Olivia was handling the stuff about his job ten times better than he’d ever thought she would. The other, though...that shit would rip open all sorts of old wounds. Not to mention her heart.
“I still don’t get how you knew. I was pretty damn careful not to let anything slip.”
A smug expression crossed over her face. “You think you’re so sneaky. I’ll admit I didn’t know exactly what you did, but I do knowyou.”
“Oh, you think so?” he teased back.
She rolled her eyes. “Please. There’s no way you’d be happy just being a consultant foranyone,let alone the government. And no, I wasn’t sure on the details, but I’ve known for a long time that whatever your job actually was, it sure as hell wasn’t what you wanted me to believe.”
Jake managed some sort of choked off, half-laugh as he ran a hand across his rough jaw. “All this time, I thought I was doing such a good job at hiding it.”
Olivia snickered. “Well, for your sake, I hope you’re a lot better at hiding stuff from the bad guys than you are from me.”
His smile slipped a little, and his eyes found hers again. “I hated lying to you.”
“So, why did you?” There was no heat in the question, just bewilderment.
“To protect you.” There was no hesitation in his answer, because it was the God’s honest truth.
“Of course. Always the protector.”
She rolled those beautiful eyes again, and Jake was hit with a sudden, explosive urge to spank her for it. The image of Olivia lying face down on across his lap, her bare ass pink from the strike of his palm, flashed before him.
The surge of arousal was so intense, he damn near shot to his feet. Just imagining the erotic scene almost made him forget where they were, and that there were things about his job she still needed to hear.
Clearing his throat—something he seemed to do a lot around her—Jake said, “I’m serious, Liv. There are people out there, guys we’ve put away, who wouldn’t hesitate to hurt you if they knew about you and how important you are to me. I thought the less you knew about that part of my life, the safer you’d be. It’s why I’ve tried to keep my distance all these years.” And because he figured it was pointless to try to hide it now, he took a deep breath and added, “It’s also one of the biggest reasons I haven’t pushed to become more than just friends. I needed to keep you safe.”
Olivia didn’t respond. She just sat there, staring back at him. Jake hated that he couldn’t tell what she was thinking.
He watched as her chest rose, her lungs slowly filling with air. She looked as though she wanted to say something meaningful, but instead, she laughed it off nervously.
“Yeah, well, how’d that work out for ya?”
Damn.She’d been on the cusp of revealing something big. Jake was certain of it. Whatever it was, Olivia wasn’t quite ready to share.
Going along with her flippant attitude, he joked back, “Not very well, apparently. Of course, you never could stay out of trouble for very long.”
She gave him an adorable smile and looked down at her lap. It reminded him of when they hung out back home, and he’d tease her about something. Speaking of home—
“We should get some more rest. I want to move out of here in a few hours.”
“Okay.” She started to lean back and close her eyes, but then spun her head around and grabbed his forearm. “Wait! I can’t believe I haven’t asked before now. Where are we? Exactly, I mean. I know we have to be pretty far from Toamasina because I studied a map of Madagascar a little before coming here. If I remember right, there was a large jungle area to the south of the city and another one on the opposite side of the country. Which one is this?”
Jake paused briefly, unsure of how she’d react to what he was about to tell her. “Neither, actually. We’re in the southwest region of Venezuela.”
She looked at him as if he’d grown two heads. “Venezuela? As in,South America?”
Jake nodded. “We’re in an unpopulated area east of the Rio Caproni River. It’s safe to assume the men who took you drugged you, and then flew here while you were unconscious.”
He didn’t allow himself to picture Olivia so completely defenseless at the hands of such monsters. If he did, Jake knew he’d fucking lose it.
“W-who are they?”
Jake’s gut reaction was to lie. His visceral need to protect this woman was fierce and powerful. It had been the driving force behind every decision he’d ever made when it came to her. Not because he didn’t think Olivia could handle the shit life threw out, but because Jake didn’t want her tohaveto.
There were plenty of lies he’d have to answer for later, but he’d be damned if he was going to keep adding to that already fucked-up list. That shit stopped now.
“The men who took you are part of the Cetro Cartel. I believe the one you call Scarface is Javier Cetro, the group’s leader. As for the why...cartels are ruthless, Liv. Guess I don’t have to tell you that, though, do I?”
