Master No (Masters and Mercenaries, #9)(44)

Could she be working with Faith? She could be the inside man at the pharmaceutical company. “She seemed to like you. Maybe you should spend time with her.”

Theo seemed to turn a little green, or perhaps it was the lighting from the human hamster wheel. Some sub was making that wheel turn and hard. It changed colors based on how fast it was spinning. “She gives me the creeps.”

Ten had been forced to f*ck worse. “Suck it up, buttercup. I wasn’t telling you to screw her. Talk to her. Ask her about work. Get a feel for her.”

“Fine, but I’m not sleeping with her. I’m not doing any of that. Ever. There’s Damon. Let’s see what he’s got for us.” Theo started toward the bar.

It must be so f*cking easy to be young and so pure he couldn’t ever imagine whoring himself out for information. Ten felt about three thousand years old as he watched Theo walk away. He felt a momentary wish that he could have been that na?ve once. He’d always known his body was another tool to be used in service of his country.

He strode across the space between them, utterly ignoring everyone in his path. It was a trick he’d learned. He could hyper focus and allow everything else to fall to the side.

Except he was struggling to do it around Faith. She seemed to invade his thoughts, visions of her coming into his head at the oddest times. He’d been driving earlier, his brain working on the Ukrainian situation, when an image of her all soft and dewy from sleep had whispered across his brain, disrupting his thoughts.

He’d been useless from that point on. He’d had to go home and meditate before he could clear his brain of her.

Meditation was a useful tool and one not many people would associate with him. Franklin Grant had insisted he take transcendental meditation classes twice a week, and he’d kept up the practice.

At first Ten had believed the old man had done it to help him focus, to center a young man in need of discipline. Now he understood that Franklin Grant had given him that gift for one reason and one reason only—so he could take the pain that would later be handed to him. So he wouldn’t break when other men would. So he would be the perfect operative. So he could die with the country’s secrets intact.

Like his brother had.

He knew Phoebe was at complete peace with Franklin Grant, but Ten had issues with their adopted “father.” At the end of the day, Franklin had always been Ten’s handler, even when he’d been a shit-out-of-luck teenager on his way to self-destruction. Franklin had simply shown him a better way. Why destroy himself when he could destroy someone else?

He was nothing more than an animal who had been trained to protect. A guard dog for the country.

And then suddenly he could feel Faith, the way her hair tickled his chest and how warm she’d been in his arms.

He ruthlessly quashed the image. He had a damn job to do.

“Knight, have you learned anything at all?” He was well aware his tone wasn’t the most pleasant.

An elegant brow arched over Knight’s eye, and that was when Ten realized they weren’t alone. A pretty woman with blonde curls sat at Knight’s feet, her head on his lap as he petted her, his hands moving possessively over her.

Damn it. He’d been rude. If there was one thing these men didn’t like it was a man being rude around their women.

Actually, he didn’t much like the thought of anyone being rude around Faith.

“Please excuse me. Penelope, you look stunning tonight. How are you this evening?” He managed to ask the question in his “charming” tone. That was how he thought of it. He’d been taught to shove his inner * deep and make himself pleasant to be around.

“Better,” Knight allowed.

Penelope Knight grinned at him. “I’m lovely, Mr. Graham. And yourself?”

Penelope Knight was former MI6. She wouldn’t drop his cover or misstep.

“I’m doing wonderfully and looking forward to the evening. May Theo and I join you? Faith isn’t due for another couple of minutes and I thought I would get caught up on what everyone’s gathered this afternoon.” Polite. He could certainly play that way.

Knight gestured to the seat in front of him. Theo took the seat to the left and Ten joined him.

“I’ve been talking to Ferguson here about his impressions of Faith,” Knight said. “He spent some time with her this afternoon.”

Kai Ferguson had been with Ten’s sub? Faith had spent time with the casual, charming younger man? Kai Ferguson didn’t have a body covered in scars. He didn’t have a load of undiagnosed mental issues. Hell, Kai helped people with their issues. He was a therapist dedicated to helping soldiers coming back from war.

There was no help for an operative because the war never ended for him. It kept rolling along.

Kai held a hand up. “I only talked to her, Ten.”

“He came over and helped me install the fire pit in the backyard,” Theo offered.

“And you didn’t think to mention that to me?” Ten was well aware of the chill in his voice.

Kai took over, his eyes somberly watching Ten. “Tag thought as long as I was there it would be a good time to get a personal view of the woman. Eve’s in the locker room doing the same thing, but two viewpoints are better than one, and it’s helpful to get both a masculine and feminine viewpoint. Some people act differently around men versus women. I don’t think Faith is one of those people. She’s lovely, by the way, and she speaks highly of you. In my opinion, she believes she’s falling in love with you.”