You Only Love Twice (Masters and Mercenaries #8)(92)

Ten reached for her hand, covering it with his own. “I know that’s what he told you and he definitely wanted you out, but it was in his blood. He tried to convince the director that he could run a black ops team better than me. He wanted my job or one just like it, and he decided taking on the truly dangerous operations were exactly what he needed to do to prove it.”

She wanted to pull away, but she couldn’t. All she could do was protest even though something in Ten’s words rang true. “No. Jamie loved you.”

“Hell, yeah, he loved me. We were brothers. You think brothers aren’t competitive as hell? You think it doesn’t burn the big brother’s ass when little brother becomes his boss? I’m not maligning Jamie. I’m just saying that you take all this guilt on yourself when you didn’t force him to go.”

Jamie wasn’t the only one she felt guilty about. Even if she accepted that she hadn’t forced Jamie into anything, she couldn’t wish away her other problem. “And Jesse? They were looking for Jamie. I’m the one who came up with the plan to send Jamie in. I’m the one who led the Caliph right to Jesse.”

“And a f*cking butterfly flapped its wings halfway across the world and it rains in DC,” Ten argued back. “The butterfly had as much intent as you had. The * in DC who forgot his umbrella doesn’t blame the bug.”

He was throwing chaos theory at her? “That is a stupid argument.”

“And it’s true. You had zero idea it would turn out this way. You never intended to cause him harm and wouldn’t have proceeded had you known the outcome.”

Not even if Jamie had survived. She would never have placed a unit in that harm’s way. She hadn’t known the Caliph even existed. “No, I wouldn’t have.”

“Jesse won’t blame you. He might be surprised, but he won’t blame you and he won’t let you walk away from him. That’s the only hope I have now that Jamie might rest in peace knowing he got what he wanted.”

“What’s that?”

“You happy. I was the best man at your wedding. I took Jamie out for a bachelor party of two because the last thing he wanted was a bunch of strippers when he had you. I say I took him out, but all we really did was pick up a bucket of wings and go back to his place.”

She laughed, the memories coming back and somehow whisking away the bad ones. “Mine wasn’t much better. I went to a club with some of the girls from work and spent all night texting Jamie.”

Ten smiled, real tenderness in his expression. “Still better than his. I bought a case of beer and we watched football and talked about you. After the game was over, he flipped through channels and found a freaking marathon of those wizard movies. He made me watch one. Couldn’t you two have found something more masculine to bond over?”

Even though the thought brought tears to her eyes, they were sweeter now. They weren’t sad. They reminded her of how nice it had been and not simply of what she’d lost. When had that changed? When had thinking of Jamie become something wistful and not an ache in her soul? “Nope. Those are our books. He kissed me for the first time while we were reading on the patio. At first I thought he only read them because I liked them, but Harry won him over in the end.”

She’d started reading them when a librarian had suggested the first book. She’d been at an inner-city school, one of the rougher foster homes. She’d read that first book so many times the librarian swore she wore it out. When Franklin Grant asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she’d asked for her own copies. Jamie had started reading them even though Ten had teased them that they were for kids. Jamie hadn’t cared. He’d wanted to have something to talk to her about and they’d spent hours reading and talking and watching the movies. They argued over whether Hermione should end up with Harry or Ron. Silly things, but it had brought them closer.

“Do you know what I asked him that night?” Ten’s question brought her back to the present. “I asked him why he was getting married. I wasn’t being rude. I just didn’t understand it. He said he wanted to make you happy. He said if he wanted one thing in the world it was that you would never be alone again, never be unhappy again. This tragedy goes past him dying. He would hate the fact that you can’t move on, that you can’t find a way to live. You think you honor him by being miserable, but it’s not true.”

She was saved by the door to the far suite opening and Erin walking in. Phoebe turned quickly and tried to shove the unwanted emotion deep because Ten was starting to get through to her. He was starting to make sense, and that meant she would have to choose between a life with Jamie’s memory or one with Jesse. She wasn’t ready.

Except maybe she was. It had been right to hold Jesse. It had been right and good and she couldn’t work up the will to fight it. Something deep inside wondered why she would even try.

What if she got a second chance? Should she turn it away because she didn’t trust it? Would she take back loving Jamie so she didn’t have to lose him?

Was she that much of a coward?

“Back off, minor Taggart,” Erin said as she strode into the room. She wore slacks, a white button down, and a smart-looking blazer this morning. Her hair was in a neat bun. She was ready to play the role of the hard-nosed businesswoman with the singular exception of her shoes. She had fuzzy bunny slippers on, but they were ruined by the nasty edge to her voice. “I don’t need your advice.”