Page 24 of Every Last Breath

The barb punched home with painful accuracy.

Before she’d met Cole, she’d been ignorant that anything had been missing in her life. Being loved by him had redefined the meaning of happiness, and losing him had left a gash in her soul.

Now here he was, within reach. And he wanted…closure.

Her heart squeezed, and everything inside her hurt like one giant exposed nerve. “You’ve been free of me for nine years.”

“What I wouldn’t give for that to be true.”

They’d once vowed to be honest, no matter how brutal the truth. So nice of him to remember.

He skimmed his thumb along her jaw, coaxing her chin up, and his eyes seared into hers.

“Tell me what it is, Mads.” His tone softened to black velvet.

The way he said her name, Mads, an intimate caress, had her dissolving. She was once again that susceptible girl who’d been hopelessly in love. He was no longer hers, but a part of her would always be his.

A palpable energy saturated the air, an electric current teasing her skin. Standing this close, his proximity was a call demanding an answer. Desire to touch him, to taste him tugged at her like gravity.

He bent his head, his breath kissing her cheek. His thumb ghosted across her lips.

She shivered, fingertips aching, and couldn’t stop herself. “I’m CIA.”

Sugarcoating the bitter pill wouldn’t make it any easier for him to swallow. Not that she was CIA anymore, but she couldn’t tell a civilian about the Gray Box.

He stilled and, a breath later, recoiled with appalled urgency, as though she’d confessed to having leprosy.

“You’re a scum-sucking spook?” A volatile storm brewed across his face. “You followed in his footsteps after what he did? What it cost me? Became one of them?”

Them. The word was a sandbag in her chest.

She’d never blamed her father. He’d had an unwavering ethical compass. An admirable vision of right and wrong. He had died serving his country in a terrorist bombing overseas seven years ago, shifting the way she’d viewed him and his job. When the Agency had approached her in college, pursuing her old dream—a career in art acquisitions—had seemed selfish after her father’s sacrifice. What could she say to Cole that he would understand?

A gleam sparked in his eyes similar to light glinting off a blade. “This whole thing has been one elaborate setup, hasn’t it?”

“No, Cole.” She reached for him.

Lightning reflexes launched him into the living room. He snatched his bag from the sofa. “Son of a bitch.” He screwed his eyes shut, mashing his lips like an ugly idea had crawled into his head. “You figured out I was alive somehow and leaked it to the Russians.” His voice iced over. “Fucked my life up all over again. Then swept in to the rescue. Make me feel indebted, grateful enough to forgive you, so I’d go back to being your lapdog. Is that it?”

Her stomach soured. Could it have happened that way?

Sanborn was known as the Black Ops Whisperer. He had a talent none of them fully understood but wholly respected. He was spoken about with awe in small, private, powerful circles. But the delicate timing necessary, the intricate level of precision he’d have needed to both orchestrate and thwart a risky Russian bag and drag was not only beyond his capability, it was also beneath him to deliberately jeopardize someone’s life.

“We’d never do that.”

“We!” His upper lip curled. “You people most certainly would.”

Whoa. “You people?”

Okay, if push came to shove, they might put a potential asset in a bind for leverage, but not under these time-sensitive conditions. Not with so many moving parts out of their control and a bioweapon on the line. That would be insane, and Sanborn wasn’t a lunatic with a god complex.

“You have to trust me. We didn’t—I didn’t—sic the Russians on you.”

“Trust you?” His pitch-black gaze boiled. “A liar who destroyed my life once already? The CIA deserves you, honey, if they’re stupid enough to entrust you with their secrets.”

Oh no, he didn’t. What a bullshit buckshot.

She’d seen and heard plenty in the two years they were together. Never stuck her nose in, never pried. Never said a word about his family’s business until one stupid moment of weakness with her father. Cole had no idea who she was today, what she’d endured. She’d become a Sisyphus, rolling the boulder of Gray Box missions uphill every day as punishment.