“We’ll catch him.” Supreme confidence filled his expression and glittered in his cat’s eyes as he watched her. “Him and his spy.”
“Dad didn’t tell me much about the spy.”
“Fuentes has a spy, very high up in the government, that’s supplying him with information. If we catch the spy, Fuentes will tip his hat in a game well played and leave you and your father alone.”
“He will?” she asked suspiciously. “Now, why do I have trouble believing that? That was what he was supposed to have done when you and your team rescued us after the kidnapping.”
Of the three of them, Emily had fared the best. One of the girls, the youngest, was still in a near-catatonic state from the
drugs she had been given. The other, Senator Bridgeport’s daughter, had died within days.
“Extenuating circumstances. Our information suggests that Fuentes’s spy demanded this hit.” Kell opened the freezer and pulled free the beer he had slid in there earlier. “All we have to do is keep you and your father safe until the rest of the team tracks down the spy, then you’ll be okay.”
“I don’t remember you being there.” She rubbed at her forehead, frowning as she tried to delve into the dark space in her mind where those memories lay. “I should have remembered you being there.”
He twisted the cap off the beer and tossed it to the trash with a tight flip of his fingers as his lips flattened angrily.
“You were drugged, Emily. Whore’s Dust affects the memory. It was designed to do that.”
“It makes the victim beg for sex.” She tightened her fists in her pockets as she faced him. “Did I beg you for sex, Kell?”
He stared back at her with level, calm eyes.
“Did anyone else see me?” she whispered worriedly. “Did I embarrass you?” Or herself.
His head shook once as a wry smile tugged at his lips. “You didn’t embarrass me, Em. And you didn’t beg me for sex. Didn’t your dad tell you what I had in my report?”
He hadn’t.
“He just said that I was brave.” She shrugged helplessly. “I’ve wondered what he meant by that.”
“Exactly what he said,” Kell told her softly, his gaze softening with approval. “You were very brave. You gathered the other girls together where I told you to, and you trusted me to get you out of there. You let me do my job.”
A swell of pride infused her. He wasn’t lying to her. She could see it in his eyes. For the first time in two years something inside her loosened, relaxed.
“Thank you.” She cleared her throat uneasily then, suddenly uncertain amid the tension thickening in the room. “I couldn’t ask Dad—”
He nodded quickly before lifting the beer and taking a slow drink, as though he needed something to distract himself with.
“Richard should have given you my report,” he said as he lowered the beer.
She crossed her arms over her breasts, hugging herself against the chill that seemed to invade her at the realization that her father held back much more from her than she had realized.
“I told Dad, when he accepted that position on the oversight committee, that it wasn’t going to be safe for either of us.”
“What did he say?”
“That he would protect me.” Emily rolled her eyes.
“And he’s making sure you’re protected,” he said softly, his expression too intent, his gaze too probing as he brought the beer to his lips again and drank.
It was sexy, watching his lips pull the liquid from the glass bottle, the way his tongue flicked over his lower lip when he was finished.
He hadn’t shaved that morning, so his cheeks were still covered with the overnight growth of beard. It gave him a rakish, piratical look that made him seem darker and more dangerous than ever before. Sexier. More primal.
“Oh yes.” Her lips twisted mockingly. “He’s making certain I’m protected.” She crossed her arms over her breasts now. “Tell me, Kell, what are you going to do if you end up in my bed and Daddy finds out? When he pulls you aside and gives you the rules to this little game. You’ll marry his daughter, and keep her out of trouble, or your career and all your dreams are shot to hell.”
“Won’t happen. He just lets you think it will happen.”