She’d forgotten how much she missed that. But she couldn’t let herself get confused. He’d shown her who he was; she had to believe him.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. “What did you find out?”
“I’m not sure,” she said. “But we need to go see my godfather.”
•••
The last place Colt wanted to go was Castle Murray—or whatever the hell the general’s “estate” was called. But he understood Kate’s insistence when she explained what she’d found: the general’s longtime assistant had requested a car on the same night Brittany Blake had met with her “source.”
What he hadn’t understood was Kate’s reaction to his question about how she’d learned of the reporter’s source at all. It had clearly jellied her. She’d claimed that she and Brittany had crossed paths when she and Colt were married and become friends. But to Colt’s knowledge, Blake and his sister had been estranged for a long time.
He was almost certain Kate was lying to him.
But the question of why would have to wait. Jeeves, or whatever the hell the butler’s name was, welcomed Kate at the door with a smile and a fond kiss on the cheek. He acknowledged Colt with a pursed mouth and a slight inhaling of his nostrils, as if something unpleasant had just been stuck under his oversized nose. Unlike the last time Colt was here, they were admitted to the inner sanctum of the general’s private office immediately.
“My dear!” Murray said, rising from his seat behind the desk. He came around to give Kate a big hug. “What a pleasant surprise.”
The last was said with a sharp glance toward Colt. Clearly it was a surprise to see him as well, but not a pleasant one. Colt was supposed to be in Russia. And thegeneral probably wasn’t happy to see him with Kate, either.
But the old guy needn’t have any worries on that account. Colt and Kate were working together because they had to. Nothing more. If Colt had any regrets about his “karma” dig from the other day, he wasn’t going to admit it—even to himself. All he’d done was establish the lines of the playing field.
Whatever unwanted feelings and attraction had been resurrected by being around his ex didn’t matter. That grave was buried under six feet of ice. It would take a hell of a lot more than a raging hard-on to chip through it.
Although it was an impressive hard-on.
It was that damned dress. His eyes had nearly popped out of his head when she’d answered the door the night of Percy’s party. Kate had never dressed sexy when they’d been married. He probably wouldn’t have let her walk out of the house in a dress like that—it would have been ripped off her well before she left the bedroom. The slinky red silk had clung to every slender curve. Her hips. Her ass. Her tits. She might as well have been poured into it. He’d had to move to the opposite side of the room after he’d caught a few too many glimpses of creamy skin in the low-cut gown when she’d leaned forward at the computer.
She wasn’t wearing a bra.
He’d always loved her breasts. They weren’t big, but they were big enough and perfectly round and firm. Way too firm for a woman of almost thirty-five. But it was the delicate softness of the skin that had always gotten him. It had been fucking unreal. Flawless. Still was from what he could tell.
“Wesson,” the general said with a rotting-fish curl of his mouth.
“Sorry for barging in on you like this,” Kate said after the general released her. “But it’s important.”
The general indicated the two chairs opposite his desk for them to sit.
When he’d settled back in the chair behind his desk, Murray said, “What’s this about?”
Kate got right to it. “Janet.”
He seemed taken aback. “My secretary?” The twenty-first-century term was “executive assistant,” but Janet O’Brien had been with the general for so long, she probably had been hired as a secretary. “Did she do something wrong?”
Kate gave him a hard look. “You tell me. Did she pass confidential information to Brittany Blake on her own accord or because you asked her to?”
If the general was surprised by the allegation, he didn’t show it. He barely blinked. “On my request,” he said. “How did you find out?” He shot an accusing glance to Colt, obviously assuming he was to blame for Kate’s involvement.
Maybe he was, although not about this. Colt intended to find out how she’d learned about the reporter’s source himself.
“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said. “What does matter is why you would do such a thing. I thought the government and military wanted to keep Team Nine’s mission secret.”
“They do,” the general admitted.
“But you don’t,” Colt finished for him. “You want the truth to come out.”
Kate had obviously suspected why as well. “This is about TJ, isn’t it?” TJ, or Thomas Junior, was the general’s son, who’d been shot down by the Russians a few months ago when his plane had “accidentally” veered into Russian airspace. “You couldn’t convince President Cartwright to retaliate against Russia for shooting down his plane, so you used the press to do your work for you and try to sway public opinion.”
Having clearly spent too much time in the political arena, the general decided to split a few hairs. “The reporter was already on the right track—I just helped her along a little.”
