Bella came down with a bag of things I didn’t need, but my gut told me to take it. I hugged her goodbye, and as I walked behind Jer and Casey to the boat, I saw the rest of Collin’s men down on the ground.
None of them were dead.
My heart fluttered. That wasn’t Jer’s mercy, but his sister’s.
Kay, the angel of our little family.
Present Day. St. Louis field office.
“Princess.”
I jumped and spun to find him—James—standing by the door. I didn’t hear him come in, but I didn’t care. My heart cried out as my eyes drank him in, and my soul shivered. The man in front of me wasn’t the man I fell in love with.
This man was unmasked.
Unhinged.
His handsome face and fair skin were covered in black scruff. The bags underneath his eyes told me he hadn’t been sleeping. His hair was wild, his white shirt untucked and wrinkled, but it was his eyes that made me shiver. They were darker than I'd ever seen them as he looked at me from head to toe, his jaw tightening.
“James?” I took a step, and he closed his eyes, shutting me out.
“Don’t. Don’t come near me.”
My heart cracked.
His eyes opened. “You don’t want to push me right now,” he rumbled, his deep voice filled with warning.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice trembling with pain.
That did it.He was coming for me with a snarl on his face, slowly, step by step.
“You’re sorry?” he seethed.
I nodded. “I was careless. I should have never left the file out on the counter. I—”
His dark, brutal chuckle cut me off as he came to a stop about two feet from me. I itched to close the distance between us, but I didn’t want to push his limits. All I wanted was his touch. His lips. His love.
But I feared I would never have that again. The man before me wasn’t James.
“Careless…you were fuckingstupid, Haley.”
Even though my chin wobbled, I raised it higher. “I was trying to save my friend.”
He leaned back against the table, his hands gripping the metal on either side of him. He crossed his ankles and just stared at me. My eyes dropped to his white shirt, the fabric straining across the valley of muscles, before I dragged my eyes up to his handsome face.
If it were anyone else, the scruff would have been unappealing to me.
But it was James, and he made it lookdamngood.
“You can go sit in Casey’s office until I finish up. Then we can—”
“What? Like I'm a fucking child in trouble? I’m being sent to the fucking principal’s off—”
His head ticked to the side, his nostrils flaring. “Careful, princess.”
Enraged, I talked over him. “I was kidnapped by sex traffickers,agent. Sending me to the principal’s office won’t do a damn thing for me.”
“Maybe bending you over my fucking knee will,” he shot back, his voice gruff.
