“He’s very likely excellent at reading your signs and signals.” Maggie offered another possibility. “He finds me interesting, and he likes to take apart the things that interest him. Literally.”
She needed to understand. Manny wouldn’t stop. It was one of the reasons this was a bad idea in the beginning, but she was on his radar now. It was better that they were together. Better that he could protect her.
Except he wouldn’t be with her most of the time.
He was going to have to tell his shitty tale. He was almost certain she knew a little of it. “When we were in Australia and Manny came to Dare’s hotel suite, he told Tasha and your handler about a woman named Deanna.”
She nodded, and there was suddenly a sheen of tears in her eyes. Sometimes she was so emotional. Others almost completely shut down. It was probably about work. There was the professional Maggie and the real one. This one. If she sometimes seemed like she was two different people it was because she had to be. “Yes, Tasha gave us all a report. She was your fiancée, and she had an affair with Huisman.”
“I think she was young, and he was richer than me. He could offer her more. She tried to tell me it was all a mistake, but I think she just figured out what being with Manny was really like.” He took a longbreath. He didn’t like to think about what Deanna might have gone through. Time had lent him some perspective. “Manny hates women.”
A sardonic look hit her eyes. “You don’t have to tell me that. I’ve recently gotten some clear evidence of his misogyny.”
The thought turned his stomach, but he forced himself to take a long swallow of the ridiculously expensive Scotch she’d ordered. Had the CIA become a bit like the mob and they now had whole establishments as cover? “Yeah, I’m aware. He stopped your heart. I carried your body out, and I was almost certain you were dead.”
She stared at him for a moment and then stood, and for a second he thought she was going to walk away. Instead, she moved to his space. “I think we should have this talk while I’m sitting on your lap, Benjamin. I think I’ll feel safer and more secure if your arms are around me.”
He didn’t hesitate. He pushed his chair back and found himself with a lapful of the most gorgeous woman he’d ever seen. Fuck, she’d been right. The minute they were close, he felt like he could breathe again, think straight again. He let her scent wash over him as she stroked a hand over his hair. “This feels nice. We’re going to shock the staff.”
She chuckled, a sound that went straight to his dick. “Oh, we would have to do so much more to shock this staff.”
Top. Of course. “This place isn’t connected to the Agency. It’s connected to a club. Is the chef a Dom?”
Her body relaxed, and one arm drifted around his shoulders. “Pretty much everyone. I think maybe one of the line chefs isn’t, but it’s most of them. There are three clubs in Dallas that are somewhat connected, so they don’t all play at The Hideout. Some of the younger workers do, but most of the married ones play at either Sanctum or The Club. So don’t worry that they’ll be surprised.”
He rubbed his cheek against her hair and realized she’d done this for him. She’d done this to make it easier for him to talk.
He was fucking falling for this woman. “I met Deanna in high school. The same one Manny went to. I was there on a scholarship. Well, I thought I was. I later found out the scholarship fund was supported by the Huisman Foundation.”
“His family paid for your school? And they didn’t tell you?”
“I suppose somewhere deep down I knew. I certainly knew I didn’tget an academic scholarship. I wasn’t that great in school, though I learned later on how to take a test. I got serious in college, but in high school I was all about two things—sports and girls.”
“I played volleyball and basketball,” she admitted. “It was fun. I’ve always liked being a team member. So you met Deanna there?”
He wanted to ask about her high school. He had so many questions, but he needed to give her this story. For her own safety. If she was smart, she would listen to what happened to Deanna and walk away from him.
He didn’t think for a second that she would, which was why he needed to stop being suspicious of her. He trusted her on a base level. And hey, she hadn’t tried to kill him in months. “Yes. She was an actual scholarship kid. She was on Manny’s study team. Yeah, he was the kid who formed study teams, as he called them. He was serious about test taking. If he didn’t make a hundred, his grandfather would punish him. He would tell him that all he had was his brain since the family looks and charms had skipped a generation.”
“Oh,” she said with a sad huff. “That’s mean. He was a kid.”
“I don’t know if Manny was ever a kid.” He was tired of talking about Manny, tired of his life revolving around a mistake he made when he was barely eight. The mistake had been being friends with a neighborhood boy. “But I mention the abuse he suffered because I saw it. I don’t think his grandfather ever physically abused him, but he certainly humiliated him. He never measured up to his father.”
“The same father who kidnapped Dr. Walsh? He was trying to steal her research, if I recall. From what I can tell, Huisman’s obsession with my handler comes from that moment in time.”
“I don’t know as much about it as I should. Manny was good at hiding his dark side from me. He tended to play the victim around me, and I bought it all.”
“He can be a victim and a bad guy,” Maggie corrected. “Sometimes it’s precisely how people slide into their villain era. I’ve often wondered if I could do that.”
“You?” This soft woman in his arms could never be a villain. “Never.”
She snorted. A bratty sound. “Hello, Mongolia?”
Funny how now it seemed like a cute story. “I forgive you for Mongolia. After all, you did let me hold on, and you got a squeeze inthere. Tell me something, did you like how my ass felt in your hands?”
“Excus…” She’d gone stiff but then laid back again. “I suppose I had forgotten that part. Sorry, but you’re making my point. We were about to die and I copped a feel, and I should get a real talking to about that. There should be some serious repercussions. That was completely unprofessional of…me.”
She was adorable when she was embarrassed. And he needed to consider the fact that after two seconds of her being affectionate with him, he was tossing out all the bad shit she’d done. But he wasn’t thinking that way tonight.
