“I removed it,” she said adamantly. “I don’t know how they found out, but it wasn’t through that program. Just to make sure I messed with his Wi-Fi password so it wouldn’t connect in the Tank. I was shocked when Mick bragged about what they’d discovered in the meeting,and that I wouldn’t have to spy on my boyfriend anymore.”
His face was stony. “You expect me to believe this?”
She jutted up her chin defiantly. “It’s the truth.”
She didn’t know the meaning of the word.
As if she could read his mind, she added, “Why else would I risk everything to try to call off the mission and send you that text?”
“You tried to call off the mission?”
“I sent an e-mail to my boss before I sent you the text. I warned him that there had been a leak and that people knew about the mission.”
He lifted a brow. If that was true, she could have been putting her spy-hood in jeopardy. “And what did he say?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Mick intercepted the message—I should have realized they were keeping tabs on me—and informed me that it was too late. That you and the rest of the team had been killed in the explosion. Thank God he didn’t know about the sat phone text. That night he tried to kill me and ended up killing my friend instead, and I ran.” She looked up at him, holding his gaze. “I loved you, Scott. I was out of my mind with grief when Mick told me you were all dead. I never wanted to hurt you. I did everything I could not to betray you, but I was scared and trying to balance two horrible evils. Mick would have done what he promised to my family.” Her gaze hardened. “You didn’t know him like I did.”
Scott didn’t say anything. He was still trying to take it all in. But once again, he had the feeling he was missing something.
It was so obvious, he wondered how he didn’t see it at first. He knew why she’d been ready to believe Mick.Personal experience.He leaned forward across the table, his fingers white as they clenched the edge of the table. “What did he do to you?”
• • •
Natalie clenched her jaw and looked away, avoiding his gaze. But she knew he’d guessed. “Nothing.”
He reached over and took her chin in his hand, forcing her eyes back to his. “Bullshit. Tell me the truth, Nat. What did he do to you?”
Nat.Despite the inadvertent use of his nickname, she could hear the simmering rage in his voice and something about it set her teeth on edge. What right did he have to be angry? Didn’t he despise her now? She was the one who’d been raped. This was about her, not about him. He didn’t get to sweep in and be the protector when it was convenient. Nor was she going to have him feeling sorry for her. She wasn’t damaged or vulnerable or in need of his man-outrage.
Her eyes narrowed with fury. “What do you think he did, Scott? What do weak men do to assert their control over women who resist them? They use their physical strength and force them.”
Scott had paled, but his expression was still fierce and taut just like the rest of him. But it was a brittle tautness—one that seemed ready to crack. “He raped you.”
It wasn’t a question, but she responded anyway. “Yes, Scott, he raped me. He was a weak misogynist pig who thought it made him strong to brutalize women. Unfortunately it’s not that uncommon. It was horrible and not something I’d ever want to go through again, but it’s behind me.Behindme—as inin the past. I got over it, and I don’t need you dredging it up and playing psychoanalyst or feeling sorry for me. But if it helps you understand why I believed he would hurt my sister and parents, then fine. I didn’t care about him hurting me, and he knew that—which is probably why he never tried it again.” Her smile was definitely on the malevolent side. “That and because I learned how to defend myself. I carried a smallknife with me. If he’d tried again, I would have happily killed him.”
He accepted her proclamation to commit murder as if it was the most natural thing in the world. “And I would have helped you bury the body.”
He sounded serious. But Natalie knew Scott. He was too honorable for murder—no matter what the circumstances. He might have come close if given the chance, but in the end he would have given Mick over to the authorities just as he would have done with her.
But behind his grim expression, Natalie could see the conflicting emotions that he was struggling to contain. Rage. Compassion. Helplessness. For a warrior like Scott, for a man who had to make life-and-death decisions almost every time he went to work and relished the role, she suspected the last was the hardest to accept. He wanted todosomething but was realizing that there wasn’t anything he could do.
She knew he wanted to say something to try to comfort her, but whether it was her warning not to try or the fact that he hated her, his lips were firmly pressed together.
But he was too good of a guy—too inherently decent—not to say something. “I’m sorry.”
She sensed he meant it and accepted the sentiment with her own nod. What he felt shouldn’t matter, but somehow it did.
Realizing she’d peeled the label completely off the bottle of beer, she put it back down on the table. “Does beer go bad? I’m not sure how long it’s been in there.”
But Scott wasn’t paying any attention to the beer; all his attention was focused on her.
Natalie knew better than to try to discern his thoughts, but she tried anyway. It was an exercise in futility, but she suspected that given their conversation, he was trying to process what she’d told him.
Had hearing her explanation moved him? She doubted it. His gaze was as hard and unyielding as it had been when they sat down. He was always hard and unyielding when it came to things like this. It wasn’t stubbornness as much as principles. There was right and there was wrong. To Scott there wasn’t a lot in between.
Whatever her motivations, it didn’t change the fact that she’d lied to him and betrayed him every time she asked him a question—no matter how insignificant.
She knew how his mind worked so she expected what came next. What to him would be the fatal flaw in her argument.
