Mine To Protect (Mine #6)(14)

“Do not act like it was all your decision.” Anger beat in her voice. “I wanted you. You wanted me. It was a very mutual thing, I promise you. Screw the lines. Life is short—sometimes, brutally so—we should all take what happiness and pleasure we can.”

The problem was that he wanted to take everything from Zoe.

Take and take…

And then he was supposed to just walk away?

His hands clenched as he stood there in the dark. “Do you trust me, Zoe?”

She didn’t answer.

Not yet. She doesn’t trust me yet. She gave me her body, gave me her desire, but I’ve still got a long way to go with Zoe.

“Show me that I can trust you,” Zoe said. He heard her footsteps shuffle closer. “Keep up your end of the deal. Help me to find Michelle. Help me to make sure that she’s alive. Get her safe and secure. Then I’ll trust you plenty.”

He turned back toward her. His eyes had adjusted more to the darkness, but he still couldn’t see her expression. “So people have to prove themselves to you?”

“After my life…and the number of users who’ve swept into it? Yes, yes, I need proof. The days of trusting blindly are long gone for me.”

That was what he’d suspected—and what his boss at the Bureau had thought, too. “How many people have betrayed you during your life?”

He heard her suck in a sharp breath, as if his question had hurt her.

“Too many to count.”

He rubbed his chest, a chest that had—oddly—just started to ache. Victor paced away from her and jerked on his jeans.

“Want to hear something sad?” Zoe asked him.

He was supposed to learn all of her secrets. But… “I think I’d rather hear something that made you happy.”

She came toward him then, a quick tumble of steps. Her arms lifted and wrapped around him. “You.”

“What?”

She leaned onto her toes and pressed a quick kiss to his mouth. “You make me happy.”

No, not him. He didn’t make anyone happy. The other agents were scared of him. His birth family had deserted him and—

“My true blue, always-gets-the-bad-guy agent. You make me happy because I know you can’t be bought. You’re not on my father’s payroll. You aren’t out to hurt me.”

That ache in his chest turned into a burn.

“I had one friend at that boarding school…a quiet girl who was my roommate. We grew really close during my time there. I thought she got me. I thought she cared, and then I found out that she was a plant. Her father worked for mine, and she was going back…telling them all my secrets. All about my plans for sneaking away. For starting a new life. She told them everything.”

No wonder trust is hard…

“And when I was twenty-one, I thought I was in love. He was a law student, just a few years older than me. Tom was smart, charming, way too handsome.”

He hated the dick.

“He was also on my father’s payroll. Not that I realized that, of course. I would hardly have dated the guy, have slept with him, if I’d known that.”

Maybe hate wasn’t a strong enough word to describe how Victor felt about Tom.

“Can you believe that?” Zoe continued. “My father had handpicked the guy he wanted me to marry. A man he could control. Manipulate totally.”

Fucking hell. The burn in Victor’s chest got worse with every word she spoke.

“I found out that news quite by accident.” Her body brushed against Victor’s. “That’s usually the way I find out. I mean, it’s not like people come up to me and say, ‘Hi. I’m here to betray you.’”

Fuck, f*ck, f*ck.

“It was one of those random things with Tom. We were living in Vegas. My father never spent a lot of time there, he was more of an East Coast guy, so I thought I was safe. I went into a restaurant one day—and, bam, Tom was sitting in a back both, looking all cozy as he was chatting up my father. My father,” she said again, voice going husky. “One of the coldest human beings in the world. A mob boss. A monster. And Tom was drinking champagne with him.”

Don’t say another word. Don’t say—

“Tom saw me, and instead of being embarrassed or shocked, he called me over. He was celebrating, you see. He’d passed the bar exam, and my dad had just given his approval for Tom to go ahead and marry me. Everything was going to be all in the family now.” She’d slid back down, and she put her head on his chest, close to the spot that burned. His hands rose. Hesitant, so very hesitant, he hugged her. “Tom was going to take his place in my father’s organization. I was going to be the good little wife. Oh, Tom had so many grand plans for the two of us.”

“What did you do?”

“I walked out of the restaurant. Tom followed me. Told me that I couldn’t blow his chance. You see…he only got the job with Luther if I was his wife. Sort of a package deal. And he really wanted that job.”

The sonofabitch should have wanted you.

“I told him the man I loved would never make a deal with Luther Bates. Not for anything. He laughed and said that I didn’t understand just how much money was involved. We could have everything. The world would be ours.” Her voice turned distant. “But I didn’t want the world Luther Bates offered. Not after all the things he’d done. I mean, was I seriously supposed to smile and act like my father was an adoring man and not a cold-blooded killer?”