took to make brave, fearless, tenderhearted Special Agent Olivia Mortier cry. It was something as simple and as monumental as having someone tell her they wanted her, that theylovedher…
* * *
“Shh, darlin’,” Leo crooned, sitting next to her in the sand, an arm around her shaking shoulders. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
And hedidhave her. But not only that, he loved her and hewantedher. For now. Forever.OhGod!She dissolved into another round of hiccuping sobs that shook her from head to toe. She was a hot mess. There were just no other words for it.
Whattheheckiswrongwithyou, Mortier? When a man says he loves you, you’re supposed to tell him you love him too. Not sit in the sand and turn into a soggy heap of snot and tears.
“Come here.” He dragged her into his lap so he could tuck her head under his chin and rock her gently, running his big hand over her hair. He was so warm and solid against her. And he smelled like Leo. Another round of blubbering gripped her in a hard fist, shaking her like a rag doll. He groaned. “You’re killin’ me, Olivia. You’ve got to stop that.”
Yes, she did. She most certainly did. Because besides being inappropriate, it was completely mortifying. But no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t. “I-I’m s-sorry,” she sobbed. “B-but nobody has l-loved me, nobody has wanted me since my m-mother, and…and…”
“Okay. All right.” He continued to rock her, to pet her, to place warm kisses atop her head, on her brow. “Just let it on out then. Just let itallout. I’ve got you. And I’m not goin’ anywhere.”
And true to his word, he didn’t. He stayed with her for who knows how long as wave after wave of emotional upheaval crashed through her, over her. It felt like she’d been holding back rivers of tears for years, and his love had broken the dams that contained them. Now, there was no stopping the flood.
But eventually, it did stop. And after she settled to sniffles and the occasional shudder, he whispered against her hair, “Now, in case part of why you’re so shaken up is because you think everyone’s right when they say there’s no way for this thing we got to work in the long run, I want to assure you I’ve thought all about that. And I figure I’m better suited than most at dealin’ with the repercussions of your job. It’s goin’ to kill me to send you off to—”
“I’m not shaken up about that,” she interrupted, her heart so full of love and joy and hope that she was amazed it didn’t explode inside her chest and blow apart her rib cage.
“Good.” He squeezed her tight.
“Because I quit.”
“What do you mean? Did somethin’ happen with Jonathan Wilson? I haven’t seen anything in the news about—”
“No,” she was quick to assure him. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that. Agent Wilson is still being held and questioned. At first, he insisted he wasn’t going to say anything until his trial, wanting to martyr himself so that he would make big, splashy headlines.” She twisted her lips in disgust. “But that only lasted a couple of days. When the reality of lethal injection set in, he caved. He made a deal to give up his assets and divulge all the information he ever gave our enemies in exchange for a commuted sentence of life in prison. And you probablywon’tsee much in the headlines. The Company and all involved are doing their best to keep everything about him and his perfidy on the down-low.”
“So then…I don’t understand. Why did you quit?Whendid you quit?”
“I turned in my resignation to Morales the day I got back to DC.” And that had been one of the scariest and most freeing decisions she’d ever made.
She could feel him hesitate, sense him holding back, not knowing if he should congratulate her or give her his condolences. “Why would you do that?” he asked cautiously.
