Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(106)

He was wrong. “He wouldn’t put it on a computer. Never. Don’t get me wrong. There might be something there, but it’s going to be in code and he won’t keep that on a computer. He would use offshore accounts and write them down. In longhand.”

Ten’s eyes closed briefly. “It no longer matters. I don’t want you to worry about it. It’s something I’ll take care of.”

She was sure he would. He would do whatever was necessary. She finished cleaning the last blister and sat back. “I’m so sorry about Theo. I know you cared about him.”

Erin would be devastated. For all her words about breaking up with him, Faith knew Erin loved the man. They’d been happy together and now Erin was alone.

She knew the feeling. It was how she’d felt after she’d learned Ten had lied to her, except there was no recourse. Theo was gone. Erin couldn’t yell at him. She couldn’t scream and vow revenge for her broken heart. All Erin had now was sorrow.

There was no comfort for her friend. Erin hadn’t even looked at her earlier. She’d stared through Faith like she was seeing something else.

Suddenly the lies didn’t seem so big anymore. The betrayal a bit more insignificant. It wouldn’t work in the long run, but for now they both needed comfort. The storm was raging outside. There was nothing more to do for tonight.

“You won’t be comfortable on the couch. Please sleep on the bed.”

His lips turned down. “I’ll be all right.”

“I won’t. Look, Ten. Once we get back to reality, I know we’re going to go our separate ways, but I do understand what you were trying to do. I wish you hadn’t taken it to a physical level.”

“I needed to be able to protect you.”

She didn’t buy that line for a minute. “Don’t bullshit me.”

“Fine, I thought getting into bed with you was the fastest way to get on this island.”

Honesty hurt, but she’d asked for it. “If you had sat me down and laid out the evidence the way Hutch did, I would have helped you.”

“Would you?” His eyes narrowed as he eased back into his shirt. “Let’s say I show up one day out of the blue and lay out evidence against your father and sister. You’re telling me you would have chosen to help me without ever talking to them? That’s what I needed. I needed to blindside your dad. He couldn’t see me coming, though of course he did in the end. You wouldn’t have given them a call to ask ‘hey Pops, you been selling troop information for cash? You working with corporations to protect their interests at the cost of indigenous people?’ You take one look at that evidence and sell them both out without a single qualm?”

What would she have done if he’d walked in cold and laid out a case against her family? He wouldn’t have had the information about the vaccines. She hadn’t even known about those at the time. She wouldn’t have watched her father cart her lover off to torture him. All of those things had led her to believe the evidence. If he’d walked in off the streets, she very likely would have told him to blow it out his ass. “All right. I would have called them. But you didn’t need to sleep with me. You could have sent Erin in. She could have come down to Houston with me and I would have invited her and Theo down here. I would have believed her in the end.”

“I doubt that, Doc.” He sounded so tired. His head fell back as though he couldn’t stand to hold it up a second longer. “And Erin couldn’t be with you to protect you, though that wasn’t my primary mission in the beginning. You take a lover once a year. From what I can tell, you don’t have a truly emotional relationship with the man. Was I supposed to bring another civilian into this situation? It’s a good plan, by the way. Taking the lover. The way you work, you don’t have time for commitments. I get that. We’re more alike than you think.”

She liked sex. She wasn’t going to apologize for it. Ten was right. It was easier to find a Dom to spend time with than it was to become attached when she knew she was going back out in the field. Some people in society might call her names for it, but they could bite her ass for all she cared. She’d learned a long time ago that what society thought didn’t mean shit.

So why was she worried about what people would think of her? It had gone through her head that she couldn’t be with this man again because everyone would think she was pathetic.

Who cared what everyone thought? Since when did outside voices get to dictate her life?

“I got emotional with you,” she admitted.

His eyes opened, the hard line of his jaw softening. “Like I said, we’re very alike, Faith. When I started this mission, I only cared about one thing. I wanted revenge. I intended to sleep with you as a way to get to your father. In the beginning, I didn’t care what happened to you. You were a means to an end and getting into your bed was the quickest and easiest way to get what I wanted. If I could have gotten access to your father’s compound some other way, I would have. Right up until those three weeks.”

“When I was in Germany?”

He nodded slowly, as though the motion was difficult for him. “Maybe everything would have been different if we’d met and fallen into bed together. Maybe if that had happened I would have kept it purely physical, but I had to talk to you for three weeks without touching you. For the first time in my life, I had to…be intimate with a woman. Not in bed, but in other ways.”