It was totally hypocritical and made absolutely no sense. Then again, love rarely did.
Shaking her head at her unreasonable thoughts, Olivia asked Trevor, “Would you like something to drink?”
Trevor smiled. “No, thank you. Actually, I was hoping”—he turned toward the couch—“could we sit and talk for a minute?”
Okay. Now hewasstarting to make her nervous. “Of course.”
Olivia led them over to the couch where they both sat down. Glancing over at Trevor, she realized he almost looked uncomfortable, as if he were nervous, too.
Crap. This can’t be good.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m here.”
She smiled teasingly. “You missed my adorable face?”
Trevor chuckled. “Well, there is that.”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped together between them. “Okay, look. I know this is none of my business, and you have every right to say that, and then kick me out. But...I’m hoping you’ll at least listen to what I have to say before you do.”
He was her friend. The guy had risked his life—along with his team—to try to save her and Jake, and he’d taken a bullet to the chest while trying to protect her. She’d listen to anything he had to say.
“Okay. I’m listening.”
The look of relief in his eyes was immediate, as was his tight smile. Trevor really was one of the good guys.
Even though she was still furious with Jake for what he’d done, Olivia couldn’t help but be thankful he had a friend like Trevor watching his back.
Trevor filled his lungs before starting. “What went down between you and Jake is absolutely none of my business. I know that, but I was just hoping that maybe I could help you to understandwhyhe did what he did.”
“I already know why.” Olivia tried not to sound too bitter. “He was protecting my brother.”
Trevor nodded in agreement. “Yes, he was. But most importantly, Jake kept his knowledge about your brother a secret to protectyou.”
Jake and Mikey had both given her the same song and dance, but that didn’t make her feel any better. Olivia gave Jake everything she had to offer, and he’d lied to her about Mikey. She didn’t know how to get past that.
Shaking her head, Olivia said, “You don’t understand, Trevor. This wasn’t a little white lie that somebody tells someone they love like, ‘No, honey, those pants don’t make you look fat’.”
Her obvious sarcasm had the corner of Trevor’s mouth curving up slightly as he tried to contain his smile. Olivia wasn’t smiling.
“This was mybrother, Trevor. I thought he wasdead.” Her voice broke, but she kept on. “Jake knew how much pain that caused me, yet he still kept this from me forten years.How do I even start to forgive something like that?”
She blinked quickly, determined not to cry. She’d shed enough tears over the past few months to last a lifetime.
All traces of his smile faded from his face, and Olivia got the feeling that whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“One of the last ops I went on with Delta ended very badly.”
Olivia wondered where he was going with his little trip down memory lane, but from his pained expression, she thought it best to just let the man talk.
“It was a joint operation between the CIA and the military. There was an agent assigned to our team. A woman named Lisa. She went on missions with us. Debriefed with us. As the Agency received vital intel, Lisa was the one who would relay it to our team. She also gave us access to two of her most important assets. She wasn’t officially Delta, but by the end of the op, she was considered one of us.”
He smiled sadly. “Lisa and I hit it off from damn near day one. We grew close, and I...I cared about her.”
Olivia saw a strange sense of sadness mixed with regret when he spoke more about the woman. Clearly, this story had anything but a happy ending.
“What happened to her, Trevor?”
“Intel from one of the assets led us to the man we’d been after for almost a year. He was a member of a major terrorist organization responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. The asset somehow managed to find out where he and some other key players were hiding. It was an abandoned shack built against the side of a mountain in Syria. The night before the op, Jake came down with the flu, putting me in charge. I was the one who made the call to go in.”
