You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(82)

“Are you all right?” He had zero intentions of ignoring what had happened the time before. He was going to face it, get her through it.

Her head fell back against his shoulder. “I think so. I don’t know.”

It was better than listening to her cry through a closed door. He would have to thank Kai and Tag for giving him the kick in the ass he needed.

He turned her toward the showerhead and grabbed the soap. She was quiet, but he wasn’t going to force her to talk. She just needed to know that she could and that he wouldn’t leave her alone. They were silent as he started to soap her body and finally washed her hair, his fingers moving over her scalp.

He turned her around to help wash the shampoo from her hair and saw the tears in her eyes. Damn, but they kicked him in the gut.

“It’s not about him,” she said quietly.

He wasn’t sure she was being honest, but he simply brushed them away and kissed her softly. “It doesn’t matter, Phoebe. I don’t want to push him out. I just want a place in your life.”

“You won’t.”

“Because of this horrible thing you have to tell me?”

“Because sometimes we make mistakes in the past that cost us our futures,” she explained.

He kissed her nose. “All right, princess. Well, if I’m going to be so deeply disturbed, we should enjoy the time we have.”

“Jesse, this isn’t a joke.”

“I’m not treating it like one. I just know something you don’t.”

“No, you don’t and that’s the problem.”

“I wasn’t talking about your little secret.” He moved her under the water, gently tilting her head back. She seemed determined to be dramatic so he had to be the sensible one. He was all right with the role. “I was talking about the fact that I happen to know there’s nothing you can say that will make me turn away from you.”

“You’re wrong.” Her head was back, the water sliding down her body. When she opened her eyes, her hands came up, cupping his face. “Promise me you won’t hate me. I can’t live with you hating me.”

“Never.” He found it hard to hate anyone. He couldn’t imagine hating the woman he loved.

“I’ll hold you to those words, Murdoch.” She went on her toes and kissed him before hugging her body to his. Her head went to his chest and he could have sworn she was listening to his heartbeat. He let his hands find her head and held her there, warmth surrounding him.

They stayed that way for the longest time.





CHAPTER FOURTEEN





He was going to make her crazy. Phoebe watched Jesse as he moved through the ballroom. He was dressed in a tux and looked so predatory she almost didn’t recognize him. She’d only seen him in the building when they were working before. This was Jesse in the field, and he was a gorgeous beast.

“Ms. Graham, is it?” A man in an expensive tux approached her, his silver hair slicked back. He was at least six foot two and lean, obviously a man who cared about his appearance.

She glanced at his nametag. Dale Albertson, assistant to US Senator McDonald. Now she was intrigued. She put on her game face. In this place, she wasn’t a woman trying to figure out how to let go of the best man she’d ever met. God, she included Jamie in that list. Jesse Murdoch was the best person she’d met. But here she wasn’t Jesse’s or Jamie’s. She belonged to the Agency, to the United States of America, and she was deeply interested in why a senator was here without the backing of the Agency.

She smiled at Mr. Dale Albertson and gave him her best British accent. She’d traveled on a British passport, and according to all of her security paperwork was a marketing consultant from London specializing in the energy industry. “Yes. Phoebe Graham. It’s so nice to meet you.”

Her British accent was perfect, of course.

Dale held out a hand and she took it, fighting to hide her distaste when he moved past professional. He covered her hand with both of his, holding it just a moment too long to be anything but a come-on. “You’re with the crazy king, aren’t you? I have to say, we’re all curious about Kamdar.”

Which meant her cover was holding and her brother had been the paranoid son of a bitch she loved him for being. She was proud to be his sister, but for now she was another woman entirely. “The king is a brilliant man. He’s put his whole country to work with his initiatives. If he’s correct about his potential output, he could fundamentally change the way people use energy in his part of the world.”

“If he’s correct. I seem to remember he claimed he was close once and then there was that terrible explosion. I guess that kind of thing is really better left to the First World.”

She studied him for a moment. His lips had curled up slightly as though he knew something he thought she didn’t. “I’m not concerned about a repeat of that particular incident. The king learned a lot from it. It hasn’t taken him long at all to get his lab working again.”

The explosion in Loa Mali hadn’t been about worker error. It had been an act of corporate sabotage perpetrated by an ex-CIA operative. Eli Nelson had been turned years before by the shadowy group known as The Collective. They were the elite of the elite, the wealthiest men in the world, and they hadn’t taken kindly to the king of Loa Mali potentially killing their oil revenues.