“I am not so sure. HowcouldI know? You withhold your interests, your work, your very self from me.”
“I asked for your help with the pub,” Jackson said.
“You didn’t ask.” She sneered. There’d be no blunt-tipped swords in this fight. “I walked in on your conversation and forced you to accept my help since you were clearly over your head.” Her jaw tensed. “Itrustedyou. Again. And again you betray me.”
Before Jackson could defend himself, she went on. “You’re working with the Home Office, but there is more. I know there is.”
I’m a spy.The words were there, balancing on the tip of his tongue, but he tipped them back behind locked jaws because she was right. He did hold back. He had to.
Roberts’s advice aside, everything about the exchange in the pub had proven his life as an agent was too dangerous to share.
It would be less dangerous if you stopped withholding pertinent information.
Jackson wouldn’t tolerate the stray thought. Anna was intelligent, quick on her feet, calm in a crisis. She was also impulsive, quick to anger, and stubborn.
And it was his job to protect her.
“Why canyounot trustme?” he demanded, his own self-anger turning his words harsh. “Even now, you can’t accept our history, our past. I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that. You know me. I wasn’t the only one in that grove six years ago.Youturnedmedown, remember?”
“It has never been about my trust in you. It is how you’ve never once trusted me to fight, to win. I have no need for your protection, Jackson. I never did. But...”
“‘But’?” he pressed.
She said nothing, her expression closing.
“I’m not the only one holding back,” he accused, finally seeing what Roberts instinctually knew. “The truth is, you can’t tolerate needing anyone.”
How could he forget? She’d never needed him. It had always been the other way around.
Anna shook her head. “You are nothing but a stranger now.”
The words were daggers to the chest, glass in an open wound. Once, they had been closer than lovers. So deeply inside each other, Jackson couldn’t breathe outside of her presence.
The past six years had changed too many things.Hehad changed. Had to, because without her, the very light of his being had been snuffed out. An asset for a man who lived in the shadows with nothing to lose.
But now the light had returned, and he’d do everything in his power to keep her safe. Even if that meant keeping her at arm’s length.
But he wouldn’t lie. Not to her.
“For better or worse, I cannot tell you certain things.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Then we are at an impasse.”
“Yes.”
A colorful string of adjectives and nouns followed his response. None of them complimentary.
“I cannot deny the part of myself that wants to protect you any more than you can deny your need to rush headfirst into danger,” he said when she’d finished.
She stared him down. “That may have worked six years ago, but no longer. I am not some wide-eyed maiden, smitten and easily duped. There is protection and there are lies.”
She brushed past him and retrieved her boots next to the fire before sitting in the overstuffed armchair and lacing them up her calves.
Jackson watched her nimble fingers work, his insides twisting when she stood and walked to the bedroom door. “Where are you going?”
“To find my brother. While you’ve been keeping secrets and making promises you’ve no intention of keeping, William is still missing.”
“I didn’t break that promise,” he said, grateful to say that with all honesty. “Roberts has been on your brother’s case for weeks.”
